" . [figF-I-‘-ti; _| "| " '4 | T | -| ile- The independent New Magazine for Ensonlq User! Personullzlng Your KT-76 or KT-B8 Robby Herman I-‘ersonalixing Your KT-To or KT-B8 Robby Berrrtan .................................... cover rather than as inert and foreign devices Ensoniq Clinic Dates ................................. 3 of metal, plastic and silicon. Have you ‘Wavetable Wrangling on the SQ,il{S,+'KTs Jefilettan .................................................. 5 tailored your KT-To or KT-88 to your way of doing things yet? While we don't TS-lfli12 CD-ROM Compatibility — Part H Anthony Ferrara ........................................ 6 get to change the display colors, there Lightshieltl for Ensoniq Keyboards are a host of other useful options En- Mike Knit ................................................... ‘I soniq offers to make your KT feel like TS Hackerpatch ‘Winner home. Let’s discuss them. Sam Mime ................................................ .. DP Stuff — Either Reverbs Just so we‘re all experiencing the same Ray Legniai .............................................. ID thing, press the Select Sound button. Loop Modulation for the EPSIASR You may have to press Bank a few times Jack Schiejfer .......................................... 13 until there’s a dinky “r” in the upper Sampler Hackerpatch: Industrial Bass left-hand comer of the display. Now Tarn Shear . ............................................... 14 Yesterday I got a new waveform editor press the button above the 0 and then the Optimizing Your Synthesizer Palette for my Mac. It’s a beautifully fu.nction- button below the 4 to select ROM Sound Pat Fin.-e:'gan ............................................ 15 ing program -- great new features and D4, Big Money Pad. (You want to make SQIKSIKT Sounds: Trumpets no crashes so far. Thumbs up. And like big money, don’t you? Sure, we all do.). Mark Clifiaa .......................................... .. 16 many modern software programs, it al- lows me to customise my work environ- The doorway to customizing your KT Bargain Hassrnent - 3.1.8 Bass CD ment by letting me choose the colors for workspace is the next button press: the Robby Herman ......................................... 11 the sound waves, backgrounds, even the System*lvl]I)I button. Morpheus-Chicken Sample Set horixontalivertical data axes, displayed Steve Vincent . .......................................... 21 before me in all their now-gaudy Don't Look at Me Music Business Questions techno-glory. Honestly, I think I spent Jeflrey Fisher ........................................... 22 more time adjusting hues than actually Press the button below the U. working yesterday. I’ve settled, for now, on a sort of Southwestern earth-tones The first option we see is the one called Hypersoniq ................................................ Random Notes . ........................................ .. motif. "Tune." Obviously, one of the great Current E13. ............................................ things about synths like the KT is that Transoniq-Net ............................................ II-.1‘-"“l--‘I All kidding aside, this ability to cus- they're always in tune; while the rest of Hacker Reinitialixation SQHCSIKT Progranmting -— Part II tomixe one's electronic workspace is a your band is arguing over who's sharp Clark Salisbury ................................... IE great thing. It allows our machines to and who's flat, you get to stare off Classifieds‘I- ............................................... 24 function more comfortably, more dreamily into space looking for all the The Interface ............................................ 25 naturally, as extensions of otu' selves, world as if you’re having really deep Hacker Booteeq ..................................... .. 31 C___ . .. - --n. I I ll _ _' |-. "'1 l— i-_n_| H I | thoughts. But suppose it's just you and the autoharp player parameter; obviously (well, maybe not) "P’l"ble" stands for with 36 unruly strings who agree with each other but not the "Pitch Table." The KTs are shipped from the factory using rest of the world, tuning-wise. Or how about 36 unruly string standard modern Westem Civ 12-tone equal temperament players, for that matter. With the Tune parameter, you get to timing; Ensoniq's in lvlalvern, Malvem's in Pennsylvania, be the big person. By selecting Tune and tweaking it up or Pennsylvania's in the United States, and that's how we hear down, you earn the right to act superior (for veritable mo- things around here. Or there. Some of us. The KTs, however, mentsl]. are capable of much more. The keys on the keyboard are just buttons, really; they can be programmed to do