Xpansions !

The Newsletter of the Xpander Users' Group
Compilation of issues 1-7
1986-1988



FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
This compilation contains all of the relevant and timely information that was 
carried in the first seven issues of Xpansions magazine, from its inception until its 
forced hiatus in 1988. We have removed old editorials, contact list data, questions 
and speculations on MIDI specs and company support, and similarly dated 
material from the compilation. The result is what we hope will prove to be a 
compact and useful distillation of the XUG's first three years of life, a handy 
reference to present and future Xpander and Matrix-12 users in the years to come. 
Many thanks to Lionel Cassin, who served as Production Editor for the first five 
issues and as Acting Editor for Numbers Six and Seven, and to Adam Schabtach, 
who has taken on the duties of Production Editor for this compilation and for 
future issues of Xpansions!.

Your X-Patriot (blegh),

Mike Metlay


MULTI PATCH CREATION FOR SPECIAL EFFECTS
by Dan Barrett

     Although the Xpander and Matrix 12 are not hard-wired  to do tricks like 
dynamic panning, Rhodes Chroma-style "steel guitar" pitch bending, and 
keyboard inversion,these are all relatively easy to accomplish. The solution lies in 
creating two or more nearly identical Single Patches and combining them 
creatively as Multi Patches.

Dynamic Panning
How would you like a sound that sweeps from speaker to speaker for a stereo 
tremolo? Or how about a sound that moves through space depending on how hard 
you play? Here is the basic idea:

1. Create a patch you like. Store it in TWO locations 
(for instance, Single Patches 10 and 11). We'll call them patch A and patch B.

2. Make a change in the two patches, so that you have something OPPOSITE 
happening in each patch. For instance, you can have patch A become LOUDER as 
you play harder (modulating a VCA with velocity) and patch B become SOFTER 
as you play harder (this is done by negative modulation of  the corresponding 
VCA by velocity).
3. Go into Multi Patch mode and layer patch A on top of patch B (NOTE: this is 
easily done by selecting three voices per patch, assigning them to two different 
Zones,  and making the Zones cover the same notes on the keyboard).

4. On the PAN Multi Patch page, pan all of the voices playing patch A fully left, 
and all of the voices playing patch B fully right. That's the basic idea. Now, soft 
playing is only heard in the right speaker, and hard playing in the left! What's 
really happening is that certain voices are becoming louder and softer. Because 
the two patches sound identical, however, it sounds like ONE patch moving from 
speaker to speaker. Once you understand this basic idea, you can do countless 
variations on the theme:

Use an LFO to sweep the sound from speaker to speaker. In both patches, have 
LF0 1 modulate a VCA from silence to full volume. Also, set RETRIG to 
SINGLE on LFO 1 Page 2. Now, set the LFO 1 RETRIG on Page 1 in patch A to 
0, and in patch B to 31. Layer the sounds as above, and presto! Stereo panning!  
*You can use an envelope generator instead of the LFO, for a single, controlled 
sweep between  speakers  
(and perhaps Tracking Generators and Ramps for other effects).
There is no reason why the two patches have to sound the same; experiment!
For an all-out psychedelic experience, create 6 (Xpander) or 12 (Matrix) different 
patches with different levels of positive/ negative velocity sensitivity. Layer them 
all on top of each other, pan them all differently and you have a massive, 
combined instrument whose "panning" changes at your command. If this doesn't 
impress your ears, you may as well trade in your instrument for a  Juno-106.

"SteelGuitar" Pitch Bending. 
The Rhodes Chroma Polaris allows you to do the following: hold down a chord, 
press the sustain pedal, then release some notes in the chord, and then move the 
pitch wheel. Only those notes that are STILL HELD ON THE KEYB0ARD will 
bend! Perfect for those "steel guitar" licks, but the Xpander and Matrix aren't set 
up to do this ... or are they?

1.  Create Patches A and B identically, as above.
2. On patch A, set :
    LEVI on Page 2 of VC01, VC02, and VCF to  ON (underlined);
    ENV 1 to 0 0 0 63 0 63, modulating VCF FREQ,
    ENV2 to 0 0 0 63 33 63, modulating VCA2.
3. On patch B, set :
    LEV1 on Page 2 of VCOI, VC02, and VCF to OFF (no underline);
    ENVL to 0 0 0 63 0 0, modulating VCF and VCA2,
    where its RELEASE is modulated +63 by PED2 
    and its AMP is modulated -63 by ENV2;
    ENV2 to 0 0 0 63 7 63.4.
4.  Notice that patch A has full sustain but quick release. Patch B, without holding 
down the pedal, has the fastest possible envelope. However, if you hold down the 
pedal, it has RELEASE ONLY

5. Create a Multi Patch with patch A layered onto patch B.
Now, when you play normally, only patch A will sound. If you hold down the 
pedal, patch A will sound on the attack, decay, and sustain, but will die on the 
release; patch B, however, will kick in on the release. Since patch A bends with 
LEVI and patch B doesn't, only those keys HELD DOWN when you depress the 
pedal will bend! inverted Keyboard

Here's my trick for the "inverted keyboard:" it's quite simple.
1. To learn this mod, initialize a patch by holding STORE and hitting CLEAR. 
(Later, you can apply this method to any patch you like, but this way is easiest.)
2. Then turn VCO2's volume too, to simplify things at first.
3. On Page 2 of VC01, turn off KEYBD so it's not underlined. This makes VCO 1 
not modulated by the Keyboard. If you play the keyboard, all the notes will have 
the same low pitch. Back on VCO 1 Page 1, set FREQ to 63.
4. Goto theVCO 1 FREQ modulation page, and choose KEYBD as your mod 
source.
5. Modulate negatively with the KEYBD (as many times as necessary) until you 
like the keyboard tuning- it will be inverted. It IS possible to modulate enough so 
that you get a standard 13-key octave, inverted. If you have problems tuning to an 
exact range, hit two notes (say, 4 octaves apart) several times each so all of your 
voices are playing one or the other,  and turn both VCAs up so the notes are 
droning. Then fine-tune the modulation until you hear the right number of octaves 
between the two notes,  and turn the VCAs off again.

6. Now you're done, unless the resulting keyboard  range is still too low for you. If 
so, make a Multi Patch from your Single Patch, and TRANSPOSE up two 
octaves!
NOTE: you might want to change the Page 1 value of VCO 1 FREQ so a chosen 
note matches what it would be on a standard keyboard- say, middle C, for 
instance.


EXPONENTIAL VS. LINEAR ENVELOPES 
by Dan Barrett
     The standard DADSR envelopes on the Xpander and Matrix are LINEAR in 
function; that is, the Attack, Decay, etc., each occur at some constant speed from 
beginning to end. However, it is possible to make the envelopes EXPONENTIAL 
or LOGARITHMIC in function, i.e. have envelope segments that "start slow and 
then speed up" (exponential) or"start out quickly and slow down" (logarithmic). 
Why do this? It makes for some interesting envelopes, that's why! I believe that 
certain natural sounds are "exponential," as some of my patches sound more 
realistic when I use exponential envelopes.
     The trick? Modulate the envelope segment (ATTACK or whatever) with the 
ENVELOPE  ITSELF! For example, if you modulate theATTACK of ENV 1 
with ENV 1 positively, you'll get an exponential attack, and if you modulate 
negatively you'll get a logarithmic one. I have found this trick useful for sounds 
with a breathy attack (brass, woodwind, human whistle), cartoon effects, and what 
I'm forced to call "original sounds"because I can't describe them in print! The 
amount of modulation is CRITICAL: too little and you  won't hear the effect, and 
too much and it will seem as if the envelope is taking forever

 The best way to hear the effect "directly" is if the envelope is modulating 
oscillator pitch, but it has many other uses as well. By the way, you can do this 
trick with other "modulatable modulation pages." Modulating an LFO's SPEED or 
AMP with itself is wild- it changes the shape of the LFO wave!

TIMBRAL "PANNING" AND TRIGGERING ALTERATIONS 
by Dan Barrett
     Here's a fun patch idea. Create a  typical 2-VCO synth sound, then use an 
Envelope to modulate:
     1. Both VCO amplitudes, from 63 to 0;
     2. VCF Resonance, from 0 to 63;
     3. FM Amplitude, from 0 to 63 (try setting FM Dest. to VCF).

     This set of modulations should "pan" your sound from a standard 2-VCO 
sound to a total FM patch. In place of an envelope, you could try this with a 
Ramp, a Pedal or Lever, an LFO,or whatever. Another neat trick, setup two 
identical Envelopes for any sound, one Single triggered, one Multi-triggered. Set 
one so its Amp is at 0 and the other at 63. Then use a Pedal to vary the mix of 
these two types of envelopes, so you can switch from single to multiple triggering 
within the same patch.

TECHNICAL NOTES AND MISCELLANY 
by Dan Barrett
     Matrix-12 Owner's Manual Errors:
     A. Pages 20 and 109: NOISE waveform missing from diagram.
     B. Page5l: It is false that the Matrix Service Manual has "more information". 
The info
      is actually in the Xpander Service Manual.
     C. Page 61: MIDI Tune Request. The manual says that the Matrix will ignore 
this
      request. However, the Xpander/Matrix-12 MIDI Document says that the 
Matrix will 
      respond to this request. The manual is correct, according to Oberheim (but my 
     Xpander responds to Tune Requests).
     D. Page 134: The statement that the SPEED control has no effect for these two 
     waveforms is false-the SPEED control does affect the RANDOM waveform.
     E. Page 137: The paragraph labelled "Stopping an Envelope" should be on 
page 132, 
     just before the LFO X section, not here.

Matrix-12 Owner's Manual for Xpander Owners: I recommend that Xpander 
owners
that are having a hard time programming their instrument should get the Matrix 
12
Owner's Manual. It is around 200 pages long and full of examples, and the reader 
may ignore references to features exclusive to the Matrix (such as the keyboard).

Undocumented Feature on Tune Page: 
You can abort a TUNE ALL in the middle of its operation (Don't you hate it when 
you hit the TUNE ALL button accidentally during a gig and have to wait for it to 
finish??) To abort, just press the ALL button again

 The TUNE will abort after it finishes with whatever section (VCF, RES, etc.) it 
was on when you gave the abort command. (When I tried this, it  would actually 
stop the tune in the middle of a section. Also, call it a bug or a useful feature, your 
choice, while the MIDI MUTE button on MASTER Page will cause stuck notes to 
immediately go to the RELEASE segments of  their envelopes, hitting the TUNE 
PAGE button will instantly mute the instrument.)

