Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

> My wife is an experienced pianist and piano teacher.  She is 
> particularly interested in the piano sounds, and noticed that the 
> sustain on most of the SD-1 piano programs is quite limited.  I 
> searched through the Musician's Manual, but can't find any control 
> that changes the amount of sustain a program has.  The sustain pedal 
> works, only the sustain is limited.  I suspect there is an answer 
> somewhere in Section 8  of the Musician's manual, "Voice Programming" 
> but none of the parameters seem directly related to sustain.  Does 
> anyone have any suggestions?  

Sounds like you want to change the envelopes.  From memory, probably
Env3 (always? routed to volume), probably the second to last time on
the (second?)  page (press Env3 twice?).

However, you need to understand the "select voice" buttons, as each
patch (or "program" as ensoniq referred to them) can use up to six
voices, and in most cases you'd only be editing one of the voices if
you go straight to the Env3 page.

If you check out the sections of the manual that touch on those two
subjects, you'll probably get what you want.

One more thing to "note", lengthening the sustain will increase the
number of voices playing at one time.  The VFX family has only 21
voices (except the SD1-32 voice, which has 32), you may find you get
into voice stealing (abruptly stopping one sound to start playing
another) if you "push the envelope" too far.

--> Steve Wahl