FS1R Voices and DX7

-
As an FS1R user, you probably know this already:
  • There are 1408 voices in ROM.
  • They're split over 11 banks (A - K), with 128 voices each.

ROM

From the outside, all of these voices are just "voices". 
But did you know that they're not all stored in the same way in ROM?

  • 2 banks (A, B) are stored as native FS1R voices (608 bytes each). 
    • The same as the bulk dump format, but without sysex header/footer. 
    • That's 152KB for 256 voices.

  • 9 banks (C - K) are stored in native DX7 VCED format (155 bytes each). 
    • This is the format that a real DX7 can emit/consume directly.
    • That's 174KB for 1152 voices.



  • Most voices are stored in DX7 format. 
  • The FS1R converts these on the fly when you select a voice.
  • When you do a bulk-dump, you get a converted patch.
  • The FS1R also accepts these DX7 VCED patches via MIDI.
  • The FS1R also accepts DX7 ACED via MIDI. 
    • ACED is an extension to VCED, adding stuff like pitch envelop scaling.
    • Note that there is no ACED in the FS1R ROM. Banks C-K only contain the basic VCED.


The bad

Storing some voices in DX7 format has a disadvantage: 
These voices don't fully use the FS1R's capabilities. 
  • Missing VCED:
    • AMS
    • PEG pitch range, vel switch, rate scaling
  • Missing FS1R-specific:
    • Only 6 operators are used
      • Voiced operator 7 and 8 are always off.
      • Unvoiced operators are completely unused.
    • These voices only use sine waves (no odd/res1/fmt, etc.)
    • No FSEQ, no filter, no filter EG, no controller assignment
    • Only DX7 algorithms are used (32 out of 88).
    • Only one LFO instead of two is used
    • Etc.

The good

  • Storing in a compact format allowed many more patches to be stuffed into the ROM

  • Having a DX7 --> FS1R converter built in to the machine is awesome.
    • It makes the machine accept DX7 patches via MIDI. 
      • So you can use any editor. You can even edit FS1R voices using DEXED, for some basic editing of envelopes for example.
      • Thousands of DX7 patches are freely available on the internet, and you can all load them instantly.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FS1R Formant Shaping, Part 1: Human speech

-
Image
Introduction I'll help you get a deeper understanding of Formant Shaping on the FS1R, split over multiple posts.  I'll start with some background, and then dive deeper into the technical aspects. Communication via audio Animals Many animals can make sounds: " bark ", " oink ", " tweet ", and " ssssss ".  It usually just means: " I'm here! " Some can alter their calls. A dog can bark softly or loudly, to express the difference between: " I don't really appreciate this " and " I'll tear you up! ".  Some animals can pack even more information. Birds produce a whistle-like sound that can be varied in both pitch and loudness quickly. Human speech We can do what birds to, to a certain extent: blow air from our longs and vary the pitch.   Birds outsing us on the technique of producing a single frequency that varies over time.  But we've developed something truly awesome on top of that technique. We g...
Read more

FS1R Formant Shaping, Part 2: Human formants and terms

-
Image
  What is a formant anyway? To truly understand the FS1R, you need some background information, and you need to understand some of the terminology. Let's follow the journey that air makes when you speak. When you speak, you blow air out of your lungs.  When you close your  vocal cords  a bit, the air makes causes vibrations.  The more you open the folds: the more distance they need to cross to open/close the longer it takes to flap back and forth the lower the frequency that the chords will flap the lower the tone it produces for humans, this flapping happens about 100 to 300 times per second (100-300Hz) Yamaha calls this the  Fundamental Frequency This rhythmic oscillation produces a somewhat boring "buzzing" kind of sound. The buzz consists of short bursts of sound that are rich with overtones. Each burst fades out when the vocal folds close On the way out, the air passes your throat, tongue, checks, lips, nose and teeth.  By moving those strategical...
Read more