Software/ Hardware Bugs: (Matrix 12) 
If you are using a quantized modulation and you go to the MOD ROUTINGS 
page to look at it, the quantization will cease to function. It will return if you jump 
to another patch and back. 
(Matrix 12/ Xpander)
If you initialize voice (hold STORE and hit CLEAR) while on a Mod page, you'll 
get the OBERHEIM patch with an unwanted RAMP 1 modulation on that page. 
That's because RAMP X and CLEAR share the same, button.

(Matrix 12)
External Triggering works ONLY for the set of six voices currently showing on 
the display, even in Single Patch mode. The other six won't trigger unless you hit 
the BANK SELECT button.

(Matrix 12) 
There is a bug in the pressure sensor: hard pressure on the keyboard, even if 
you're not using PRESSURE modulation in a patch, will activate modulations 
supposedly under the control of  PED 1 or PED 2. PRESSURE is "bleeding 
through" into PEDAL modulation! (NOTE: Dan states that all of these bugs have 
been reproduced on other instruments than his own, and that Oberheim has 
informed him that the first three problems will be fixed in the next software 
update and the last is being investigated.)

GOING NUTS WITH MIDI AND CV's
 by Mike Metlay
 (The following article was originally written for Electronic Musician magazine as 
a discussion of how to hook the Xpander tip to MIDI and CV external devices 
effectively, and has been extensively written and revised (in other words, cut to 
pieces) for the Xpansions! audience. In future issues, I may present more concrete 
tips in this area, but for now I want to introduce the concepts themselves. 
WARNING: this article contains pre-MIDI nostalgia in LARGE gobs, and may 
make hard-core new toy faddists ill. You have been warned!)

     No other synthesizer makes use of external control devices like the Xpander. 
Its combined MIDI / CV flexibility lets the user approach the process of sound 
creation in a vast number of weird and wonderful ways. This is a pet subject of 
mine, so I'd like to give some tips on how to "rediscover" the marvelous things 
Control Voltages (CVs) used to do before MIDI came along, as well as how to use 
MIDI to open up new and bizarre vistas of sound control.
What We Have To Work With
     The Xpander can accept six sets of CV and Gate inputs, a single trigger input, 
two external voltage sources called "Pedals," and the following MIDI 
information: Note-on and Note-off, Velocity, Release Velocity, Channel Pressure, 
and up to five MIDI Controllers. Each of these may be applied to the Xpander's 
pages as modulation sources. The remaining modulation sources are Tracking, 
Lag, Vibrato, LFO, Envelope, and Ramp. Of these, we will not concern ourselves 
much with the latter four, as they're internal to the architecture; we only note that 
they may be triggered from the external Trigger input, letting us start envelopes or 
sync LFOs externally. We'll glance at Tracking and Lag later. This leaves us with 
eight externally-activated modulators; of these, Keyboard and the two Pedals may 
be run by rear- panel input voltages. On the MIDI side of things, the two Levers 
may be set to respond to any pair of Controller numbers desired. This also applies 
to the two Pedals, if the user desires to operate them from MIDI rather than from 
external devices plugged into the Pedal jacks, and to Pressure modulation, which 
can be set to respond to a MIDI Controller if the user's keyboard isn't pressure 
sensitive.

     Note that the Levers and Pressure are only accessible via MIDI, the Velocity 
modulator can respond only to actual MIDI Velocity data, and thus is useless if 
the user's keyboard is not velocity-sensitive, and a similar (and far more common) 
restriction applies to Release Velocity. But will we let these petty limitations stop 
us from wreaking audio havoc with our Xpanders? Of course not! After all, the 
Xpander is what one makes of it, perhaps more so than any other synthesizer on 
the market; it was originally designed to be operated from previously-owned 
MIDI or CV devices, and will do AMAZING things for surprisingly little if you're 
willing to invest in some dinosaur technology or some cheap MIDI doodads....

"But I've Already Got A Keyboard!"
     I know that. This article is intended to get you (only temporarily, if you insist) 
out of normal "keyboard and two wheels" modes of thought, if all you want to do 
is noodle on the keys, and dial in an occasional pitch bend or vibrato, that's fine, 
but you can do that on any synth. Still, we do have them lying around, so let's take 
a moment to discuss ugh-keyboards.
     The defaults for the two Levers are MIDI Pitch Bender and Controller 1; by 
convention, most MIDI synthesizers that have two left-hand devices assign them 
to these - two Controller numbers, and thus allow the Xpander to be operated 
directly from the outboard synthesizer. Velocity and pressure sensitivity are 
understood automatically by the Xpander. If you own a synthesizer with preset 
MIDI Controller numbers for other devices, such as damper or volume pedals, a 
portamento switch, or a breath controller, any of these can be assigned at will to 
be Pedals or Levers. What if you don't have such things? Not even a damper 
pedal? Fear not; we'll get to helping you in a moment
     If you're using a voiceless MIDI master keyboard to operate the Xpander, you 
probably know by now that most of these keyboards allow polytimbral splits and 
layering as well as assignable control devices, but that these functions are 
duplicated by the Xpander.

As you add more traditionally-designed synthesizers to your setup, they will 
probably be limited as to which MIDI Controller numbers they can receive, and 
the Xpander's input flexibility becomes a boon, you'll be free to pick and choose 
which, if any, of the devices on your master keyboard control the Xpander along 
with the more conventional synths. For instance, if you want every synth in your 
MIDI network except the Xpander to follow pitch bends, it's easy to set Lever 1 
on the Xpander to read something other than Pitch Bender data. 

CV control (for the Xpander):
     Now that that's done with, let's consider Control Voltages. In the Dark Ages of 
electronic synthesis (which more of this group will remember than most randomly 
chosen groups of keyboardists these days),the only standard for interfacing synths 
was that their keyboards used voltages to play notes, one volt of potential 
difference equaling one octave of pitch change. Voltage steps called Gates told 
these synths when keys were pressed and released, and certain events were "set 
off" by voltage spikes called Triggers. Control wheels bent pitch and added 
modulations by altering voltages at strategic points. 

This standard, while clumsy and -gasp!- monophonic, could do wonders in patient 
hands, and was utilized by a number off a fascinating devices ... analog 
sequencers, which were just rows or voltage steppers (up to thirty-two notes on 
the big ones!), various non-keyboard pitch control devices (built-in wheels not yet 
being standard), and the modular synthesizer, a refrigerator - sized mass of circuit 
boards and wires that provided the total modulation flexibility only hinted at by 
the Xpander.
     What does this history lesson have to do with this article? Everything! A great 
deal of the equipment of those days is still around, if you're willing to look for it, 
and it's often available for next to nothing! Remember that before MIDI came 
along, musicians' needs were addressed by CV technology, and often quite well at 
that there are even excellent CV digital sequencers with memories comparable to 
small MIDI units, like the Oberheim DSX and the Roland MC4. Used music 
stores often carry these boxes, along with a host of more esoteric items from an 
era when "electronic" meant "experimental." (sigh) Even the old modular synths, 
which sent control voltages from module to module, can be easily interfaced to 
the Xpander in a number of weird ways, and are often available dirt cheap. And 
why bother? For the sake of creativity and flexibility, that's why. Modulation 
control, back then, didn't mean just vibrato; it meant anything... mucking with the 
filter, retriggering envelopes in odd ways, messing with interlinked LFOs-all of 
which are possible on only a few of today's synths, and all of which can be 
expressive and fascinating when tried out on the Xpander. So let's go!  The first 
and most obvious use for these items is to make up for older MIDI synths, whose 
control capabilities might be limited; if you're missing a damper pedal or volume 
pedal for your synthesizer, simply buy one or two standard voltage-control pedals 
and patch them to the Xpander's rear panel. Note that a Pedal input can be either a 
continuously variable signal from a rocker pedal such as the Moog 1120 or the 
Roland EV5, or a step signal from a momentary contact damper pedal like the 
Oberheim FS7 or Yamaha FC5. (For clarity's sake, we'll refer to the former type 
as "pedals" and the latter as "switches."

Be careful, though: you won't normally want to use push-on/ push-off switches 
like the Roland FSI here, although I'm sure they have their uses.) In fact, since the 
two Pedal inputs can accept virtually any voltage source, this is your golden 
opportunity to run a programmable MIDI synthesizer off of anything from a 
Moog ribbon controller to a Big Briar CV Theremin! There are even folks (like 
me, sometimes) who don't use a keyboard at all, preferring to control pitch as well 
as modulation with control wheels and such like. Pretty bizarre to a lot of today's 
MIDI musicians, but lots of fun nevertheless!
     As for pitch control, the Xpander's CV/Gate inputs can accept signals from 
either an old CV keyboard, a CV sequencer, or any other voltage/gate source- the 
only limitation here being that the inputs are quantized in half steps to prevent 
pitch drift. Using Keyboard modulation and Multi Patching, you can actually 
control up to twelve different parameters at once in this way... thirteen, if you 
hook up a trigger output from an old analog drum box to the Trigger Input jack! 
(Don't forget that the Xpander's XMITCV capability lets you turn your CVs into 
MIDI data, letting your old equipment run your other MIDI synths too!)

MIDI Controls (for the Xpander or Matrix 12)
     Suppose, despite the obvious advantages displayed by these CV devices, you're 
still too paranoid to risk cash on old technology. Or suppose you own a Matrix 12, 
with which CVs aren't an option, and you've tied up both Pedal jacks with stuff 
I've just talked about before getting this far. What then? Why, go all MIDI, of 
course! Even without the Trigger and CV/Gate jacks, your options are far from 
limited ... just pretend that you have a modular synth with one big disadvantage 
(you have only five knobs to twiddle at a time, rather than all of them) and one 
big advantage (it's PROGRAMMABLE!). There's an easy way to take this idea to 
its full extent with only a small investment in cash terms. It's called a MIDI 
Controller box, and its basic function is to convert the use of various devices into 
MIDI data. J L Cooper makes a very powerful one called the Expression Plus, but 
I personally prefer the Yamaha MCS2. It was originally designed to give full 
MIDI control of synth stacks to a person playing a MIDIed piano, and is 
essentially a small MIDI merge box that adds its own output to the data coming 
from its input keyboard. This output includes data from its built-in pitch and 
modulation wheels, sliders, switches, buttons, foot pedals, and even a breath 
controller, all in various programmable configurations. This lets you choose 
which control devices you'd like to use, and which ones are used for which patch. 
(It may also be possible, if the voltage ranges are compatible, to patch old CV 
devices into the foot pedal inputs of the MACS.) If you're serious about giving 
this sort of control a try, it would be an excellent investment ... and it has a 
number of other uses around the MIDI studio as well, like controlling MIDI 
effects stacks, changing programs on the fly, etc.
NOW We Go Bananas!
     Once you've chosen your setup and gotten used to running it smoothly, it's 
time to really put the Xpander through its paces. Because the Xpander can use 
input from MIDI or CV devices in dozens of different ways, the number of 
electronic Xotica you can add to your performances grows to the point of 
ridiculousness. To heck with kid stuff like vibrato or volume control; there's 
serious fun to be had here! Consider the lowly VCA; it's just a loudness control, 
right?

