Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

> What is the difference between the VFX and the SD-1?

Models of the VFX family:

VFX: original base model.  No sequencer; has only 3 buttons in the
middle section where the sequencer transport buttons are in the rest
of the series.  No floppy drive; has a little "compartment" in its
place that can hold a couple of cartridges.

VFX-SD: Added sequencer, Floppy disk, more percussion waves.

VFX-SD-II: Added mega-piano waves.

SD-1: Rename the model, IMHO to avoid the reputation of unreliability
the VFX had attained, because they *thought* they had the keyboard
calibration problem fixed.  That wasn't really true; the first SD-1s
still had the keyboard problem.  I believe the SD-1 also added some
more waves. 

SD-1 32-voice: has 32 voice polyphony; previous models had 21 voices.

I have a VFX and a VFX-SD; the rest is from memory.  

Somewhere along the line they also did more work on the percussion,
but I can't remember where.  The original VFX had very limited
percussion sounds; for instance, a hi-hat had to be simulated with
noise, there was no sample.  The VFX also used the same voice
archetecture for drums as for everything else, and there was only one
percussion sound per wave.  So, since each program has only 6 waves,
you could only have 6 different sounds in each drum "set".  One of the
third party cartridges I have has two programs designed to be layered
with each other to get around this.

Going on *really* fuzzy memory here: the VFX-SD may have had a
"multi-drum" wave, that had different drum samples at different
pitches, so you'd have a wider selection of drums sounds across the
keyboard.  And the SD-1 might have added a drum mapping ability so
drum parts that were originally targeted at a general midi device
could be played back with some success on an SD-1.  (If I recall
correctly, GM compatibility was achieved in the next family, the TS
series, which is somewhat similar to the VFX series, but different
enough that (e.g.) it's not MIDI sys-ex compatible with the
VFX series.)

--> Steve


-- 
Steve Wahl    steve@...

Can we get a collective ticket for that group to visit the wizard?
Hint: they need neither courage nor a heart.  -- RJL