Korg DW-8000 and its envelopes.

[forcedopinion]

Ok, so I have had a DW-8000 for about 3 years now and have gotten ok at programming analog type strings / poly sounds. However, one thing I've never really been able to wrap my head around is the BREAK POINT and SLOPE portion of the envelopes. I always bypass those because I can't really figure out how to utilize them in my patches.

My question to ya'll is how do you incorporate BP and Slope in to your work and what type of sounds are suited for that type of programming?

Thanks.

COMING SOON: Ensoniq SQ-80 and its envelopes. AKA What the h**l's a T1 and how do I adjust the amp envelope?!

[Kenneth]

I am a former Dw8000 owner, and I never did quite grasp the purpose of the break point and slope parameters. I was always annoyed with Korg for including those on the design, thinking that they could have had a much more streamlined synthesizer on their hands if they would have left out some of those useless (in my opinion) parameters. That being said, I do miss my DW... It sounded beautiful. My Polysix sounds beautiful as well, but the two are quite different from each other. Different enough, I think, to warrant owning both. Too bad my apartment is as small as it is.

[Sir Ruff]

Ok, so I have had a DW-8000 for about 3 years now and have gotten ok at programming analog type strings / poly sounds. However, one thing I've never really been able to wrap my head around is the BREAK POINT and SLOPE portion of the envelopes. I always bypass those because I can't really figure out how to utilize them in my patches.

My question to ya'll is how do you incorporate BP and Slope in to your work and what type of sounds are suited for that type of programming?

Thanks.

COMING SOON: Ensoniq SQ-80 and its envelopes. AKA What the h**l's a T1 and how do I adjust the amp envelope?!

DW: it's really just a case of experimenting. You'll either find a use for those extra parameters, or you won't (I never did). They're probably most helpful for longer held-note pad-type sounds; you're not going to uncover any hidden sounds that you couldn't really make before.

SQ-80: This is really a case of you needing to RTFM

[madtheory]

It's been a while that I've actually programmed something, but the M1 has the same envelopes. I have used it occasionally, but not often. Maybe it's more useful with looped PCMs than it is with the purer waveforms the DW has? The Casio CZ also has very flexible envelopes, it's cool for creating rhythmic stuff and chiffs and scrapes in the attack.

[Sir Ruff]

The Casio CZ also has very flexible envelopes, it's cool for creating rhythmic stuff and chiffs and scrapes in the attack.

Good point... I wasn't thinking about short-attack sounds.

[gs]

Also a former DW8000 owner here.

As far as I could tell, it just gives you another envelope segment to work with, between the Decay and the Sustain stages, so you could conceivably have the sound "swell up" a bit after the initial decay, then slope off again during the Sustain/Release stage. I never examined which factory patches used this feature to any particularly interesting effect.

There are many synths that have more than 4-stage envelopes out there, a couple were already mentioned here. My JD-800 has 5-stage envelopes. The vintage Yamaha CS-80 also had 5-stage envelopes.

[meatballfulton]

COMING SOON: Ensoniq SQ-80 and its envelopes. AKA What the h**l's a T1 and how do I adjust the amp envelope?!

The ESQ-1 and SQ-80 were the first synths I can recall with digital EGs using the "time and level" concept.

In analog EGs, the attack control sets a rate or time, the level of the EG simply goes to the maximum. Then it decays (again a rate or time) to the sustain level and decays again to zero on release.

The Ensoniq EGs let you specify the time and the final level of each stage. So you can have attacks that go to negative levels then decay to positive ones, or have a short attack to a moderate level followed by a slower decay to a higher level, etc. Today there are many digital synths (both hardware and software) that use this type of multistage EG. It gives more detailed control of the envelope than the traditional analog ADSR. You can create envelopes that go up and down a few times before the sustain level is reached, for example.

Have you read the SQ-80 Musician's Manual? It does a good job of explaining the EGs. You can always open up any patches you like to see how the EGs are programmed for further insight.

[Sir Ruff]

The vintage Yamaha CS-80 also had 5-stage envelopes.

No, it doesn't... It's a bit of semantics, but the first slider only sets attack level. They are otherwise normal 4-stage ADSR envelopes.

[Jabberwalky]

[madmarkmagee]

Normal envelopes = boring

ESQ-1/SQ 80 envelopes = interesting

[Ashe37]

and the VFX/SD/TS have 11-point envelopes...

[calaverasgrande]

honestly I had the same issue with the Poly800. I never could get the "extra" envelope point do anything but screw up the filter cutoff. Making it fade down to almost closed then jump back up to all the way open.
But then I pretty much only like staccato or infinite sustain.

I did have some fun with the envelopes on the DCOs. Fading one out while the other fades up can give an almost wavetable kind of effect. Especially with the gritty DCOs on the poly 800 and just enough detune.

[forcedopinion]

Hey everyone. I appreciate the SQ-80 envelope talk. I actually do have a manual and it's easily the largest manual I have. Anyway, I've been working with the envelopes while reading the manual and it's getting clearer. I would just like to say that I've read and come to almost completely understand the Waldorf Blofeld and E-MU Pro/Cussion through their manuals and I bought those after the SQ-80 but never got around to it with the Ensoniq because it kept malfunctioning and having to get reset.

Also, I took a five hour drive to Seattle last week and spent about an hour on the road thinking about these DW8k envelopes and I think I've come up with an application...digital sound fx, kinda Spicelab-ish. As in, trigger the note and get like a falling high resonance sound and then it comes back up and washes out w/the sustain and release. I haven't actually tried that but it seems like it would be a cool sound....

[max badwan]

My question to ya'll is how do you incorporate BP and Slope in to your work and what type of sounds are suited for that type of programming?[/i]

I use the BP and SL parameters for three things: plucked (fretted and un-fretted strings, plucked KBs) and hammered (AP, EP, dulcimer) "pre-attacks", and slap-back effects.

[commodorejohn]

There's basically three things you can do with the DW-8000's envelopes: ignore the extra features entirely and use them as a standard ADSR, use the break point/slope parameters to model a two-stage decay, or have an initial attack/decay phase followed by a swell-sustain phase. The two-stage decay approach is nice for percussive sounds, as it can more closely model real acoustic falloff, or you can use it to provide a shorter pseudo-sustain phase at peak level before dropping down to the real sustain level (not sure what you would use this for, maybe for some kinds of vocal sounds?) The attack/decay/swell/sustain approach is typically associated with spit brass sounds, but it can be really useful for pads as well, providing an initial strong sound before dropping into a more conventional slow pad.

(Of course, if you invert the filter envelope, you can also get yourself a multi-stage decay/attack/decay/sustain/inverse-release shape, which can be interesting.)

The DW-8000's envelopes aren't anything earth-shattering, but there's some neat possibilities in there if you stop to think about them.