Not if you're sly enough to try a stunt like the one I pulled on a friend of mine in 
the studio recently. At the time, his DX7 had an FC3A footpedal controlling its 
volume, which I enabled on my Xpander as a MIDI source for PED 1 after 
MIDIing the two synths together. He was expecting me to set up direct VCA 
control via the pedal to make it a nice, ordinary master volume pedal for both 
synths; instead, I inverted the VCA modulation on the Xpander, so the further 
down he pushed the pedal, the softer the Xpander got-and he found himself in full 
control of a smooth, even DX7/Xpander crossfade, without even having to touch 
the mixer!
     Not weird enough for you? We haven't even begun to use Tracking or Lag yet! 
Since the Tracking Generators can convert a linearly changing signal to a 
nonlinear curve, we may alter the response of our devices to our tastes. Imagine a 
volume device that's loudest in the middle of it's throw, so that swells turn into 
fades with one smooth push or pull of the relevant knob. The Lag Processor, 
which smooths out sudden transitions, can turn an ordinary switch into an 
"automatic fader" with many practical uses. One of my favorites is an 
improvement on the "slow mod button" feature found on the Roland Axis; we 
patch a switch or a sustain pedal into the Lag processor, and modulate our sound 
via Lag. Then, when we press the switch, the modulation gradually fades itself 
into our sound, rather than turning on instantly at full depth.
     By now I think you should have the idea. Go wild! If you haven't got enough 
knobs, or enough hands, to perform all of this weirdness by yourself, remember 
that you have the option of up to six different pitch-control sources for your 
Xpander at any time. You can play a MIDI keyboard and have a CV sequencer 
doing  things at the same time, and still have room to bring your old set of bass 
pedals into the digital age, too. Add to this the MIDI gizmos that will work on the 
Matrix 12 and the many signal sources patchable through the Pedal inputs, from 
analog sequencers to alpha wave headsets, and you may never look back! If you're 
feeling up to a challenge, try programming and using your Xpander with voltage 
or MIDI controllers alone ... and no keyboard at all. The results might surprise 
you.

FLEXIBLE DELAY WITH MULTIPLE ENVELOPES 
by Lionel Cassin
     Five envelope generators! Five LFO'S! Three tracking generators! However, 
after using the Xpander for about a month, most synthesists' amazement is 
replaced by dismay: "how am I going to utilize all these components?" So I 
singled out the envelope generators and came up with the patch I've contributed to 
this issue's Patch Page, which I call TDRIPOFF.
     The key to TDRIPOFF, and any delay simulation patch with multiple taps and 
adjustable delay time, is the delay segment of the Xp's envelopes. It doesn't take 
long to adjust the delay segments of the 5 ENVs so that they fire at regular 
intervals ( 1 original and 4 taps), but without adjustable delay time, this patch's 
usefulness is limited. The next step is to use some continuous controller (Xp 
footpedal, Continuous Controller slider on Xk, Data Slider or Mod Wheel 
onYamaha DX7) and, via the MIDICNTRL segment of the Master Page, make it 
modulate the delay segments (except the first ENV, which is your initial note). As 
you increase your controller amount, each of the delay segments will increase in 
proportion.
     This patch will come in handy with computer-based multitracking where 
efficient use of outboard effects is of paramount importance. Also, after a year of 
using digital units with incremental adjust buttons, having a big slider under my 
hand felt good. The speed with which you can change the settings makes 
TDRIPOFF a good patch for experimenting. Take a look at the data on the Patch 
Page, which will reveal more interesting features.
     Patches of this type allow a wealth of other options: No reason why the EG's 
have to be fidentical in duration or amplitude. Unlike any other delay line I know 
of, the third repetition can be louder than the original, while the fourth has a 
longer sustain. You can get "swing delay" by increasing the PED 2 modulation on 
ENVs 2 and 4.
     Since only the original ENV is modulating VCA2, you have to open the amp a 
bit to get the other repetitions. Therefore VCA 2 AMP functions as an effect level. 
It's effective range is between 0 and 27.
    You may have to change the PED 2 mod amounts if you use a different 
controller, but try to find some way around it; finding those numbers is a time  
intensive task. Make sure your ENVs 2-4 are set to FREERUN, or you won't get a 
sound.

     Stereo delay A la Barrett is self-evident. Create two versions of the patch and 
do one of the following: cut ENVs 2 and 4 from one, 1, 3 and 5 from the other to 
get a 5-tap stereo delay, or rescale the second patch to get 10 repetitions. Good 
luck and send me a card when they let you out of the sanitarium. Use PED 2 to 
modulate the decays, so that longer delay settings will having a fuller sound and 
very quick repetitions will be more percussive and less cluttered.
     There are quite a number of possibilities. If you stumble across a particularly 
unusual one, please tell me and the group.


TECH TIPS FOR PATCH PROGRAMMING
by David Ziegele
     Run a RAMP through a Tracking Generator and use the TRACK to modulate a 
destination such as VCO FREQ, VCF FREQ or RES, or VCO VOL. This is not 
quite as tricky as using an envelope as an input to the TRACK, but can still result 
in "CZ" style envelopes or an infinite variety of custom ramps or curves. My 
patch "Whip 5th" (see this month's Patch Page) uses mod on both VCO 
frequencies.
     Terry Darakis asked last issue for brass patches with LFO growl. My method 
for this: Set an LFO to SPEED 63, TRIANGLE, AMP 63. Negatively modulate 
the LFO AMP with a very fast RAMP. Use the LFO to modulate one or both 
VCO FREQs and/or VCFFREQ. Set the RAMP RATE to a setting that lets you 
hear the growl for as long as you like before it fades out. One could also modulate 
the LFO AMP with Velocity, so that there will be more growl at high key 
velocities, and the growl will last longer. To augment the growl, one can slightly 
modulate one or both VCO FREQs with a very fast ENV. This gives a quick rise 
(or fall, if you prefer) in pitch that simulates the spit of a true brass attack. This 
effect can also be made velocity dependent. My patch "Xpndbrss" (see the Patch 
Page) illustrates both effects.
     The new E! board for the Yamaha DX7 has a feature called "random detune" 
which, as I understand it, slightly changes each notes tuning in a  random fashion, 
supposedly to give acoustic patches an impression of "realism." Here's a way to 
get random detuning effect on the Xp: set an LFO to a slow SPEED (say around 
10) and a RANDOM waveform. Use this LFO to slightly (or drastically) modulate 
one or both VCO FREQS. The pitch will be different every time you strike a key. 
If the LFO SPEED is slow enough, the pitch shouldn't change in the middle of the 
note. By modulating one VCO FREQ positively and the other negatively, you 
could get a random chorus effect. Be careful using this mod with FM patches, as 
they'll be quite sensitive to VCO FREQ variations. (The mod could be applied to 
the VCF for random timbre changes as well.) My patch "Thumbpno" (see the 
Patch Page) uses this mod. (NOTE: Dave provided the  free patches mentioned 
above as accompaniments to his tips. They were not taken from the set of sounds 
he's currently selling.)

MICROTONALITY AND THE XPANDER
by Mike Metlay
     Dan's inverted keyboard trick came in just as I was finishing work on an article 
explaining mictrotonal scales for the Xpander. His idea and mine turned out to be 
identical except in modulation sign (negatives vs. positive), So I'll save space by 
adding my article to his.
     To create tunings with more than twelve notes per octave, take any patch you 
like and try the following modifications: follow the steps Dan has outlined above, 
but modulate the VCOs with the KEYBOARD positively until you have the right 
number of keys in an octave. Also, VCO FREQ should be set higher than usual, 
but not necessarily all the way up to 63.
     To get you started, here are some "common" microtonal scalings I've worked 
out:
Notes Per Octave                                                   VCO Freq Mod By Keyboard
31                                                                                +63, +59
19	                                                                        +63, +62, +60
24 (quarter-tone scale)                                                  +63, +62, +44 
48 (eighth-tone scale)	                                                  +62, +46

     Why the mod settings of 62 rather than 63 ? Because the KEYBOARD 
modulation isn't a perfectly linear function! There's much less resolution at 63 
than lower down, and setting a modulation to 62 gives you more flexibility when 
fine-tuning a sound. Try it!
     (NOTE:  The use of microtonal scalings isn't necessarily for everyone. Even 
with my bizarre approach to music, I rarely use this stuff, it hurts my brain. 
However, recent articles on the subject in the major magazines, the release of 
tunable instruments like the DX7II FD, and albums like Wendy Carlos' Beauty in 
the Beast, have spurred people's interest, and hopefully these hints will let you 
explore this ground a bit on your own.)

FM AND THE SINGLE XPANDER 
by Ted Greenwald
     I don't know- maybe I really want a DX7, but I've been having a lot more fun 
with my Xpander since I started getting heavily into the FM aspect of the 
machine.

