User Manual

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Press the Voice button
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to open the Voice Menu, which comprises three pages. In
addition to selecting polyphonic or mono voicing, the menu also lets you set how Glide
operates and other related voicing parameters.
VOICE 1/3
Unison 1 h
UniDeTune 25
UniSpread 0
VOICE 2/3
PreGlide +0 h
Mode Poly
PatchLevel 64
VOICE 3/3
FltPostDrv 0 h
FltDiverge 0
Unison
Displayed as: Unison
Initial value: 1
Range of adjustment: 1, 2, 3, 4, 8
Unison can be used to “thicken” the sound by assigning additional voices (up to eight
in total) for each note. Be aware that the “reservoir” of voices is finite and with multiple
voices assigned, Peak’s polyphonic capability may be reduced. With four voices per note,
only two notes may be played together fully polyphonically, and if further notes are played,
“voice stealing” is implemented and the first note played will be cancelled. With Unison
set to 8, Peak becomes a multi-voice monophonic synth.
If the limitation on polyphony imposed by Unison Voices is restrictive and
the oscillators are set to Sawtooth, a similar effect can be obtained by
using the SawDense and DenseDet parameters in the Oscillator
Menu. (In fact, some of the factory patches use this technique.)
SawDense and DenseDet have no impact on the polyphony.
Voice DeTune
Displayed as: U niD eTu n e
Initial value: 25
Range of adjustment: 0 to 127
Unison Detune is only effective when Unison is set to something other than 1. The
parameter determines how much each voice is detuned relative to the others; detuning is
generally desirable as adding additional “identical” voices has much less effect.
Voice panning
Displayed as: UniSpread
Initial value: 0
Range of adjustment: 0 to 127
UniSpread gives you a method of controlling how the separate voices are positioned
in the stereo image. With UniSpread set to zero, all voices are centrally panned,
effectively providing a mono image. As the value of UniSpread is increased, multiple
voices are panned increasingly left and right – odd-numbered voices to the left and even
to the right.
Fully Left Fully Right
centre
unison voice 4 unison voice 3
unison voice 2 unison voice 1
Stereo image placement diagram for 4 voice unison with UniSpread set mid way
Stereo image placement diagram for 4 voice unison with UniSpread increased
Fully Left Fully Right
centre
unison voice 4 unison voice 3
unison voice 2
unison voice 1
Note that UniSpread is still effective even with unison voices set to zero: in this case,
a single note played is positioned centrally in the stereo image, while playing multiple
notes results in left or right panning, depending whether the voice in use is odd- or
even-numbered. When used like this, best results are obtained with moderate amounts of
UniSpread.
Pre-Glide
Displayed as: PreGlide
Initial value: Off
Range of adjustment: Off, -12 to +12
If set to a value other than zero, Pre-Glide takes priority over Glide, though it does use the
setting of Glide’s Time control
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to determine its duration. Note that Glide must also
be On
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for Pre-Glide to work. PreGlide is calibrated in semitones, and each note
played will actually begin on a chromatically-related note up to an octave above (value =
+12) or below (value = -12) the note corresponding to the key pressed, and glide towards
the ‘target’ note. This differs from Glide in that, e.g., two notes played in sequence will each
have their own Pre-Glide, related to the notes played, and there will be no glide ‘between’
the notes.
Although the use of Glide is not recommended in Poly modes when
playing more than one note at a time, this restriction does not apply to
Pre-Glide, which can be very effective with full chords.