Wavestation Answers to the Exercises

From the main performance select screen, press the EDIT softkey which takes to to the Edit Performance page. A performance can have up to eight patches - position the cursor on the one you want to edit with the cursor keys, and press the PATCH softkey, then the WAVES sotkey. From this page you can select how many oscillators a patch uses, and the waveform for each of them.

If a wave sequence is chosen instead of a wave, the WAVESEQ softkey will become visible. This takes you to the wave sequence edit screen (remember to position the cursor on whichever wave sequence you want to edit first)

Copy screens are available under the COPY softkey where available. You usuallly have to select the source and the destination (where you are copying FROM and where you are copying TO).

The amplitude envelope is fixed to the volume of an oscillator, and will determine for example whether the sound fades in, or cuts off abruptly after releasing a key.

EDIT --> PATCH --> MACROS --> AMP takes you to the amp envelope from the main screen.

There is an assignable envelope, called Env1, which you can get to via the ENV 1 softkey where available. It is very similar to the amp envelope (though not identical), and can be assigned to the filter or pitch (or many other places).

EDIT --> PATCH --> MACROS --> FILTER --> ENV 1

EDIT --> PATCH --> MACROS --> PITCH --> ENV 1

An envelope routed to the filter will do a similar job, but obviously it affects not the volume of a sound this time but the filter. You could set up the envelope so that the filter opens slowly when you press a key. Envelopes can be routed to other tasks - for example panning, vibrato or pitch. A good synth will have various kinds of envelopes, routable to different parameters.

A graphic representation of a typical envelope looks something like this:

               Decay Time
                /\
               /  \______   Sustain level
              /          \
             /            \

  Attack Time             Release Time

The peak of the envelope is the loudest point to which the sound rises to before falling down the second slope (Decay). Again, the gradient of the slope indicates the time - a steeper slope means a faster change in volume (or whatever the envelope is assigned too).

The flat slope is the Sustain Level, the volume level that will be held all the time a key is held. A sustain level of zero will result in a sound with no sustain, like a drum sound.

Then the final slope is the Release, which determines how fast the sound fades out after a key is released.

In traditional subtractive synthesis, a waveform is selected, then other parameters shape this waveform - envelopes, filters and so on will all change the waveform and hence affect the final sound you hear.

        --------  A Square waveform
        |      |
        |      |
      ---------|---------
               |      |
               |      |
               --------

Most synths actually use more than one oscillator per note, to give a richer, more complex sound. However, the number of oscillators in a synth is fixed - if you had 32 of them, you could play 32 single oscillator notes at once, or 16 dual-oscillator notes at once, and so on.

Low-pass:

Frequencies above a cut-off point are attenuated. Has a similar effect as turning down the treble control on your hifi. The cut-off points are set by the Filter Cut-Off parameter.

High-pass:

Frequencies below a cut-off point are attenuated. Has a similar effect as turning down the bass control on your hifi.

Band-pass:

Frequencies above and below a cut-off point are attenuated.

A common addition to the filter section on many synths (alas not the WS) is "Resonance". This control increases the level of frequencies around the filter cut-off point, giving a thinner, raspy tone. If the cut-off frequency is swept with a high resonance value you get the traditional filter-sweep type sound.

A performance defines which patches will be played, including some other parameters such as keyboard ranges, velocity ranges, transposition and effects buss routings.

A performance is also where you choose and edit the effects settings.

The combination of all these parameters results in the whole, complete sound.

You can use up to eight patches in a performance, for very complex sounds. For example, you might have a bass patch and a string patch. These are seperate entities, but are cimbined in a performance, with keyboard split information so that the bass patch plays on the left half of the keyboard, and the string patch on the right half.

So if I make a wave sequence of three steps, using like this:

                Sawtooth wave
                Square wave
                Sine wave

If you have say a four oscillator patch, with each oscillator producing a different waveform, mmoving the joystick towards the 'A' position will increase the volume of that oscillator, and reduce the volume of the others accordingly. A central joystick position results in all four oscillators getting an equal volume.

This is a vector mix.

It gets more complicated (and rather neat!) because this vector mix has it's own dedicated envelope that changes over time. You can tell the WS to start with the joystick in position 'A', then moving over toward 'C', then finally diving down to 'D', resulting in more moving, evolving complex sounds. This envelope can also loop, and be modulated by other things.

Going back to our bass/string split in the PATCH answer above, the bass patch and split points are one part, and the string patch and split points are another. That performance only used two parts, but you can have any amount up to a maximum of eight.

Remember that an oscillator plays either a waveform, or a wave sequence (which is just a list of waveforms played one after another)? Well these waveforms are all samples (PCM Waves), stored in the permanent ROM memory of the Wavestation. There are 396 or 515 waves (depending on which model WS you have) to choose from.

There also may be additional PCM waves on PCM Cards inserted into the Wavestation's PCM slot.

• ROM Performance bank (50 performances) : Uneditable
• ROM Patch bank (35 patches) : Uneditable
• ROM Wave sequence bank (32 sequences) : Uneditable

• RAM1 Perf + Patch + Waveseq
• RAM2 Perf + Patch + Waveseq
• RAM3 Perf + Patch + Waveseq (Only in WS A/D and WS SR)

In addition, there may be additional banks on cards inserted into your WS:

• CARD Perf + Patch + Waveseq

  Multi --> Performance --> Patches --> Wavesequences

In order then to play a performance, you must have the correct patches and wave sequences in the correct places at once. This 'dependancy management' is best tracked by a computer with dedicated librarian software.

To alter a value, you position the cursor on the value you want to change, and change it with the INC/DEC keys, alpha dial or keypad.