There's an abundance of powerful waveforms lurking in the FM ratios, and they 
make life much more interesting than your average sawtooth, triangle, and pulse 
waves. 
Aside from the really noisy ones (which are fun too, and which can usually be 
made less noisy by fine-tuning one of  the VCOs), there are great guitar (fuzz and 
otherwise), clavinet, reed and bell timbres in there. Also, many ratios react 
beautifully to the high pass filter modes. Unfortunately, the Xp isn't the ideal 
machine for FM- analog oscillators are the problem, according to Jim Letts at 
Oberheim. They don't maintain their tuning stability to the fine degree necessary 
for FM, and as most of us have found out already, Xp FM can be pretty unwieldy. 
But all of my best patches lately have come from this aspect of the instrument, so 
I'd like to encourage more FM programming by offering the following 
observations about FM and the single Xpander:

     1. When you're using FM, always tune your VCOS! Otherwise everything will 
sound like (editor chickens out at this point and substitutes the word ... ) poop - 
With many ratios, I find that I have to tune several times during the first hour or 
two the Xp is on before the pitch stabilizes. Even then, one voice may end up a 
little bit off after tuning, and must be brought into line by re-tuning again and 
again until it settles down. This makes mondo FM patches a bit impractical for 
live performances, unfortunately, but in general, if you can sneak in a tuning, do it 
whenever possible.
   2. With very high VCO frequencies (which is where most of the interesting 
timbres hangout, unfortunately) the pitch consistency among voices tends to run 
amok. Some felicitous ratios exist in the high ranges (on my Xp, at least), but by 
and large I've found the safe upper limit for either VCO FREQ to be 35 or so. 
Above that, some voices will almost inevitably be out of tune. You may or may 
not hear it easily- that depends on the particular wave you're making- but it's 
bound to cause problems eventually.
  3. A slight portamento can be heard when a voice goes from a low note to a high 
note. This is incredibly annoying, but there's no way around it. The best solution 
I've found is to create a Multi Patch and assign, say, two voices to the lower 
keyboard half and four to the upper half to limit each voice's possible pitch 
changes.
 4.  The following is a bunch of information adapted from the DX7 programming 
chapter of Steve DeFuria's Secrets of Analog and Digital Synthesis. It'll be useful 
to DX owners as well as FM- happy Xp users, but I've translated the DX-specific 
stuff to be more directly applicable to everybody's favorite synth (after the ARP 
2600). Some of the information doesn't quite translate, unless you map the DX's 
harmonic-series-based numbers onto the Xp's chromatic-scale/ fine-tuning 
numbers. Beyond the first five harmonics, I've left that to you. DeFuria's 
Analogies are convenient but his Rules are serious data-an initiation into FM 
arcana that I've never seen printed anywhere outside his book. Make good use of 
them ... or just program by trial and error. As long as you make good sounds, 
right?

(NOTE: remember that on the Xp, VCO 1 or the VCF is the Carrier, and VCO 2 
is the Modulator)
     Analogies:

Carrier frequency will be the most prominent partial. Altering carrier frequency 
thus determines which partial will be loudest. (This is analogous to resonant filter 
cutoff in analog synthesis.) Carrier output level determines overall loudness. 
(Analogous to VCA.)
Frequency of modulator determines overall partial structure, or waveform. 
(Analogous to choice of waveform.) Modulator amplitude determines strength and 
number of partials, not necessarily in harmonic series order. (Analogous to 
altering VCF cutoff.) Rules (we assume the fundamental will be represented by a 
VCO FREQ of 12): If the carrier is tuned to a pitch in the harmonic series, and... 
If the modulator is 12,24, 31, or 36 (the first four pitches in the harmonic series), a 
fundamental will always be present, even if the carrier does not represent the 
fundamental.
... If the modulator is 12 (fundamental), all harmonics will be present (as in a 
sawtooth wave). ... If the modulator is 24 (first harmonic), only odd harmonics 
will be present (a square wave). ... If the modulator is 3l (second harmonic), and 
the carrier is tuned to a pitch in the harmonic series, every third harmonic will be 
missing (as in a pulse wave with a 33% or 66% duty cycle).  If the modulator is 
tuned to an odd- numbered harmonic (24,36,43 and so forth), only odd harmonics 
will be present.
... If the modulator is 4O (fourth harmonic) or higher, some combination of 
harmonic partials will be present.
... If the modulator is not tuned to a pitch in the harmonic series, some in 
harmonic partials will be present.
Detuning the modulator will create out-of-tune harmonics, a phenomenon that 
does occur in nature. The partial produced by the carrier (not necessarily the 
fundamental) will retain in tune unless detuned as well. A carrier tuned to a low, 
fixed frequency will, when modulated, produce a tremolo at twice the carrier's 
frequency.
     5. Finally, an FM patch (see the Patch Page). It's the best Clavinet simulation 
I've come across (if I do say so myself although it's still not perfect. I have no 
doubts that a DX7 could do better, but I haven't gotten my hands on one to try yet. 
Using David Ziegele's random detuning tip from last issue would probably help 
simulate the clavinet's tendency to change pitch slightly from keystroke to 
keystroke, and also its proclivity for going out of tune. As with all FM sounds, 
don't forget to tune the VCOs a few times during the first hour or so. Enjoy.

TUNING AND UNTUNING
     Vladimir Vooss has suggested via letter and cassette that the Xp and Yamaha's 
FM synthesizers have different tunings. Both of them stray from Vladimir's ideal: 
stretch tuning. The TX802 is slightly flat, as is the Xp, but the Xp has places 
where it's sharp. When the two instruments are combined, this discrepancy results 
in a "sour sound," rather than the grandiose tones we expected from the 
analog/FM marriage. Vladimir has customized the tuning on his 802 to match the 
quirky Xpander.
Lionel Cassin: The UNTUNE function may be a boon to industrial noise fanatics 
who don't want to waste modulation routings to generate random pitches. Goto 
MASTER PAGE, Page 2, SERVICE, and UNTUNE. What a mess.

PEDALS, ETC.
by Glenn Workman
     1 - Here's a quick method to load several patches off a single cassette. First 
make sure you've saved your current memory data. Load in the cassette that has 
the needed patches. Create a Multi Patch that uses the singles that you need. Make 
sure that that Multi is the currently selected patch. Reload your original data. Your 
"new" Multi is still in the editing buffer. Now store each "new" Single without 
leaving the Multi Patch (this is described on page 18 in the Xp manual, page 167 
in the M12 manual).
     Why this is: The Multi and Single editing buffers are unaffected during a 
cassette load. The contain complete data for all selected Singles. This means up to 
seven patches on the Xp (six in the Multi buffer, one in the Single buffer) or 
thirteen on the M12 (twelve in the Multi buffer, one in the Single buffer) can be 
recalled after a cassette load. This will also work when saving and loading 
through MIDI.
     Additional Tips: Predetermine where you will put all these new patches. Make 
sure the currently selected patches in Single and Multi are the ones you want 
before you reload. Do not move away from these patches until you have stored 
them or all will be lost. (You may toggle the Master Edit Single and Multi buttons 
without harm.)
     3.  I've found a way to coax an extra lever or two out of the Xp/ M12 that can 
be a big help in a performance situation. For example, if you would like two 
different vibrato speeds, set up a basic patch with vibrato underlined on page 2 of 
VC01 and VC02. Now select FREQ for each VCO and add LF01 / +63 as a 
modulation. Go to LF01 page and set up SPEED 55, square, and AMP 0. Select 
AMP and add LEV2/-63. When you push LEV 2 one way you get your original 
vibrato, push the other way and you get your alternate LFO 1 vibrato trill. This 
requires several things to work. Your instrument should have centered levers 
likethe M12/M6/Xk so it can be moved positive/negative (some wheels will not 
do this). It seems most useful on modulations like LFO/ENV amplitude or 
SPEED settings set near zero. That way the reverse action will not affect it 
(though that can be a useful crossfade between effects). Variations: This will also 
work on LEV 1 but it seems best to turn bend off. You can use an on/off pedal to 
switch between effects. That way it won't just add something but will also defeat 
something else.
     4. Reverse Keyboard: The Improved Easy Method.
Begin with the basic Oberheim patch. On VC01 page 2, turn off KEYBD and turn 
on LAG. Repeat for VC02 page 2, and  VCF page 2. On the FM/LAG page, select 
TRK l for LAG IN and 0 for LAG RATE. On TRACK 1 page, select KEYBD 47, 
39, 31, 23, 15. All done! (This is the DRAWKCAB patch, printed elsewhere). 
Major chords are now minor, minor chords are now major, diminished chords are 
still diminished. Now try it on your favorite patch following the same steps. It 
requires that the LAG be free and that one Tracking Generator is unused. B and F 
keys are still at their named pitches. If you want to change that, add or subtract the 
same amount from all TRK 1 values.
     Variations: Try TRK 1 values of 47, 39, 31, 39, 47 for a keyboard that goes 
both ways. 0, 15, 31, 47, 63 for a whole tone keyboard (the lower octave is out of 
tune this way; 0, 16,32,48,63 will be the same with the upper octave out of tune). 
23, 27, 31, 35, 39 gives a quarter-tone tuning. If you really want to know, 
18,26,34,42,50 leaves the pitches where
(nothing was typed here)

ALTERNATE CONTROLLERS
     Allan Tamm mentions that if you're driving your Xp with the Yamaha WX7 
Wind Controller, "assign the WX7's pressure data to be Aftertouch (Pressure) so 
you can use the same patches on the Xp with a keyboard. I've had good success 
with the volume response of the Xp by assigning Aftertouch as a modulation 
source to VCA2 (in the VCF/ VCA section) twice at an amount of 63. Introducing 
vibrato independently of amplitude seems to require a foot pedal, unfortunately. 
I've had good results with the stock flute and oboe voices; brass seemed less 
satisfying."

     Also in the alternate controller vein, George Tucker writes: "For any guitarists 
having tracking problems, try setting the main output envelope (generally 
modulation VCA2) to RESET. A new gate starts things all over. I'm having good 
luck with this for patches where I need speed."

STUDIO TIPS 
by Doug Shawe

     Here's my favorite tip for quick editing when you're doing a session for people 
who are, invariably, unfamiliar with the Xpander. Most seasoned engineers know 
that it's better to change the harmonic /frequency content of a signal at the source 
rather than EQ it. So you'll be asked to make you patches "brighter." The fastest 
way to do that on the Xp is to go to the VCF and scroll through the Pole Filters 
available for that particular patch. Not only does this work 80% of the time, but 
everyone (including the engineer) thinks you're brilliant!
     If that doesn't do it, and tweaking Frequency and Resonance doesn't help, 
move on to another patch, because time is the imperative in the studio. Nobody 
wants to stand around for five minutes while you try to adjust a sound to 
perfection. That brings me to the importance of basic patches to the studio 
keyboardist. Most people in the studio want to hear the tried and know, and 
arrangers reinforce this habit by including notes in their charts like "DX7 Rhodes" 
or "Warm Obie Pad." You of course need a decent working knowledge of synth 
editing, but basic patches are absolutely essential in a studio situation.
     Here's an instructive anecdote from some sessions I did on an Epic Records LP 
(no names-I still want to work in this town) where I brought in my entire 
key/rack/computer rig. The engineer asked me for brass and I mixed four TX's, an 
MKS-80 Super Jupiter, an Emax and my Xp for what I thought was a gorgeous 
brass sound. "It's out of tune!" said the producer. After double-checking with a 
strobe tuner, I said it was probably detuning within patches to get a fuller sound. 
"Get rid of it!" OK. "What's that wobbling!?" Good-bye LFOS. "It's too goddam 
big!!" Out with the octaves. "Still too big!', Eliminate TX's and Emax. "Faster!" 
Attack=O. "More sustain!" Reset Decay, Sustain and Release. "THAT'S IT!"' Roll 
tape- the cheesiest, much unnatural synth sound ever recorded. I am quietly 
embarrassed, but a few dollars richer.

