Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

HI to everyone i just wanna know how can i put two soundinstrument at
the same for example piano and a string.. thanks

--- In Ensoniq-VFX-SD@yahoogroups.com, "Christopher C"
<batousai_ochiealn@...> wrote:
>
> HI to everyone i just wanna know how can i put two soundinstrument at
> the same for example piano and a string.. thanks

Hi, Christopher.

What you're asking for is called layering two sounds.  My experience
with other synths is somewhat limited, but I haven't seen another
keyboard that can set up a split or layer as easily as the VFX can. 
(Anyone else know of easy to layer / split keyboards?)

There are a couple of ways to do it, but by far the easiest: Press
sounds button, click on the first sound you want (in your case the
piano), and double click the second sound you want (strings).

The first sound is the "main" sound.  It sets up the effects section
(because there's only one effects section, shared by all sounds the
VFX is playing at one time).  So you may / probably will hear a
difference if you select the other sound first.

You can add a third sound by double clicking another.

If you push the preset button, you see three sounds, the main sound
has a solid underline, the others have a flashing underline if enabled
or no underline if not enabled.  Clicking and double clicking can
change which sounds are active (I don't believe that selecting a sound
as the main sound here reloads the effects like it does from the
sounds page, though).  

Press the transpose button and you can adjust each sound individually.
 Press the key zone button and you can adjust which keys each sound
responds to; this is how you make a split.  Press the volume button
and you can adjust the relative levels of the sounds.  Etc.

This 3-layer limited mode is called the performance mode, or preset
mode, or something like that.  You can do pretty much the same thing
in multi mode (VFX) or sequencer mode (VFX-SD and the rest of the
family), except you get to do it with up to 12 sounds, and can
sequence, etc.

This is really basic stuff covered in the manual.  If you don't have
one, I highly recommend you get one.  Ensoniq's manuals were very well
written.  See syntaur or route66 studios to get one.

Finally, note that layering sounds can eat up polyphony quickly.  Each
sound program can take 1 to 6 voices per note.  If you have three
sounds all layered, and each takes six voices, that's 18 of your 21
voices (or 32 voices if you have an SD-1-32), and you only get to play
one note before some voice stealing occurs.  

This is not usually a big problem, because sounds that use a lot of
voices are pretty "thick" or "busy" to begin with, not likely
something you would often choose to layer with other sounds. But if
you do run up against the polyphony limit, well, that's when you start
diving into programing the sounds.

Anyway, have fun!

--> Steve

Thanks you very much.....