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Hardware | Concepts | Quickstart | Menu structure | Software
Quickstart - I wanna play!
(see concepts page for a description of Wave, Tone and Patch)
Sample a sound
Make the audio and MIDI connections.
Check the input signal:
- Go to MODE > UTIL
- Go to
MENU > Wave Scope
- Start (left mouse)
- Make record volume adjustments
- Stop
(left mouse) and Exit (right mouse)
Make the settings:
- Go to
MENU > Sampling
- Source: select a Tone first (use left/right mouse or SUB MENU to choose one of the 32 tone numbers)
- black: Tone, red: sub-Tone
- Wave Bank: A or B (these are actually 2 different memory chips on the motherboard inside)
- Frequency: 30 or 15 KHz (15 KHz doubles the sampling time)
- Time (you have to preselect the sampling time in fixed steps (memory blocks)
- Orig Key (C4 is middle C, S-330 cannot play notes higher than 2 octaves above Orig Key)
- Start sampling Threshold (move the little arrow below Level)
- Pre-Trigger (start sampling .. ms earlier)
Arm the sampler:
- press COM (COMMAND),
-
any previous Wave data or Tone Params is deleted at this point, whatever was present:
- empty space
- (black) Wave data + Tone Params (including Sub-Tone Params using this Wave in another slot!)
- (red) Sub-Tone Parameters of some Wave
- also, the memory is defragmented, that's why the sampler says "Working"
Start sampling! (right mouse - cancel!)
- left click on:
- Auto = start sampling when Threshold is crossed (incl. Pre-Trigger)
- Manual = start immediately (incl. Pre-Trigger)
- Previous = mark the end point of the sample, save the data until the click!
After sampling the screen shows the Wave, organised in the chosen Wave Bank (don't move the mouse yet!):
- blue: shows already present Wave data in memory Bank (all the different Waves show as one blue Wave Block)
- red: just sampled!
- green: still free memory
Wave editing (destructive)
UTIL menu:
- Truncate
- Mix
- Combine
- Digital Filter
- Wave Loop (incl. "automatic loop smoothing")
- Wave Draw (need mouse)
EDIT menu:
- Delete a Wave (Tone)
- Copy/Move a Wave (Tone)
- Display Wave (display the different Waves in memory Bank A or B)
Tone Params
EDIT menu:
- Tone PRM (starting point)
- Loop
- LFO
- TVF (need mouse)
-
TVA (need mouse)
- Tone Map (sort of a quick edit)
Quite self explanatory when you are familiar with analog synthesizers, just regard the sample as a VCO.
Sub Tone
When you want to do real thrifty memory management, you can re-use a previously sampled Wave, in stead of sampling new Wave Data + Tone Parameters.
Just do the following:
-
navigate to an empty/unused Tone number,
- choose the number of the Original Tone.
That's it. This way, you actually only select the Wave Data of the Original Tone, nothing more. You can have your way with entirely new Tone Parameters, like a new Name, Pitch Follow on/off. Heck, you can even select totally different Looping points and Filters! This way you can battle the unusable "slack data" (the empty remaining data in a memory segment) that is part of usually every one of the Waves. You can create as many Sub Tones from an Original Tone as you like.
Creating Patches
EDIT menu:
- Patch PRM (starting point)
- Split
- Patch Map
Patch PRM
(p.100) The S-330 is "16 voice polyphonic", so there are 16 separate (software) "Modules" that play a Tone. Every next key you press, gets played by a free Module, so the previous Tone can fade out in it's own time, without being cut off by the next note you play. Well, that would actually make the S-330 monophonic.
This also means, that when you select "Unison", "X-Fade" or "V-Mix" as Key Mode, it uses 2 Modules to play the Tone. In other words, it eats 2 Modules for every note you play with this specific Key Mode setting.
You do not assign a Tone to the Patch Parameters yet, or even a Tone to a MIDI Key or to a Key range, which feels a kinda backwards and in wrong order, but nevertheless. First set the Patch parameters:
These are the Patch Parameters:
- Key Mode (Normal, Unison [+detune], Velocity Switch [+thresh], Vel Cross Fade, Vel Mix [+ratio])
- Key Assign (Rotary or Fix)
- Pitch Bend Range
- Aftertouch Assign (Modulation, Volume, Bend Up or Down, Sensitivity)
- Octave Shift (from -2 to +2)
- Output Jack Assignment (nr. 1 to nr. 8) or follow the settings in the Tone Parameters
- Level (127 is normal)
- Name (of course!)
Assign the Tone to a MIDI Key
Split
(p.105) This is the place where you (finally!!) make a connection between the Patch and the MIDI Keyboard by assigning Tones. You can choose any of the 32 Tones from the list and assign them to any keyboard key. Every MIDI Note (Key) can have a different Tone, which can be handy for drum Patches.
The reason why you're already able to play Tone T01 on the whole keyboard, is because by default T01 is assigned to all the keys in every Patch. But we are going to change that.
Note: for percussion Tones (kick, snare, hihat), you usually would set the Pitch Follow to "Off" (using Tone PRM), for melody instruments set it to "On" (think about it).
Steps for assigning Tones:
1
- set Type Select to "1st" ("Off" assigns silence to a MIDI Key).
2
- select a Tone for the 1st Tone (see the list on the screen from T11 to T48)
3 - hit a MIDI Key (or a few MIDI Keys) to assign the selected Tone to the MIDI Key(s)
4 - choose another Tone for the 1st Tone
5 - hit another MIDI Key
6 - repeat step 4 and 5 until finished.
- finished? Set Type Select back to "Info", so you cannot assign a MIDI key by mistake.
- loads of mistakes? Start over by clicking COM > Init Page
If you have set the Key Mode (in the Patch PRM) to "Velocity Switch", "Vel Cross Fade" or "Vel Mix", you also have to assign the 2nd Tone. The 1st/2nd Tone concept depends solely on velocity (key pressure) changes. See the table below for Key Mode settings (italics), and the effect on Polyphony cost and whether you have to set both Tones, or only the first.
| Polyphony cost: | 1 Module | 2 Modules |
| Uses 1st Tone only: | Normal | Unison |
| Uses 1st and 2nd Tone: | Velocity Switch | Vel Cross Fade, Vel Mix |
On page 105 you see the Patch Name is "E.Piano". But the composer is setting the "Kick" for the 1st Tone. Also, the listed Tones nearly all contain percussion sounds, judged by their names. Makes me curious how this "E.Piano" would sound.
Saving your work
The fastest and laziest way to save your work is dump the current state of the S-330 to a 720KB floppy disk.
- Go to MODE > DISK > Save > Save Set