TECH TIPS FOR XPANDER USE by David Gilden
     The other day, I was using a sequencer to drive the Xpander, with a Yamaha 
MEP4 MIDI event processor in between the two. Using the MEP4, I sent the 
same MIDI data twice on the same MIDI channel with a slight delay added on one 
of the MEP4's "Processors." With this, I achieved a thick kind of slow phasing, 
cutting the number of available voices in half but providing a fatter tone. On the 
Matrix, which has its own keyboard, try connecting the MIDI OUT to the Matrix's 
own MIDI IN to obtain the same effect. In this case, the effect is due to the fact 
that that the synth's internal microprocessor takes some time to convert data to 
control voltages.
     Did you know that when you SYNC the two VCOs (the switch is on Page 2 of 
VC02) and turn FM to VC0 1 with an AMP of 63, you create a feedback loop that 
causes the VCOs to act in a very strange, nonlinear manner?  Jim Letts,  
Oberheim's Chief Engineer, was quite surprised to find this out. If you're tight for 
memory, the Xpander can give you chords, up to six voices worth for a single 
note-on command: just setup a Multi Patch to play some or all voices in unison, 
and set them to chord intervals on the Transpose page! For example, if you want a 
major triad, set one voice to the root, one voice to the third, and one voice to the 
fifth, put all three voices in the same MIDI Zone, and set the Zone's Mode to 
Unison (High, Low, or Last, depending on your preference). You can have a 
different Multi Patch for each chord structure, and access them with MIDI Patch 
Change commands. This hint is particularly useful for Commodore 64 users; I use 
the Songstepper from Moog Music, whose 12-channel monophonic setup makes 
this a must.
     And one last bit of advice, for people who've found themselves caught in the 
dilemma of having created a new patch and not knowing which memory location 
to store it to. It's true that you'll lose your edits if you try to audition other patches 
on the Single Patch Page, but that doesn't keep you from hearing Multi Patches! 
All you need to do is to get into a Multi Patch, audition various Single Patches 
within that Multi Patch until you find one you won't mind losing, memorize its 
number, switch back to Single Patch Page and store your edited patch to the 
number you've memorized. This is an obvious trick, but I hope it'll save a lot of 
sweat for those who haven't thought of it themselves.

PATCHES BY WALT WHITNEY AND THE MIDI STATION                                                     
Reviewed by Jan Freier
     I recently purchased data cassette voice sets for  Xpander/Matrix 12 from Walt 
Whitney and from the MIDI station. These ads were offered in Keyboard 
magazine. Members of the Xpander Users' Group may find review information of 
some value without having to spend the cash up front. As such I should place my 
bias up front.
     The reason I purchased these voice packages was to gain some new voicings 
that take the capabilities of the Xpander/Matrix 12 beyond the factory patches. By 
studying the patches, I hoped to speed up the process of learning to produce the 
types of voices and effects the factory patches begin to exhibit. I haven't had the 
Matrix 12 for a year yet, and have spent most of my time with the machine 
relearning keyboard skills, sight reading, etc. I have purposely stayed away from 
learning the deeper intricacies of voice generation, because I thought the time was 
better spent for me at the keyboard, but now with winter coming on up here in the 
North Country it's time to hunker down and expand the indoor activities.
     Piano, Electric Keyboard, Mallet-Related Voices: The Whitney voices have 
more of these voice types.The factory piano-type sounds are not very useful.The 
Whitney set has some very nice electric piano and very sharp mallet voices. The 
voices named "piano" have that same nasty detuned bottom the factory patches 
have. The MIDIStation has a few useful electric piano voices with some nice 
velocity effects. The bell-like voices of the Whitney set tend to be very clean with 
very sharp attacks. The MIDIStation set of bell-like tones are more discordant and 
their envelopes seem needlessly complex.

     Horn Voices: Whitney has one horn voice-a very middle of the road generic 
horn voice. The MIDIStation has 4 or 5 horn sounds, most of which have the filter 
sweep tied to Lever 2. One horn voice is particularly rich and full. All are 
generally useful.
     String Voices: The MIDIStation has about 2 string sounds, none of which add 
much beyond what is available in factory patches. The Whitney set has 4 string 
sounds; 3 of them seem to have the same envelope and oscillator blend, but 
change the overall tuning of oscillator blend up or down in range. These are very 
nice string patches with very rich animations in the overtones. These string sounds 
really take string patches to the richness the factory patches hint is possible.
     Percussion Voices: Both sets have a collection of about 5 drum trap voices. 
The attacks are more realistic than any factory patch. The MIDIStation seems 
particularly adept at those electronic tom effects, while Whitney's trap drum 
voices are less busy.

     Symphonic/Orchestral Voices: Generally the MIDIStation seems to enjoy 
complex envelopes that create not-too-subtle effects. Echo effects, resonance 
kicking in on release, etc., make for "busy" envelopes. Whitney voices often 
combine a bell or sharp attack with a longer, slower build and fill; it's almost a 
doubled voice on one single patch.
     Bonus Round: Whitney has a set of 4 Auto sounds than just keep droning on. I 
like these patches in small doses for a background rhythm on arpeggiated chords. 
Some of these are soft string slow movers and others are harder, faster, more 
mallet-like sequences.
     Multiple: Whitney offers doubles and triples and some combinations of other 
effects like ocean and wind together. The MIDIStation set offers no multiple 
voices, figuring you'd rather do that yourself. I've taken a middle of the road 
approach by trying to preserve the organization of single voices by groups, as the 
factory patches come, and pulling these other voices into the established 
organization. The multiples of the factory are generally maintained with substitute 
voices and there's still plenty of room for new multiples.
     Overall Impressions: The Whitney voices are generally more varied and tend 
to be rich with subtle animation in the overtones. The hollow (pulse wave at -30) 
voices begin to get repetitious, but overall I found about half of these voices to be 
useful additions or substitutes for the factory patches. <3 Stars> (on a scale of l to 
5, 1 think, Jan didn't says)
     The MIDIStation voices are enamored of complex envelopes to generate 
effects usually associated with signal processing. I'm not sure how you'd combine 
some of these together, even when the timbres are inclined to combination. I 
found about 1/3 of these voices to be useful additions or substitutions for the 
factory patches. 2 Stars

COMMENTS ON WALT WHITNEY PATCHES 
by Mike Nibert
     I have purchased a data cassette from Walt Whitney, who advertises in 
Keyboard magazine. I found about 1 / 2 of the patches to be useful to some 
degree, with most of the sounds being generic versions of obvious 
programs(strings, brass, etc.), including a good cello and some good brass 
patches. The remainder contained several variations on the old "swept low pass 
filter" patch, some "Natural effects" like "Ocean"and "SpaceShip" and a few echo 
effect patches (the Frippertronics imitation was unusual and interesting). I would 
rate the patches as worth the $25.

PATCHES BY ARTHUR SPRINGER (free)
Reviewed by Mike Metlay
     All of you should have received the set of sounds Art sent out a few months 
back to all Group members. If you did, I needn't finish this review, because you 
know what a twisted puppy Art is. He has a host of other synths, including an 
OB8, doing his conventional sounds-the Xpander is strictly for the weird noises. 
And compared to this new set, the set he mailed out was all strings and brasses.
     First, let's mention what this patch set doesn't have: Names. Multi Patches. 
Any kind of relation to normal sounds (except for a couple of sickeningly 
ordinary organ sounds, jolting by their very presence in this bunch). Any normal 
use of bend, mod wheels, pressure or velocity these patches were set up to run off 
of CVs. Neatness of programming-it looks like he put together one ugly and 
complex patch as a mold, and just turned stuff off without erasing it, making his 
work nearly indecipherable. What do they have? Oh, brother ! Interesting release 
echo and retriggering effects. Weird keyboard tracking. Odd "tuned percussion." 
Unchained LFOs rampaging all over everywhere. Astonishingly raspy drones. 
Rolling washes of slashing and howling filter resonance. Grinding choirs of angry 
insects. Muzak for the inside of a slaughterhouse. Noise. Not for the faint of heart. 
Trust me.
     This tape contains 100 minor variations on maybe twelve sounds, any one of 
which would turn a mainstream musician green at the gills. If you don't like 
industrial noise rock, avoid this tape like the plague. But if you think that nothing 
a synth can do can scare you... get it, dump it, and CRANK IT!