many things, Getting (Pleasantly) Bent among them, to play notes that are tuned differently. Turn to Page 22 in your Musician's Manual for a rather shocking list "End" refers to the Pitch Bend Wheel, the one furthest away of all the different tunings you can get your keyboard to play. from your torso, over there on the left. The most common set- ting is 2 — that's how the KT was set when you purchased it Yikes. Hanging with the Westem thing for a mo more — if — for two semitones of pitch-bend up or down. But you can you want to hear something closer to what Bach intended, set it to as many as twelve semitones either way (that's an oc- dial in ‘EFALLOTTI-C and play some of the composer's work. tave, Vem). Give it a try. That's how keyboards were timed in his day. But you can get way more out there than that. Tunings from all around the Even more interesting are the 1H to 12H values you'll dis- world, from many of its cultures, are available to you. Avante cover once you pass plain-old-12. These are the telltale signs ye maties, there are even some tunings here devised by com- of a seriously cool (read: important] feature that Ensoniq posers Harry Partch and Wendy Carlos. Try some out, and synths have offered since all the way back in the SQ-80, with don't be uptight, expecting your Westem playing habits to the exception of a few early versions of the ‘JFK. Wlien you produce music that immediately sounds "right." After all, it's set Bnd to values followed by an "H," only the notes you've not unlikely that you're about to create melodies you've actually got your fingers on will bend; notes that are sustain- never even imagined before — this can be a really ing won't. For example, set End to 1H. Play a major triad (C, mind-opening experience. The key is to listen to where the E and G, Vern) on the keyboard, press the sustain pedal different tunings take your ears, rather than trying to impose before letting go, and then, while holding on to the middle familiar order and structure upon them. You don't have to use note, let go of the outer two. While still holding the sustain Big Money Pad, by the way. Any sound will do. pedal down, push the Pitch Bend wheel forward. See‘? Only the note you're still holding bends: the others stay put. Nice, Next time we'll move ftuther into the soon-to-be-comfy huh? Though requiring a little practice, this technique allows world of KT System*MlDI. - you to do some really beautiful things. It's also quite useful in simulating pedal steel guitars, sitars and other bendy in- struments, real and imagined. Bio: Robby Berrnan is a musician living amongst the num- rningbirris and pines in New York's Hudson Vaiiey. His latest Stepping Up to the Tables aibarn is the double-greener, "Rings and Rings." Certainly the most exotic option on this display is the P‘Tble HYPE RSON I Q New Product Announcements Syntaur Productions has just released some of the first and Speer set about developing additional sounds that aftermarket sounds to be created for the KT-‘I6 and KT-BB Syntaur could offer as a compliment to the factory synthesizers. KT Set l‘, a set of 80 patches available on patches. Syntaur's KT Set I is available for $29.95 on either PCMCIA card or SysEx disk in a variety of for- PCMCIA card, and for $39.95 on disk. For further infor- mats, offers a wide range of animated pads and aggresive mation and a complete catalog of sotmds, contact: Syntaur transwave patches, as well as a good assortment of key- Productions, 54-02 W. 43rd St., Houston, TX ‘H092, board, orchestral, bass, and synth sounds. Sam Mints and phone: 713-682-1960 or SUE}-334-1233. Todd Speer, two of Syntaur's programmers, worked with Ensoniq to create many of the factory ROM sounds for the KT-T6. Once the keyboard was in production, lvlims RND(au) for loading eTH into MSWorks 3.0 in Issue #123 Interface. The number of columns should be set to two, of course. Specifi- cally, in Format :- Colunms, set Number-of-colurmts = 2, Ensonlq Announcements Space-between = .3 cm (0.l2"), and Line-between = off. Clinic time! Come join Ensoniq at the following locations (see list below) for news about new products and sounds, and some Speaking of the interface... It seems like Ensoniq must be helpful interaction with your local Ensoniq District Sales doing such a wonderful job that our number of letters has been Manager. dropping off. Hey — don't forget that the interface is also for Hacker News hints, tips, opinions, new instrument development requests, third-party requests, article requests, whatever. (And, of course, John Allen tells us there was a minor error in his instructions also gripes.) 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