Synths Without Onboard Editing pt.1

In the late 80's & early 90's, synthesizer UI experiences changed for the worse - in the eyes of most synth fans, that is! I'm perfectly happy with a stark, menu-driven display full of numbers, but even I will admit that certain instruments could benefit from meaningful visual cues, perhaps a few knobs & sliders?

Editing sounds on computer became a common sight in contemporary studios, so therefore, a few manufacturers decided to nix the controls altogether! Consumer-grade MIDI sound modules often followed this minimalist approach, offering comparable sounds to bigger, fully-editable units. So today we'll take a look at a few examples:

Evolution EVS-1

There are 20 members in the EVS-1 group on Facebook, so it's fair to say Evolution's box isn't fondly remembered. Sure, there's no onboard editing, 10 user patches (the other 90 are presets!), frequent crashes and a bank of PCM drums to complete the EVS-1's "my first toy sound module" reputation.

But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's well worth the effort! Hook it up to your Windows PC (or Atari ST if you have one) and delight in features like:

• 4 Operator FM synthesis that's slightly more lofi than a TX81z
• AM synthesis
• A choice of 32 waveforms (some complex) per oscillator
• Waveshaping
• Width Modulation
• Vocal Synthesis
• Feedback
• 4 Envelopes
• 2 LFO's
• A freakin' mod matrix!

Well worth the 90-or-so quid they go for, in my eyes.

Korg AG-10

Korg's 1992 AG-10 is an oddball. I imagine, upon seeing the praise garnered towards Roland's Soundcanvas line, Korg thought "we'll have a piece of that!" and hastily chucked 4MB of sounds (and an M1 sound engine) in a little beige box.

It's supposed to be a General Midi module, but there's a neat little Windows editor (still available on archive.org) which let's you get at the raw building blocks. There's no back up battery, so get used to that editor! On the surface, it's hardly a deep or exciting synth engine - some basic ROMpler waveforms, a basic lowpass filter, amplifier and LFO's and that would be it, if it weren't for an eccentric genius who left a breadcrumb trail of clues!

Sealed's Deep Synthesis, a now-defunct website hosted on wayback machine, is responsible for 90% of my synth purchases! Sealed had a great knowledge for weird and wonderful digital/hybrid synths and offered mp3 demos alongside his thoughts on each model.

Whilst feeding erroneous sysex values into the machine, he made a great discovery:

• I found some hidden waveforms, using a new editor. A new interesting waveform modulation - I call it ILM (Interactive Loop Modulation) - is possible by using the hidden waves.
• Various bits of samples are played back at random. It sounds like digital noise made by 'Jam loops', circuit-bending, ring modulation, aliasing and OSC-to-OSC crosstalk.
• Sample start point and the pitch parameters add unexpected effects.
• ILM works as if OSC1 modulates OSC2, and vice versa. As AG-10 seems to scratch the loop points affected by the other OSC settings, I call it Interactive Loop Modulation.
• ILM sounds like Roland D-50 / D-110, Ensoniq VFX / SQ-R and Emu Morpheus. Also Roland D-70's DLM (Differential Loop Modulation) - noisy granular loop scratching - may be related.

Unfortunately - the custom Sound Diver editor he created was not captured by wayback machine, so I've had to fumble around with MidiOX to work out the sysex map, then insert rogue values. I've just managed to make my first ungodly jam-loop howl, so watch this space. More un-editable synth fun next time!

Posted by MagicalSynthAdventure an expert in synthesis technology from last Century and Amiga enthusiast.

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