ART SPRINGER STRIKES AGAIN (free)
Reviewed by Mike Metlay
     All right, gang, I know what you're expecting in this space, so I'll oblige you 
and get it over with. Ready? Here goes: "WAHOOLAZUMA! Everybody's 
favorite twisted puppy is back from the audio torture chamber, and he's brewed up 
the most brain-slashing package of monstrous elektronoyze EVER! This stuff's 
great for warping your brain patterns, killing your cat, etc..."
     Okay. Happy now? Good, now let's get serious. I heard from Art recently that 
he didn't get a terribly good response to his first mailing, and that few, if any, 
XUG members looked him up for his second set of patches

 He seemed in a pretty good humor about it, but I couldn't help wondering if my 
presentation of his patch set didn't scare a lot of people away just by the wording. 
So, with a new patch set from Art (more diverse than the first two) in hand, I'd 
like to try again.
     One of the most unhealthy trends I see in today's patch-editing software is the 
patch randomizer, that cute but overused utility that generates random patches at 
the click of a mouse. Literally thousands of these random patches are being sold 
by unscrupulous hackers as "original sounds," and a whole new generation of 
MIDI morons is springing up (pardon the pun) whose idea of "good programming 
chops" is the ability to tweak a randomly generated sound into something that 
(almost) works. No program of this type exists yet for the xpander, and I'm glad of 
it: the lack of computer-generated garbage on the market forces the user 
community to seek one another for new ideas, rather than some electronic I 
Ching. We come together in this Group to share ideas and learn from one another 
and I believe that studying another human being's work beats watching a 
computer coughing up random numbers. Which brings us to the music of Art 
Springer.
     In my opinion, these patches are important. VERY important. I get so enthused 
about Art's work because I see in him a reflection of my college days, when I 
puttered about with ARP and Buchla modular monsters creating sounds for the 
sheer joy of it, putting together tonalities never before heard on Earth rather than 
trying to make a realistic shakuhachi. This was, and often still is, the meat and 
potatoes of electronic music to me. And when I hear Art telling me that people-
Xpander users!-are returning his work because it's "too weird," I know 
something's wrong. The Xpander isn't a sampler or a digital piano. It's not an 
imitative instrument by nature. It's a powerful, multiply interfaceable modular 
synthesizer with a great deal of flexibility. Art Springer takes a stance on its use 
that no other Group member has had the courage to try: using its Power as a CV 
percussion device to enhance the sounds of his more traditionally oriented synths. 
(By the way, Lionel and I are big fans of his music ... it's not as inaccessible as 
you might think, and the odd tonalities make his dance pieces a lot of fun.) This is 
a new idea to a lot of  you, and I don't blame you for being frightened. But it's 
better to learn from someone whose ideas differ from yours than to convince a 
computer to feed you something safe. I'd like to suggest something simple to start 
with: get one of Art's sound sets, trigger your Xpander with your drumbox, and 
try writing music with these sounds as part of the atmosphere rather than 
conventional drum noises. Or do something completely different. The important 
thing is to try to expand (hm) your horizons to something new. These sounds of 
Art's do take getting used to, but I think you'll learn a lot from them. Trust me.

PATCHES BY DAVID ZIEGELE-SOLID SOUNDS VOLUME 1 )
($25; $20 to XUG members)
Reviewed by Mike Metlay
     David's patches are available at a reduced cost to XUG members, and he 
informed me that he sent $5 rebate checks to those who'd ordered before the 
discount was announced. This sort of care and conscientiousness is typical of the 
format and programming of Solid Sounds Volume 1, which attempts to cover a 
number of bases in preparation for later sets, which will have more focused ranges 
of sounds.

The tape comes packed with at three-page cover letter explaining how to use and 
optimize certain tricky patches and providing a list of patch groupings and 
controllers enabled for each patch (e.g., Patch 47 has one effect that's controlled 
by either Pressure or lever 2, but Patch 82 uses Velocity for one effect and 
Pressure for another). With few exceptions, LEV 1 and PED 2 are used for bends 
and sustain, but LEV 2 and Pressure are applied to vibrato, filter oscillations, 
tremolo, and other effects. Use of controllers is always logical, subtle, and dear. 
The patches use a lot of subtle LFOs and delayed ENVS, and even get into the use 
of quantized modulation, but eschew long strings of modulation and fancy use of 
Tracking. There are two "teaser" Multi Patches suggesting how to use certain 
sounds; the rest are blanked.
     There are eight groupings of patches, each with its share of good sounds. The 
Plucked/Struck/Bowed sounds use ENVs for transients and negative RAMP 
modulation to remove effects from a sound over time, an interesting application 
that saves ENVS. They have a lot of high end and are all fairly pretty. The Lead 
Voices are quite varied in character and quality, from an uninspired guitar to a 
glorious sound called "Soaring." The Brass Textures are well-done, but whose 
aren't on this box? Keyboards include a weak harsichord, a muddy grand piano, 
excellent pipe organs, and a startling "Moonclav" that goes from weirdly pretty to 
pretty weird with a touch of  PED 2. 
String Textures are easy to do on the Xpander, but Dave provides some 
unexpectedly rich variations here. The best stuff on the tape is at the end: over a 
dozen Percussion sounds from nifty pseudo-tympani to convincing wooden drums 
and electronic toms, several competent Bass Sounds, and several odd noises 
simply called "Effects."
     As I said earlier, I don't believe in spending my own money on other people's 
patches, but with my own predilections set aside I can recommend Dave's patch 
set without reservation. His member discount lets him undersell all other sets on 
the market, and his Solid Sounds are neatly arranged, well-presented, and fun to 
tweak or play AS IS. They're not flashy or outside or involved, just a good set of 
basic (but not always easily programmed) sound types that every working 
synthesist would like to have. In other words, they're... solid!

SOLID SOUNDS, VOLUME TWO 
($30 for $100 patches; $25 to XUG members, $20 to members who ordered 
Volume One) Reviewed by Mike Metlay
     A couple of issues ago, I reviewed Dave's first set of Xpander patches, and was 
very favorably impressed by the quality of the sounds he'd created. The new set 
from Dave explores newer ground, yet doesn't lose sight of the territory charted by 
Dave the first time out.
     The patches come with a neatly arranged data sheet that explains which 
controllers affect each patch. This is vital, as Dave makes good use of Levers, 
Pedals, Velocity, and Pressure (although Pressure is often duplicated by Lever 2 
for people without pressure-sensitive keyboards). He once again provides only a 
very few Multi Patches, preferring to let users "roll their own." The patches are all 
quite expressive in their response to Velocity and Pressure, and Pedal 1 is pressed 
into service on many patches as a sort of "soft knob" for tweaking envelope 
shapes and the like. The sounds are grouped into eight categories, each with its 
own strong and weak points.

The Melody/Lead sounds range from unimpressive electric guitars to startlingly 
beautiful harp-like tones, including an amazing patch called TNKRSOFF whose 
slapback echo is velocity sensitive! The Brass/Reed tones are fairly standard, with 
BAGPIPE being a lot of fun. Dave experiments with Plucked/ Struck sounds next, 
and produces a gamut of odd sounds from utterly unrealistic jazz and classical 
guitars (is my prejudice against imitating guitars with synths showing yet?) to 
remarkable strummed effects and oriental tonalities. The Keyboard/Mallet' 
patches are chiefly notable for a competent electric piano or two and some very 
nice church organs. Once again, Dave's String patches demonstrate that there's no 
such thing as having heard it all where strings are concerned (underwater 
orchestra ?). The Percussion sounds are startling in many cases for their tonal 
creativity, and the Miscellaneous sounds include sound effects that are amazingly 
realistic and a few tones to challenge Art Springer at his weirdest: these two sets 
alone comprise nearly a third of the sounds on the tape, and they're worth its cost 
by themselves. You can balance them against the Basses, which I find uniformly 
ho-hum but fortunately few in number. All in all, Dave hits more "ooohs" than 
"ughs" by a good margin, and makes Solid Sounds Two a very impressive follow-
up to his first effort.

PATCHES BY ALAN ZIPPER (free)
Reviewed by Mike Metlay
     Alan's set of patches came as no surprise at all; perhaps that's the best thing 
one could say about imitative patches, as surprises are usually nasty ones where 
programming the Xpander is concerned. Alan concentrates on imitating acoustic 
sounds, and does so with a range of competency from fair (steel drums) to quite 
good (kalimba). He spends a great deal of time working on the types of sounds 
that one doesn't normally try to get from the Xpander; there are a few good 
brasses, strings and synth pads, but a larger predominance of flutes and 
woodwinds. There are some unconvincing piano patches, and some very good 
accordions and church organs with rich and convincing harmonics. Alan shies 
away from percussive sounds, including only a few tonal ones; ditto for sound 
effects. Perhaps the best sounds on his tape were his "double" patches, which 
combined elements of two distinct instruments (synthesiser and flute, for instance) 
in a single patch, and several harp sounds, with which I was frankly enchanted. I 
ended up spending several minutes just playing long glissandi before realizing I 
was getting sidetracked !
     The patches make use of pitch bend and often drastic VCO vibrato on the 
levers, and that's all. No Pedal use is in evidence. Pressure modulation is used for 
some nice special effects, like VCF swells and VCO detuning. Many patches have 
a sparkling Velocity sensitivity. Use of ENV, RAMP and TRACK pages is subtle 
or nonexistent, usually to tame loud notes in the high registers or to add vibrato. 
Subtlety, here as elsewhere, appears to be the rule, the overused and overdone 
Lever 2 vibrato being the glaring exception. The Multi Patch page has been neatly 
blanked to default value so the end user can create his own Multis.
     All in all, I found this a very competent set of synth standards for which Alan 
probably could get away with asking at least 10 Pounds Sterling, so as a swap 
they're definitely a bargain.

PATCHES BY PETER URBANEK (free)
Reviewed by Mike Metlay

     Peter's patches tend to be organized in sets, with several subtle variations on a 
theme, and named accordingly: VOICE 1.1, VOICE 1.2, etc. It seems that when a 
patch deviates enough from the basic form, he gives it a name of its own and 
groups it after the others of its ilk. For this reason, Peter's patch tape is organized 
quite neatly, making it easy to audition all of a particular type of patch. Heavy use 
is made of both Levers, both Pedals, Pressure, Velocity, and Release Velocity  on 
many patches, for effects ranging from vibrato to ENV shape changes and 
resonant sweeps on note attacks. It should be noted by all that to Peter, "vibrato" 
means everything from triangle-wave warbles to deep noise-wave growls. His 
Multi Patch setups are meaningless: they're left over from the factory patch tape. 
Blanking them would've been nice.
     In contrast to the previous set, the patches here bear little resemblance to the 
sounds after which they're named. Each sound group, like VOICE, STRIN, 
CHURCH, etc., appears to describe the general character of a sound rather  than 
it's true intent. Peter seems to enjoy the "analog synthesis for its own sake" 
approach to programming; he eschews realism in favor of timbre.
 And what timbres-thundering basses, blasting church organs that seem to belong 
to any church I've ever heard of, bizarre sound effects (though not on the level of 
the next tape reviewed) with random LFOS, rich filtered string pads ... all heavily 
overlaid with a grimy analog crunch that threatens to bury the listener. There are a 
few slightly altered factory patches as well, but these have also fallen to Peter's 
grim analog touch.
     In fact, there aren't that many different kinds of sounds on this tape; it has a 
definite "one flavor" feel to it throughout, and that flavor doesn't lend itself to 
realism, so if you're looking for variety or realistic sounds, look elsewhere. But if 
you want to learn exactly why no digital synth can cross an Xpander and live, 
these sounds would be a fine place to start.


