RADIAS tips and tricks

[KevHammer]

If you set the filters to parallel and turn the resonance of one of them all the way up with keytracking at 1.00 it becomes an additional sine wave oscillator. Tune it with the cutoff knob. The only thing is that it doesn't get filtered, which can be cool depending on what you're making.

[KevHammer]

This trick builds off my last post. You can do additive synthesis on the radias! If you set both oscillators to sine wave, set the amp wave shaping to sine sub osc, and run the filters in parallel with filter 1 on bypass and filter 2 on lpf with the res all the way up and keytracking at 1.00 then you have 4 sinewaves to work with per timber, 16 per patch.
The catch is that for each timber 2 of the sinewaves will always be at octaves from eachother, but octaves are very common in the harmonic series so it shouldn't be too big of a problem. Another issue is that while each timber has 4 sine waves to work with, you only get 3 envelopes for controlling the volumes, but you can use motion sequencing to control the volume too, so it shouldn't be a huge problem. I've got some additive sounds on my k2000 that I'll try to emulate and see how it goes. Hopefully I'll be able to make some realistic marimba and vibraphone sounds to share!

[KevHammer]

Pulse Width Modulation
Lots of the Radias reviews I've read have complained that you can't do pulse width modulation on it, but that's not true. Like my old JX-8P, there is no control for pulse width, however it does let you do sync modulation on any of the wave forms, not just saw wave. So if you set oscillator 2 to square wave, turn down the volume of oscillator 1, and turn on sync modulation, you can then modulate the pulse width of oscillator 2 by modulating its pitch with an LFO.

[slammah2012]

Or you could just set osc one to square wave using OSC MOD on Waveform....and use the 2 control dials below to modify pulse width...

[X-Trade]

Pulse Width Modulation
Lots of the Radias reviews I've read have complained that you can't do pulse width modulation on it, but that's not true. Like my old JX-8P, there is no control for pulse width, however it does let you do sync modulation on any of the wave forms, not just saw wave. So if you set oscillator 2 to square wave, turn down the volume of oscillator 1, and turn on sync modulation, you can then modulate the pulse width of oscillator 2 by modulating its pitch with an LFO.

yeah, on OSC1, the waveform mod parameters are for pulse width (knob 1), and LFO1>Pulse Width (knob 2).

its only OSC2 that you can't do pulse width modulation on directly. although I like your idea there. but then that ties up oscillator 1 too.

[KevHammer]

Pulse Width Modulation
Lots of the Radias reviews I've read have complained that you can't do pulse width modulation on it, but that's not true. Like my old JX-8P, there is no control for pulse width, however it does let you do sync modulation on any of the wave forms, not just saw wave. So if you set oscillator 2 to square wave, turn down the volume of oscillator 1, and turn on sync modulation, you can then modulate the pulse width of oscillator 2 by modulating its pitch with an LFO.

yeah, on OSC1, the waveform mod parameters are for pulse width (knob 1), and LFO1>Pulse Width (knob 2).

its only OSC2 that you can't do pulse width modulation on directly. although I like your idea there. but then that ties up oscillator 1 too.

Wow, I didn't realize you could do that. So if you do both, you could have both oscillators doing pulse width modulation at the same time with differents lfos. You wouldn't be able to detune them from each other since sync is being used, but they could be at different pulse widths to still make the sound more complex.
I'm going to mess around with this today. And I'll probably throw in a subosc square wave too just to be drowning in pulse wave goodness!

[slammah2012]

and this pulse width on osc 1 is not just for square wave either.....you can adjust the widths on saw tri and sine.....and for noise....well...that is how I discovered the 3rd set of filters for noise....

[KevHammer]

Here's one that came up in another topic, so I figured I'd put it here. You can't turn off keytracking for an oscillator, but you can cancel it out by setting a modulation from keytracking to oscillator pitch set to -1.00
This way you can have osc 2 set to a low droning pitch that stays the same as you play a melody with osc 1
For more fun you could set up a square wave lfo to change the pitch of osc 2 by an octave. Set the lfo not to sync to key and you'll have a bass line to solo over.
To take it further, you can set the release on the amp env to the max setting, then use env 3 to put a more reasonable release on osc 1 by controlling the mixer. That way the bass line will keep going when you're not playing osc 1.
To take it even further, you could have a saw lfo controlling the noise mixer to make a snare sound playing along.
If osc 1 is a square wave and osc 2 is a triangle wave, it should start to sound a lot like an old NES game. Maybe put a decimator effect on it to bring it all down to 8 bit.

[KevHammer]

Correction to the last post, osc 2 pitch should be modulated by -48, not -1.00

[CasaNovaCaine]

You can do additive synthesis on the radias! If you set both oscillators to sine wave, set the amp wave shaping to sine sub osc, and run the filters in parallel with filter 1 on bypass and filter 2 on lpf with the res all the way up and keytracking at 1.00 then you have 4 sinewaves to work with per timber, 16 per patch.

I can't seem to get the hang of the 4th sine wave coming from the parallel filters. Is this supposed to be self-oscillating? I've achieved some nice results already with using just the other three sine waves per timbre, but I'm greedy for more to use. Can you clarify even further how to make these parallel filters produce an additional sine wave? Or maybe it is being produced and I can't hear it clearly...

