From UTF-8 Sent Thu, Dec 20th 2018, 23:20
From UTF-8 Sent Thu, Dec 20th 2018, 23:20
As I just mentioned in the CS30L-post, I bought a CS30L and was shocked to find out it doesn't sound like a Yamaha CS20M at all, although the CS30L sounds cool in other ways and has all those super possibilities. And I had already promised to sell my Yamaha CS20M to my brother to fund the CS30L. I mean for example, when you crank up the resonance and use a single oscillator, the CS20M has that certain characteristic CS20M tone, the resonance really "colours" the sound, it's like the band of frequencies affected by the resonance is wider than on other synths. It sounds squelchy where the CS30L sounds "whooshy". Can't describe it better :) (I do admit that perhaps my CS30L needs calibration and maintenance, but I doubt that could explain the difference completely and the CS30L still sounds good in other ways). Well, I was pondering all this and saw an add for a Yamaha CS40M. I thought about buying it for two minutes and now I'm the happy new owner of that synth. And yeehaaa, there we have "that" sound! Man what a nice sounding synth. There really is certain fatness in the sound of the CS40M, it's really characterful and can't really get those sounds out of the CS30L. Of course the CS30L sounds great and is awesome too, but I feel I approach synthesis in a completely different way with each of those synths. The duophony of the CS40M is surprisingly useful and fun. It works so that it alternates the two voices as you play, unless you play the same key, which simply triggers the same sound again. And it's true two-voice polyphony, it's not paraphonic. And here are my questions: -What is the difference between the two sustain modes, I and II (which I'll now refer to as modes 1 and 2)? I mean mode 1 works like any polysynth, I mean if I first depress a key, then depress another while releasing the first one, I'll hear the first sound decaying away, just like any polysynth would do it. However, mode 2 works so that when I release the first key and depress the next, the first sound will jump to the pitch of the new key and then decay away. Thus, for a moment, there's this unison effect which decays away. I don't think this is terribly useful at all. I wonder if my synth's mode 2 isn't working properly? What should it really do? -There's one thing the CS40M can't do which the CS20M could do: play single oscillator monophonic sounds. I mean on the CS20M I could program a single oscillator bass sound which has release on both of the envelopes. Any new notes, of course, cut the previous sound. If I try this on the CS40M, it gets muddy as the new note doesn't cut the old sound due to the duophony. I can of course turn on the unison mode, but then I get the unison of two voices, with two oscillators phasing, which isn't what I want. I figured out I could set the synth to the unison mode and then insert a dummy plug to the trigger input of one of the voices, to turn it permanently off. But this turns one of the voices permanently on. According to the schematics, a positive trigger voltage turns a voice off. So what would be the simplest way to achieve what I want? A dummy cable with a nine volt battery providing the voltage or what? Of course controlling the CS40M with the keyboard of the CS30L would be one quick solution, but ideally I'd want to do it without the CS30L. Any help would be much appreciated, and would love to hear your comments and opinions on my observations and on these synths in general! Cheers, Antti