PATCHES BY DAVID GILDEN ($45)
Reviewed by Mike Metlay
     Dave Gilden's patch set presents a number of uncomfortable contrasts with the 
other sets reviewed. While there are a fair number of patches here that rank with 
the best of the other sets, the overall format of this set is discouragingly disjointed 
and sloppy. I was so put out by my attempts to find my way through Dave's tape 
that I ended up calling him at home to ascertain whether the tape I'd received had 
been damaged in transit. He assured me that it had not. Dave regards his sound set 
as being still under development, and sells his sounds not as finished products but 
as starting points for the end user's imagination. He's still adding and reorganizing 
his synth's patches, and they're not quite in a finalized form yet; he has no desire 
to delude anyone who might wish to buy his sounds into thinking otherwise. As a 
result, those who purchase his sounds receive a dump from whatever is in his 
Xpander at that stage of development. My own experiences with the set he sent 
me for review were mixed at best.
     On the plus see, Dave's expertise as a synthesist and programmer are evident in 
a number of patches. Random LFOs to simulate "acoustic" character, timbral 
crossfades, supposedly impossible feedback loops, resonant sweeps and echoed 
and delayed ENVs give his best patches a strongly individual stamp that lets the 
user easily ignore the fact that he provides little in the way of direct modulation 
control other than a bit of Velocity and Lever use. Try to imagine a far-off crash 
of thunder that resolves itself into a brassy organ- all in one Single Patch ! He has 
a stronger command of analog synthesis than most keyboardists who claim to be 
professionals at the game, and it shows in his best sounds.
     The problem, turns out to be sifting those few top notch sounds out of the 
digital garbage heap that this set represents. Every synthesist knows what it's like 
to have working sets of patches in his synths, work- in-progress messiness and all, 
so I was frankly shocked to see that Dave had no qualms about dumping and 
mailing out his "scratch pad" to people who send him good money for his work. 
In addition to the dozen or so truly spectacular sounds I've hinted at above, the 
tape he sent me contained duplicated or near-duplicated sets of a number of 
patches with few or no differences among them, utterly different patches with 
identical titles, several dozen sounds labeled only with gibberish symbols, one 
hundred Multi Patches that bore little or no relationship to the Single Patches they 
contained, and-absolutely inexcusably-at least two patches left over from the 
Oberheim factory set.
     I've returned Dave's tape to him; as much as I'd like to examine some of his 
ideas, I'd rather wait until he's ready to offer a professionally presented and fully 
original product. In the meantime, I advise interested readers to contact Dave, per 
his own suggestion, about 
buying smaller sets of entirely original material for considerably less than 45 
dollars.


DRET TECHNOLOGIES XPANDER SOUND SET 
($25 for 100 Patches)
Reviewed by Jan Freier

     After being blown away by the rich voices of the Matrix 12, 1 found that I 
missed having a nice simple piano-like voice to practice those nice simple piano 
pieces. Maybe I should have bought a piano, but eventually I went out and picked 
up a TX7. But, as usual, another problem arises-blending those FM voices with 
the Xpander voicings. What I found was that voices that sounded great on their 
own blended to produce less than the sum of their parts. So someone eventually 
suggested the DRET Technology voices. Now, 20 or 30 of these voices are 
classified as PADS and they really don't sound all that impressive solo, but 
blended with the TX7 FM voices they sound great. Alone, DRET has somehow 
managed to make the magnificent fat sound of the Xpander sound thin, even a 
little weak, but blended with FM it's that synergy we all strive for in our lives and 
music. So does this make sense, or are my old Lafayette Radio monitor speakers 
dropping out so many frequencies my hearing's at a loss to figure it? Anyway, 20 
to 30 of these voices really work well blending in with those FM voices, so I fully 
recommend this tape for anyone experiencing this same problem of blending with 
the FM world. Anyone ready to comment on this phenomenon?
Patches

Rather than typing in the patch listings as they appeared originally in Xpansions, I 
decided that since I had already entered them into the Xpander and saved them via 
sysex, that the readers of Xpansions can take advantage of that effort. You can 
now just download the patches to your XP/M12. The patch files should be 
included with this file. There are three different file formats, to provide a good 
degree of compatibility. Each patch is saved using **same name** as listed for 
each patch below, as well as each  of the following extensions. Each group of 
patches has been zipped with the MSDOS/Windows utility PKZIP 2.04G .

Unisyn Format
filename.UPT

Midi File Sysex Format
filename.MID

Raw Sysex format
filename.SYX


DISASTER 
by Mike Metlay

NOTES:     The VCA 1 Pedal mod acts as a volume control...+4 may not seem 
like much, but wait'll you hear it! Be sure to hold Pedal 2 down for at least 30 to 
45 seconds as you play. If you get impatient, turn Lag Rate down to +53 or so. 
Experiment with touching keys and releasing the Pedal momentarily, once the 
sound gets up steam. Excruciating!

MOTRBIKE 
by Mike Metlay

NOTES:     Program it, turn it up, and let it provide sound effects for you while 
you pretend you're the "Leader of the Pack." Atrocious!

CS80BRAZ 
by Joe McGinty

NOTES: Joe: I was a big fan of the Yamaha CS80's velocity and aftertouch. When 
playing normally, the filter is open. Playing lightly, the filter's closed, but you can 
then lean in and open up the filter to create a 'crescendo' like a true brass section. 
Buzzy and brash.

PINDROP
by Joe McGinty

NOTES: Joe: This is an effort to recreate the sound that starts off Eddie Jobson's 
Theme of Secrets LP. (Who needs a Synclavier?) The notes must be held down 
until the LFO is close to maximum speed." Modular

CAT MOAN 
by Greg DeGrazio

NOTES:     Greg: "At the right octave on the keyboard, this sounds something like 
a cat frequency moaning. Use LEV2 to control the frequency of the moan." Eerie.

TRONICWO 
by Greg DeGrazio

NOTES: Greg: "If you play this patch on the low end you will get a "wo" sound." 
An effective formant patch.

QUIET 
by Bill Belote

NOTES: Bill: Great fun and variation using Pressure and Levers." He also 
suggests 
a MultiPatch consisting of this sound layered in fifths (TRANSPOSE -12 and -5) 
to turn the Single Patch's 5th interval into a 1-5-9 arrangement. "The overtones 
can be intoxicating."

OBERHORN
by Bill Belote

NOTES: Bill: A mellow French horn (sound) with lots of expression in keyboard 
style 
(i.e. velocity, pressure, release velocity). Expressive.


CL. GUIT 
by Marc Van Den Houden

NOTES: Marc wrote no comments on this or any other of his patches, so I'll give 
my impressions in brief. This strikes me as more of a harp sound than a guitar, but 
that could  be influenced by playing technique.

SOFT TCH 
by Marc Van Den Houden

NOTES: This is a vibrato-horn sound with strong velocity sensitivity.

E.VIOLIN
by Marc Van Den Houden

NOTES: A "phasing" string sound, good in high and very low registers.

A SCREAM 
by Marc Van Den Houden

NOTES: This is a surprisingly effective FM percussion sound.

CHOR-EXP 
by Marc Van Den Houden
NOTES: A straightforward organ-stop patch with a "vocal" feel.

SYMPH FM 
by Marc VAN Den Houden

NOTES: A string pad with ringing FM over-tones. As with every patch in this 
collection feel free to tweak it to your own tastes.

ARPEGG
by Dan Barrett

NOTES: Dan: Hold down PED 2 and play a quick arpeggio up the keyboard. 
Listen for a while, as LFO 3 brings out various harmonics at different times. PED 
1 controls overall speed. If you don't have pedals  turn ENV 1 RELEASE to 63. 
Please note that the LFO parameter settings are crucial- if you're even off by 1 
anywhere, the patch will fail. (I spent a lot of time getting the LFO rates to match 
!)
"Note that this patch pushes the limits of what the Xpander's computer can 
handle; the LFO's are actually slowed down by the complexity of the patch ! The 
following is a test to see that the patch sounds correctly: program it, and hold 
down middle C. You should hear a repeating pattern of eight perfect eighth notes 
playing Cl, GI, Cl, G 1, C2, G2, C2, G2.

TDRIPOFF 
by Lionel Cassin

NOTES: Lionel: As you may have guessed by now, this is not so much a patch as 
a schema. The sound itself is rather unsurprising, but you can replace it with 
whatever you like, within obvious limits: extra-long attacks and decays won't do.
XPNDBRSS 
by David Ziegele

NOTES: Dave: This uses LFO 1 modulating VCF FREQ and ENV 3 modulating 
VCO 
FREQ to produce an initial growl and spit on notes. The effect is Velocity 
sensitive. To increase the growl, raise the rate of RAMP 1. To increase the spit 
effect, increase the mod values for ENV 3 on the VCO FREQs or increase the 
ENV 3 Attack or Decay.

THUMBPNO 
by Dave Ziegele

NOTES: Dave: This is an attempt to replicate a kalimba, or African thumb piano: 
a small wooden box with metal strips of varying lengths that are flicked with the 
thumbs. I have added a slight random detuning and Pressure-controlled pitch 
bend, but I honestly don't know if those are characteristics of real thumb pianos.

HARP FLT 
by Alan Zipper

NOTES: This is only one of several excellent harp sound son Alan's tape, an odd 
but effective mix of harp and flute that's beautiful on glissandi. Add a little echo 
or reverb and enjoy !

PATTERN 
by Peter Urbanek

NOTES: This is a throbbing , arpeggiator-pulse type of patch, good for driving 
basslines and harmonies. It's also less heavy than a lot of Peter's other patches.

SPRINGER 
by Arthur Springer

NOTES:  This delightful little sound, number 72 in a set of 100 patches entitled 
"Springer" (I'd complain if they weren't free), brings to mind the last time a swarm 
of mutated locusts attacked my brain. Note that every modulation listed is 
necessary and interlinked, a fact not immediately obvious.

ECHO***2 
by Jeff Bower

NOTES:  Jeff only writes, Mod wheel affects filter timbre. Pressure affects VCA 
2. This is a sort of tremolo patch that allows the player to fade in all six voices via 
pressure even if only one note is held down: the Xpander "remembers" the last 
five notes you've played, and pressure can bring them back. This produces some 
nice effects if used sparingly.