[X-Trade]

You can do additive synthesis on the radias! If you set both oscillators to sine wave, set the amp wave shaping to sine sub osc, and run the filters in parallel with filter 1 on bypass and filter 2 on lpf with the res all the way up and keytracking at 1.00 then you have 4 sinewaves to work with per timber, 16 per patch.

I can't seem to get the hang of the 4th sine wave coming from the parallel filters. Is this supposed to be self-oscillating? I've achieved some nice results already with using just the other three sine waves per timbre, but I'm greedy for more to use. Can you clarify even further how to make these parallel filters produce an additional sine wave? Or maybe it is being produced and I can't hear it clearly...

The fourth sine wave is from the waveshaper sinewave sub osc, level controlled by the 'depth' control.

Filter 1 is set to 'thru' mode so that you can hear OSC1 and 2, so there won't be any resonance effect to cause it to self-oscillate.

filter 2 will need pitch tracking set to 1.00 and resonance set to 127, then you can tune it with the cutoff knob. BUT you can't change the level of that one, can you? :/

[Tablehorn]

There is an easy way to control the attack time with velocity.

Example:

Set the EG2ATTACK to 100 and EG2RELEASE to 80. Now go to the PATCHMATRIX P1 for example and set SOURCE to VELOCITY, destination to EG2ATTACK and INTENSITY to -52. Do the same with the RELEASE time. Try different settings for INTENSITY. It depends on your personal playing style.

You can now control the attack and release by velocity. Very handy for strings. If you play soft, you get a slow attack and release. If you play fast, you get faster attack and release.
This lil trick is also good for modulating resonant bass-sounds, or playing flutes or the like.

[T-Verse]

You can select panning on the Audio inputs.

Then set up 2 timbres on 2 different midi channels, and you have dual midi-ed mono inputs each passing through their own filters and dual FX.

You still have 2 timbres for Radias patches (or layer on the FX)

I've been multi-ing sends from my patch bay (for wet/dry) into the Radias and have been liking the filter(s) + FX on other synths.

[bobborries]

Voice Card Trick

In the old days, a polyphonic synthesizer was 4 or more mono synths tied together. Each note played, would use a separate synth sequentially, one after another. Because each synth was a little out of tune, it sounded very rich. Here's how to create the same effect on the Radias.



Set LFO1 to Sample & Hold
Set LFO1's frequency to the lowest setting
Set LFO1 to key sync Voice.

Use Patch1 to configure LFO1 to pitch at about +10
Use Patch2 to configure LFO1 to pan around +32
Use Patch3 to configure LFO1 to Filter1 cutoff at +10

The Sample & Hold will produce a different random amount for each key pressed. The Pitch, Filter and Pan will be slightly out-of-tune for each note played, just like an old school synth. Try higher settings for spastic drunken madness or crazy sound effects.

Vintage Waveforms



Stick to the simple waveforms, since most analog synths only had these to choose from, but to really sound vintage process the waveforms with a high-pass filter.

Set the filter routing to Serial

Set Filter1's balance to HPF
Set Filter1 to keyboard track at 1.0
Set Filter1's cutoff to where you just begin to hear the bass drop out
Make sure Filter1's resonance is low

Set Filter2 to Lowpass (12db) and use this filter for your sound sculpting




By emulating the waveshapes of an Arp-2600 and Mini-Moog you have a better start at mimicking the classics.

[slammah2012]

Voice Card Trick

In the old days, a polyphonic synthesizer was 4 or more mono synths tied together. Each note played, would use a separate synth sequentially, one after another. Because each synth was a little out of tune, it sounded very rich. Here's how to create the same effect on the Radias.



Set LFO1 to Sample & Hold
Set LFO1's frequency to the lowest setting
Set LFO1 to key sync Voice.

Use Patch1 to configure LFO1 to pitch at about +10
Use Patch2 to configure LFO1 to pan around +32
Use Patch3 to configure LFO1 to Filter1 cutoff at +10

The Sample & Hold will produce a different random amount for each key pressed. The Pitch, Filter and Pan will be slightly out-of-tune for each note played, just like an old school synth. Try higher settings for spastic drunken madness or crazy sound effects.

Vintage Waveforms



Stick to the simple waveforms, since most analog synths only had these to choose from, but to really sound vintage process the waveforms with a high-pass filter.

Set the filter routing to Serial

Set Filter1's balance to HPF
Set Filter1 to keyboard track at 1.0
Set Filter1's cutoff to where you just begin to hear the bass drop out
Make sure Filter1's resonance is low

Set Filter2 to Lowpass (12db) and use this filter for your sound sculpting




By emulating the waveshapes of an Arp-2600 and Mini-Moog you have a better start at mimicking the classics.

Isnt this already a feature on the Radias?....
Im sure there is an analog tuning drift feature which spreads the oscillators out (setting 000-127)

manual...page 81....reference P-05/ AnalgTun

"3: AnalgTun (Analog Tune) [000…127]
By adding a slight randomness to the pitch of each note
as it is played, this lets you simulate the pitch instability
and oscillator “drift” that was characteristic of analog
synthesizers. Higher settings will produce greater variations
in pitch."