User Manual

Voltage Controlled Amplier

Dave Smith Instruments

Voltage Controlled Amplier

After passing through the lter stages, the signal goes into an analog

voltage controlled amplier or VCA. The VCA has a dedicated, ve-

stage envelope generator. (See Low-Pass Filter on page 18 for an

illustrated example of an envelope generator.) There is a control for

modulating the envelope amount using keyboard velocity, as well as a

control for left/right spread of the voices in the stereo eld.

Envelope Amount: 0...127—Sets the amount of modulation

from the amplier envelope to the VCA. See the following item,

VelocityEnvelope Amount, for information about setting a program’s

velocity sensitivity.

VelocityEnvelope Amount: 0...127—It’s very easy to misunderstand

what this control does. It enables keyboard velocity to modulate the

VCA Envelope Amount. What it does not do is use keyboard velocity to

directly control the VCA.

To create a program in which velocity controls the VCA, turn VCA

Envelope Amount down and turn VelocityEnvelope Amount up.

To achieve the best results, it may be necessary to set an initial level

using Envelope Amount. Just remember that once Envelope Amount

is set to the maximum, no modulation from velocity—or any other

source—will cause it to go higher than that.

Program Volume: 0...127— Sets the volume of the current program to

match volumes between programs.

Note: There is enough gain in the synth voice that, with some

settings, some mild clipping distortion may be heard. If this happens,

try lowering the Program Volume, and/or the VCa enVeloPe

amount (or VCa VeloCity enV amount).

Pan Spread: 0...127—Pans the audio in the stereo eld individually

per voice. Set to 0, all voices are panned to the center. As Pan Spread

is turned up, the audio in each voice is gradually moved away from the

center by different amounts. Every other voice goes in a different direc-

tion, left or right. This creates a broader stereo eld while playing. Any

modulation to Pan will individually move each voice from its position as

set by Pan Spread.