SWEEP 
by Jeff Bower

NOTES:  Jeff writes: This is a good basic filter sweep. Alternate voice panning to 
opposite sides is interesting. Adding FM, modulated or static, creates a nice subtle 
texture change. Hold notes down until sweep ends. This is a wonderfully thick, 
slow filter divebomb of the type I know and love, with nifty tonal variation across 
the keyboard. Yew!

SHAKU 
by Bill Belote

NOTES: Bill says, This requires some skilled LEV 2 technique to simulate 
breathy vibratos, or in high ranges to gently add some wind noise. I found the 
setting of LEV 2 to be awfully sensitive at first; try it at lower modulation values 
first.

SONAR 
by Lionel Cassin

NOTES: I got this deceptively simple looking patch from Lionel during my visit 
to Philadelphia last summer. He asked me to run it in this issue, but didn't send 
any commentary. So I'll give a bit of my own: do you know what it's like when 
your girl friend the enchanted princess sets you a task to win her hand and she 
tosses her ring into the lake and you dive in to get it and while you're under water 
the unicorn that enchants your kingdom gets its horn chopped off by a goblin and 
the lake surface instantaneously turns to a thick sheet office just as you're coming 
up for air? Boy, I know I do. I saw it in "Legend," a lousy Tom Cruise movie with 
a great Tangerine Dream soundtrack. They probably did this sound with an 
Emulator, but it sounds better on an Xpander: press and quickly release various 
chords at opposite ends of the keyboard for best effect.

CLAVINET 
by Ted Greenwald

NOTES: Ted: Pedal 2 is wired up to act as a guitar-style whammy bar. If you 
want to make it a sustain pedal, you'll have to modulate the release of ENV 3 to 
+63, as well as those of ENV 1 and ENV 2 more moderately. Eliminating ENV 3 
and  detuning VCO 2 can result in a better overall clav sound, but with out the 
satisfying  thunk when you release a key. Ted's patch originally had VCO 1 page 
as OOXO rather than OXOO. I believe it was a typo; try it yourself if you're 
curious.

JUNGLYAK 
by George Hagegeorge

NOTES: This patch came from George with his application, and so wasn't written 
in a standard format. The patch as given is what was left after I trimmed off all of 
the pages that didn't seem to do anything  (there were about nine of those).

METALWKS
by David Diggs 

NOTES:  Dave: This is my attempt to duplicate the Emulator sound of pipes. It 
worked well enough to be used on my last album. Yes, VCO 2 is off, Dave 
assured me; it's used for FM only. Waveforms don't matter, the XOOX was left 
over from a previous patch.

DIRTBASS 
by David Diggs

NOTES: Dave: This is a punchy R&B type of bass sound. It really drives in Multi
unison mode with a bit of detune. Detune is a Multi Patch option that Matrix 12s 
have,
but that Xpanders don't ... (grump)....

DOMORGAN 
by Mathias Ebert

NOTES: Mathias: REL of ENV 2 is reverb of the dome; 34 is a very big hall. It 
sounds like the church organ where I learned to play keyboards. This patch,  I'm 
afraid, is also a victim of a sloppily documented patch sheet. I chose to remove 
the four pages those values didn't affect the sound before printing it.

VOICE815 
by Peter Urbanek

NOTES:  Peter: This sound is sensible to pressure; try to modify VCF FREQ mod 
by another KEYBD /-40. Also interesting is to tune both VCO FREQs to 0." 
Gritty.

WHIP5TH 
by David Ziegele

NOTES: Dave: This is a fairly standard brass patch, with a few exceptions. 
TRACK 1, with an input from RAMP 1, modulates the initial pitch of both 
oscillators (one negatively and one positively, and the patches end up a 4th apart. 
LFO mods of VCO and VCF FREQs are out of phase, producing a 'rolling' feel as 
notes sustain.

STHORROR
by IBFM (Matthias Ebert's Xpander Patch)

No Description

HRDFLUTE
by IBFM

No Description

NR-DRUM
by Dan Barrett

NOTES:  Dan writes," Here's a snare drum patch I've created. Lever 1 bends 
pitch, and Lever 2 controls the tightness of the snare head. Note that velocity 
controls not only volume and brightness, but also raises the snare's pitch just 
slightly for more realism.
Try some drum rolls using all five fingers of one hand on adjacent keys.
APPROACH
by Bob Vandiver

NOTES: For simulating that THX theme audible in a theater near you.

MELTDOWN
by Bob Vandiver

NOTES: A good one to play with the filter mode, etc. For those cliched analogue 
sweeps. Made about the time Chernobyl blew up.

SHIMMERZ
by Bob Vandiver

NOTES: This is a pad not unlike MELOCOMP which I find useful.
Shimmers, get it ?

DIGICHIM
by Glenn Workman

No decscription

REZCHIM
by Glenn Workman

NOTES : Enter DIGICHIM first, and store it. REZCHIM is a slight modification 
of DIGICHIM, so you just need to enter the changes, and store it separately. The 
difference in the resonance from 62 to 63 adds the clangorous effect. REZCHIM 
has an echo with a completely different tone than the root pitch. Lever 2 increases 
or removes the echo effect.

REEDY
by Philippe Marais

NOTES: Philippe writes, This is a new patch at it's starting point (presumably in 
it's development) with VCO 2 synced to VCO 1 and FM on VCO 1 to create the 
feedback loop as told in issue #3." Note that Philippe didn't use a standard 
notation for the lower Pg. 2 envelope settings, and so Adam had to guess at what 
Philippe meant. (this also holds for the two other patches by Philippe.)  Please be 
careful when submitting patches!

SBRZFLT1 
by Philippe Marais

NOTES: Philippe writes, "This one is still evolving. I use it in stereo Multi 
Patches. Try it with different effects; it sometimes sounds violinish. I love sounds 
with noise, and my only complaint about the M12 and Xp is that they have no 
separate noise volume.

UPER S2
by Philippe Marais

NOTES: Philippe writes, "I realize that the first two patches are "instrument-like", 
for playing melodic lines. I submit this third one: you just play one chord, listen to 
the music, and change one finger, then another one, etc., and find your way 
through. Use the low and middle part of the keyboard, and note the patch is 
release velocity sensitive."

ECHO REL 
by Robin Van Duzee

NOTES: Robin writes, "This is a pretty straight forward echo with more after 
release"

FALL OUT 
by Robin Van Duzee, based on a patch by David Ziegele.

NOTES: Robin writes, "This patch is a takeoff on a patch by David Ziegele called 
STEARNS. You can find STEARNS in Vol. Three of David's Solid Sounds patch 
collections. Thanks, Dave, for the idea; they say imitation is the sincerest form of 
flattery. 
I hope so."
GLIDING
by Robin Van Duzee

NOTES: Robin: "The LFOs and Tracking Generator 2 run this gliding phase 
patch."

ESCAPE
by Eric Rehl

NOTES: Eric writes, "My patch is something I came across while trying to 
transfer some of my favorite patches from my Roland MKS-8O Super Jupiters, 
not always possible because of the extra sync mode the Roland makes available. 
It's actually a fairly simple patch; some obvious alterations would be keyboard 
scaling on envelope times, velocity sensitivity, and the direction and/or length of 
the pitch sweep. I use it in a Multi patch with plenty of unison detuning (sorry 
Xpander users!)." (GRUMP !)

SAMPLE
by Pieter Meij

NOTES:  Pieter writes: "This patch and the next were designed for the Matrix-12 
keyboard, so if you use another controller you may have to tweak the velocity 
settings just a little bit. The "sample" patch is make for the lower three octaves. 
Making the envelope attacks faster and increasing some of the tracking parameters 
and shortening envelope decays will produce a more top 40 like sound."

HARMONCA 
by Pieter Meij

NOTES: Pieter notes, "The harmonica sound: maybe you like raising envelope 1 
attack to +/-30 and modulating this attack with a negative velocity of +/-53. "I'm 
not sure what Pieter means by that, precisely; perhaps +30 vs. -53 or -30 vs. +53 
per the user's preference? Anyway, experiment, and you can fine tune this patch to 
your own needs.

ELLEN
by Joe McGinty 

NOTES:  Joe calls this "A simple mellow patch that will make you a New Age 
star overnight."

SYNCSIN 
by Joe McGinty

NOTES: Joe writes, "This isn't really finished, but it's quite annoying and quite 
fun if you like playing with harmonics. If you don't have plus and minus 
modulation on your Lever 2 (as the M12 does), you may want to use Lever 1 
instead. By the way,  this won' t be in tune; I tried making it in tune, and it seemed 
to lose some nastiness."
MONKEYS
by John Riesenman

NOTES: John writes, "Many of the components are subtle, so tweak to suit your 
ears. VCO 1 adds a guttural components LEV 2 varies the relative rates of chatter 
and adds interest to the multiple vocalizations. Add reverb."

FULHORNS 
by John Riesenman

NOTES: John says, "Adjust modulation amount of ENV 3 on VCO 1 FREQ to 
achieve a perfect fifth on maximum setting. LEV 1 modulates filter brightness. 
PED 1 slows the attack. PED 2 sustains. Try changing PED 2 amount modulating 
ENV 3 RELEASE to -20 for pitch glide from perfect fifth to unison when keys 
are released. You'll need a MIDI controller that has Levers without return-to-zero 
springs, unlike Oberheim designs."
OBERPAD
by George Tucker

NOTES: George writes, "All of my sounds presuppose the existence of some sort 
of guitar sound as the foundation. I NEVER take the guitar audio out of the synth/ 
guitar mix. I don't have levers or pedals, so normal modulation routings for 
keyboardists don't necessarily appear here. For sustain I modulate the release of 
envelope 2 with a ramp 
(as an example). Keyboard users may want to change this they may want to put 
one or more LFOs on Levers or whatever."

FMSHRIEK 
by Michael Metlay

NOTES: This is another sound effect from my chamber of horrors; it's set to 
always
drone on when selected, and you may wish to figure out some way of gating it on 
and off. Other modifications include removing the Lever 1 modulations from the 
VCOS, or adding FREERUN envelope modulation to VCO 2's frequency. As it 
stands now, the levers and pedals interact in many interesting ways, and the sound 
changes character depending on where each of the four controllers is set. I use a 
switch for Pedal 2, but a rocker pedal would also be interesting. One warning, 
though: don't use this patch with headphones. It'll shred your drivers and make 
your eardrums bleed. FUN!



51



