User manual AKAI S950

[. . . ] WARNING Power requirements Power requirements for electrical equipment differ from area to area. Please ensure that your machine meets the power requirements m your area. 50Hz for UK and Australia Precautions FOR CUSTOMERS IN THE UK IMPORTANT FOR YOUR SAFETY What you should know to protect yourself and the Akai S950. Watch out!An unauthorized person might touch the internal parts and receive a serious electric shock. [. . . ] -50> give an upwards rising pitch sweep whereby the pitch slides up to the note and positive going effects (i. e. +50> have the opposite effect with the pitch sliding down to the note. The next page is also concerned with pitch sweep effects and is where you can set the parameters for the Low Frequency oscillator or LFO. The page rends: >13 LFO fKG# (Depth #Rate *Delay +Desync 0 42 64 ON where # is the currently selected keygroup. As usual, data can be input by selecting the appropriate keygroup and moving the cursor to the required fields using the 'cursor < and/or >' buttons and then setting parameters using the CONTROL wheel or the keypad. The functions are fairly self-explanatory and are: 40 DEPTH: This sets the amount of LFO sweep. 0 = no effect with modulation depth increasing with higher numeric values. With any value higher than 1, the LFO effect will be n permanent part of the sound. 0 = very slow and the LFO rate gets faster as you increase the settings (note: the ranges of 30-45 are recommended for typical vibrato effects). DELAY: , This sets the time it takes for the LFO to fade in with its effect. This is particularly useful for natural vibrato effects if yuu are not able to use the modulation wheel. DESYNC: There are no less than 8 LFO's in the S950, one for each voice. When DESYNC Is ON, these LFO's run slightly out of phase with each other allowing you to create more natural ensemble vibrato effects. With DESYNC OFF, the LFO's are phase locked and so produce LFO effects more like those found on synthesizers that normally only have one LFO to affect all voices. DESYNC is switched on or off using the ON and OFF buttons. The next page, Page 14, is also to do with the LFO and looks like this: >14 LFO DEPTH #Aftertouch *Mod wheel IKG# 0 50 where # is the current keygroup selection. This page allows you to add vibrato and other LFO effects over and above those set in the DEPTH field on Page 13 using aftertouch (if your keyboard generates it, of course) and/or the modulation wheel. The display shown is the default and so will not require much, if any editing. As you would assume, higher values on either of these parameters increases the amount of effect either aftertouch or the mod wheel will have on the introduction of LFO effects. The next page allows you to control tone over the keyboard range as well as turn the keyboard off and looks like this: >15 *Key-filter ;Const pitch *One-shot *KG# 50 OFF OFF where, once again, # !s the current keygroup selection. KEY-FILTER is similar to the 'keyboard track' control available on every analogue synthesizer and this allows you to vary the tonal balance across the keyboard. This can be useful when using certain samples that 'screech' in the upper reaches of their range or samples that are noisy when played a few octaves down. By setting a higher key-filter setting, the sound will get mellower further up the keyboard. [. . . ] At a slightly higher level, you can use a sequences to control as many as 16 synths or samplers and to synchronise drum machines where each instrument plays a different musical part. Basically, there is room in the MIDI specification for each manufacturer to have their own personal identification code so that ail the equipment they make can talk to each other on a much higher level. This sort of thing is useful for remotely programming one synth from another or for dumping sounds from one synth or sampler to another so long as they ere made by the same manufacturer. System Exclusive, therefore, allows each manufacturer to use MIDI for their own purposes independently of the main MIDI specification. [. . . ]