Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

On Oct 10, 2006, at 1:19 AM, Ensoniq-VFX-SD@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> 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?
Check the ENV3 page. If the SUSTAIN on the first page is 00, then the  
sound will "sustain" at silent. Jack this up a little way and the  
sustain will remain audible until the key-up even happens. With the  
sustain pedal down, the key-up doesn't fire.

My guess is that the patches are set up to decay to zero to allow the  
voice to be stolen faster. If you've got a big handful of notes  
sounding with sustain on, the lower-priority, older notes get stolen  
first. This can be taken advantage of for some interesting effects,  
but it's probably not what you're looking for. Check pages 7-30 to 7-34.

  --- Joe M.

--- In Ensoniq-VFX-SD@yahoogroups.com, Joe McMahon <mcmahon@...> 
wrote:
>
> 
> On Oct 10, 2006, at 1:19 AM, Ensoniq-VFX-SD@yahoogroups.com wrote:
> 
> > 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?
> Check the ENV3 page. If the SUSTAIN on the first page is 00, then 
the  
> sound will "sustain" at silent. Jack this up a little way and the  
> sustain will remain audible until the key-up even happens. With 
the  
> sustain pedal down, the key-up doesn't fire.
> 
> My guess is that the patches are set up to decay to zero to allow 
the  
> voice to be stolen faster. If you've got a big handful of notes  
> sounding with sustain on, the lower-priority, older notes get 
stolen  
> first. This can be taken advantage of for some interesting 
effects,  
> but it's probably not what you're looking for. Check pages 7-30 to 
7-34.
> 
>   --- Joe M.
>
Also check to make sure ENV2 Filters are set to Sustain also to avoid 
early dampening.