ALESIS ANDROMEDA A6 - Manual (Page 109)

Chapter 5: Oscillators and Filters
A NDROMEDA A6 R EFERENCE M ANUAL 107
VCO M ODULATION
ENV 1 AMOUNT, OSC 2 FM and NZEXT
Of major importance in many synthesizer sounds is the ability to modulate the
VCOs. The A6 provides each oscillator with several pre-routed and three custom
modulations. We’ll cover the pre-routed mods accessible from the
VIEW page first:
ENV1 AMOUNT , OSC 2 FM (found in Osc 1 only) and NZEXT (Noise/External).
DISPLAY
PAGE
PANEL LABEL
PARAMETER
DISPLAY OPTIONS
or RANGE DESCRIPTION
ENV1 OSC 1, OSC 2
Button + 2 LEDs
ENABLE OFF, ON This parameter is used to turn the selected
modulation on or off.
OFFSET -100 ··· +100 This parameter sets the offset for the selected
modulation level.
ENV 1 AMOUNT LEVEL -100 ··· +100 This parameter sets the amount of modulation
that will affect the selected VCO’s frequency.
Keep in mind that negative values invert the
action of the selected source. For example, if
Velocity is the source and a negative value for
LEVEL is used, playing harder will lower the
VCO’s pitch.
LIVE OFF, ON This makes the front panel control ENV 1
AMOUNT active (“live”) for either oscillator.
The soft knobs still work but the LIVE
parameter allows control from the single front
panel knob.
Using the ENV 1 AMOUNT Page
This page is displayed when you turn the ENV 1 AMOUNT knob on OSC 2 or enter the
page by pressing soft button 3 ( ENV 1 tab) from either VCO’s main display page.
This may appear to be a little confusing a first, but just keep in mind that there’s one
ENV1 page that applies to both oscillators and three ways to get there: turn the ENV 1
AMOUNT knob, press soft button 3 from OSC 1 ’s main display page or press soft button
3 from OSC 2 ’s main display page.
So the first thing that you’ll notice about this page is that it contains ENV 1 AMOUNT
parameters for both VCOs. Because each VCO has its own set of parameters (the four
on the left of the display are for OSC 1 , four on the right are for OSC 2 ), you can set
them independently.
The ENV 1 AMOUNT knob – shown on the ENV1 Page as the LEVEL parameter on the
display – controls the amplitude of ENV 1 (PITCH) as a mod source modulating the
frequency of OSC 1 , OSC 2 or both as destinations.
Pressing the button adjacent to the ENV 1 AMOUNT knob rotates among four
possibilities: the first press routes ENV 1 to OSC 1 only, a second press routes ENV 1 to
OSC 2 only, a third press activates both VCOs as ENV 1 mod destinations, and a fourth
press turns ENV 1 off as a mod source to the VCOs. The LEDs indicate which VCO is
selected as a destination.