Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

----- Original Message -----

From: Roger Campbell

To: Ensoniq-VFX-SD@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 8:45 AM

Subject: [Ensoniq-VFX-SD] Re: poly pressure

Hi Folks

Just a bit of clarification BEFORE anyone goes ripping their VFX-* apart to change the keyboard pressure responsiveness.

to quote a recent post......

""I tried Koto Dreams this morning. The upper right of the keyboard, when I press down harder (and I mean 'harder'), there is indeed a pitch bend up of the main reed sound. But there is less of this on the left side of the keyboard. I have to really push down hard. The whole keybed moves, creaks. Needless to say, it's not a very inspiring way to play. ""

The "master" pressure setting on our beloved keyboard is something that confused me for years until I re-read the manual CAREFULLY and it finally dawned on me what it meant.

(have a look at the SD-1 Musician's Manual page 3 - 1) I can't remember how it works on a VFX, but on the SD-1 it is as follows......

It has 4 levels of Velocity - Soft Med Firm Hard (NOTE; there are ONLY these 4 levels)
It has 4 levels of Pressure - 1 2 3 4. ; ( also only 4 settings)

When setting the "Touch" on your keyboard....

when you select "Soft 1" (for example) you are actually setting two separate variables, you're setting the machine to respond to velocity with a high degree of sensitivity (Soft), and setting the machine to respond to after-touch with minimum force (1).

when you select "Soft 4", you're setting the machine to respond to velocity with a high degree of sensitivity ("Soft" - same as before), but setting the machine to respond only to after-touch with maximum force (4) - i.e. too much.

You see? You don't have four degrees of "soft", there is only one - soft is soft, the number after the "Soft/Med/Firm/Hard" setting is the Aftertouch sensitivity (1 to 4).

So (for example) if you want a Medium amount of velocity sensitivity, with a MAXIMUM amount of pressure sensitivity, you set it to "Med 1".

See? (Gosh I hope this makes sense, I didn't think it would be this hard to explain when I started typing this!!)

Yeah I know, clear as mud.

Experiment, read the owner's manual, you'll get it. Cripes, it only took me 20 years......


And the other question....

""Let me ask you guys this, for comparison. Does your VFX-SD's keyboard respond sensitively and deftly to your playing? Or is it more like a clackity-clack feel?""

The original VFX had a unique keyboard that "clacked" like a railway car. I loved it, very responsive.
The later machines had a different keyboard altogether. BUT, you shouldn't need to make the whole keybed creak to get an acceptable amount of after-touch.

Good luck with all that.

Now off to bed and sleep easy knowing that we own one of the best synths ever made.

Cheers

Roger (poster of the original "the lot" patch collection all those years ago - yeah I know, keep the applause down!!)