Urs Heckmann’s next monster synth. Still officially in Alpha stage, but feels like a good stable beta to me! The clou is that all modules run at audio rate (except the LFOs), and spaghetti patching is allowed – plug anything into anything (even itself) just like those expensive hardware modular systems. Of course this eats up CPU, but that’s the price you pay for this kind of flexibility and sound quality…
OK, here’s a simple trick for the MicroKORG XL.
Normally, the 3 control knobs will sweep through the entire range of any parameter assigned to them. On stage at least, I much prefer limited control around a certain predefined value i.e. in the heat of the moment I want an extra controller, not a full-range knob.
Say you are already using the mod wheel for e.g. vibrato, and you want to control filter cutoff between two values that both make sense. Instead of doing this…
you do this:
and these:
Both Attack and Decay of the spare envelope (EG 3) should be instantaneous (0), sustain level (SL) determines the range (40 here). Release is set to maximum and modulation intensity (INT) is zero. See what happens if they aren’t! Any questions?
In case any visitor here hasn’t heard of Urs Heckmann’s Zebra2…
IMHO the best synthesizer ever. Pristine sound, incredibly flexible, totally addictive.
Zebra2.5
This image is a recent beta of 2.5 – more filter models, more modulation matrix, undo/redo and a whole heap “more”. www.u-he.com/zebra/
I recently splashed out on a pair of MicroKORG XL‘s so I can travel to gigs with only a backpack. To me, these tiny machines look, sound and feel INFINITELY better than the original Microkorgs, and I actually find the narrower keys more playable than standard-sized keys – quite a revelation for me, as I’ve been struggling for decades with trills etc.!
Discoveries / examples will follow as soon as I have gathered enough experience in programming them myself. Needless to say, most of the factory presets aren’t particularly inspiring, so my first patch was a personalized “INIT” (template). I plan to post one or two audio examples of more sophisticated patches at some point – we’ll see…
First!
Just a note to say “Hi” (see unshaven image) before I start posting the trials and tribulations of a synth fanatic. Hopefully peppered with as many programming discoveries as I manage to jot down before being drawn back to playing my synths….
ZEEOW! 