Elektron Sidstation - Manual (Page 14)

SIDSTATION
Owners Manual
14
By adjusting the BaseCh value you set the MIDI channel which is monitoring incoming MIDI
data. If your connected MIDI equipment sends note data to your SidStation on channel 1, you
must set the base channel to 1. Any other data on channels 2-16 is ignored. The MIDI thru port
echoes all incoming data.
The SYSEXDump switch controls the system exclusive (SYSEX) patch dump functions. It is
easy to make a backup of your patches in your SidStation to a computer sequencer or a MIDI
data recorder. See section “SYSEX patch transfers” for more information.
Synchronisation menu (Sync)
The Sync sub-menu controls how the SidStation is being updated.
Sourc sets the source for the update frequency. There are three choices:
• Patch - the update frequency and HCut settings are taken from the local patch settings.
• Globl - the global settings for Speed and HCut found at the right of this screen are used for
all patches.
• ExtCl - the update speed is locked to external MIDI clock (when available). HCut setting is
taken from the global value found to the right on this screen.
When locked to an external clock, the SidStation makes 48 updates per quarter note (2 updates
per MIDI clock). This can be used to time various parts of the SidStation to the external beat.
The arpeggiators, square LFO, sample & hold LFO and oscillator delay are obvious targets for
such timings. But actually all sound updating parts of the SidStation (except for the VCA
envelope will be locked to the external clock. See small table below for various note signatures:
Desired note length Speed value
½ 96
¼ 48
1/8 24
1/16 12
1/32 6
1/64 3
If the clock source is set to “Globl” then the Speed parameter sets the timing. The timing of the
SidStation arpeggiator (as well as all other functions in the SidStation) is then directly derived
from the Speed parameter. A speed value is given in the unit Hertz, which is how many times
per second the sound settings are updated. A value of 100 means that the sound parameters
are updated 100 times per second, and an arpeggiator speed value of 20 would mean that the
arpeggiator is updated 5 times per second.
The “Hard cut” HCut parameter controls a function that compensates for a bug in the envelopes
of the 6581 sound chip. When a new note is triggered, the first few milliseconds of the envelope
sometimes are left out. This means that the notes played sometimes suffer from a slightly bad
timing. With the HCut setting you can choose to force the oscillators to keep silent for a certain
amount of time when a new note is triggered. With a setting high enough the envelope bug will
not be noticed. However, this function will make the SidStation to react more slowly to new
notes (often referred to as “lag”), so this function may not be appreciated in all situations. But
when working with a sequencer this is no problem as you can program the sequencer to send
notes to the SidStation a certain time in advance. The time the envelope will be kept quiet can
be calculated from the following formula: Time = HCut/speed (s)