Labels:text | screenshot | font OCR: AM/FM AM/FM PRESENTS: 14 BRAND NEW SOUNDS FOR ENSONIQ SQ-1, SQ-2, SQ-R, SQ=R+ BY BJ+RN A. LYNNE Yep. If you're an SQ-owner, this is your lucky day, because today you will be able to play around with 14 brand new, _excellent sounds for your SQ-synth. The sounds are all stored on this AM/FM disk, and all you have to do is send them to your synth. I will try to explain in detail how to send the sounds into your synth and store them there. These sounds are a selection of my own library of sounds that I've put together myself, and some Transoniq Hacker "Hacker-patches" which are released from the Transoniq Hacker as Public Domain. I have also added a little personal touch to some of these "Hacker-patches". Ok, here's how to use them: First of all, locate the sound files, which are stored in a directory called "SQ-Sounds" on this disk. Next, unpack them from Powerpacker format to normal files by using Powerpacker or the little "decrunch" utility stored in the c-directory on this disk. You should save the new, unpacked files to another disk or your harddisk. Each of these should be 415 bytes long. Now, you need a SysEx transmission program for your Amiga. There are plenty of these around, some of them are for specific synths, and some of them are generic ones which will work fine with most synths which does not require any special "handshaking" etc. Your Ensoniq SQ-1, SQ-2, SQ-R or SQ-R+ will quite happily accept SysEx data sent in a "straightforward" format, so you can use any little SysEx program that you wish. I recommend that you use the program simply called "SysEx", which was featured on AM/FM Magazine Disk #8. If you don't have it, you may also use the program "MIDICom" which was featured on AM/FM Magazine Disk #7. First, make sure your SQ's "Base Channel" is set to 16. You can set this under the "System" button. Then hook up your Amiga to the SQ with a MIDI cable going from "Out" on your Amiga to "In" on your SQ. Run the SysEx program, and make sure this program is also set to Channel 16. This is the default, so if you don't mess with it, it will be set to 16. Now it is simply a matter of selecting "Transmit Sound" from the pull-down menu on the Amiga, locating the sound you want to send, and off it goes! Your SQ will now have the new sound in it's Edit Buffer, and you must save it to one of the INT positions. Make sure you don't overwrite any sounds that you don't have anywhere else, ok? Note that you _must use channel 16 as the Base Channel when you send these sounds to your synth, because this is the channel that was used when the -sounds were sent from the SQ and into the Amiga. One should think that it doesn't matter which Base Channel you use, as long as the SysEx program is set to the same channel as the SQ, but for some strange reason, this must be the same channel as the SQ was set to when the sounds were sent from the synth. So use channel 16 as your Base Channel while you're transmitting these sounds. If you normally use another Base Channel, you can set it back to your own preferred channel afterwards. Here's a list of the sounds provided, including a short description for each of them: Roland Drums Perhaps the most important and useful of all the sounds here is this reproduction I've made of the Standard Roland Drum Map! As we all know, most MIDI files come with this drum-map set up, and it's a hell of a job to reconstruct the drum track for these tunes. Luckily, the SQ was made so smart that it can in fact emulate any old drum-map, it just needs to know where the various drum sounds are located! So I used a couple of hours and made a Roland drum-map - it goes into the INT sound bank like any other sound. QuickStringAhh This is in fact the first ever sound I made on the SQ. I once had a Roland U-110 with a couple of sound cards, and one of the sounds I used _all_ the time was "JPString" - a light, airy string with a quite fast attack - it was perfect for filling in chords in the background. "QuickStringAhh" is my new favourite, it's a blend of light strings and vocal ensemble, which works good as background fill for any kind of music. Planetarium For a piece I was converting from the Amiga to synths, I needed a sound just like this - a slow sinewave with a "greater than life" feel to it. I didn't know too much about programming the SQ at the time, but decided to give it a go anyway. To my surprise, it was real easy! Programming sounds on this piece of extremely advanced synthesizer wasn't so hard afterall! (PS: The song I was converting from Amiga-only to Amiga+Synths was "Cyberlife-1" from AM/FM Special Disk #4. Cluster Flute I was fooling around envelopes more or less randomly, when I wonderfully dusty and metallic flute sound. other sound I've ever heard. Goes to show what you can come over more by accident if you just play around with the parameters on the SQ. one of my new favourite sounds, and I've already used it in a song which will appear on my next CD. with some preset sounds, changing the waveforms and suddenly found myself making a Great for solos, and unlike any less This is RAI's Sound "Rai's Sound" is a patch that will make any New-Ager jump with understated joy. If you're interested in dream-world backings and silver smooth pads, this is THE one. "Rai's Sound" is a near-perfect blend of ensemble pad and solo-like sinewave. SQ Rhodes Mark Clifton: This is my own version of a Rhodes electric piano – and isn't meant to be an exact copy. The sound itself is pretty standard except that it fades into a soft choral pad. This SQ Rhodes has a much brighter sound that many other Rhodes entries. Couple that with the addition of a vocal pad and we're left with a patch probably best suited for New Age and soundtrack work. Oboe (Hacker-Oboe) This is one of the best orchestral patches I've heard for the SQ. "Oboe" has a live, rounded timbre and is about as close as you're going to get to the real thing. In fact, it sounds more realistic than the full-sampled oboe I'm using for comparison. Be sure not to use the sound too far off the "reasonable" scale for an Oboe. Quest 02 Quest 02 is a nice pad for the space-minded composer. I use it all the time! It does very well as the backdrop for some serious galaxy hopping. This patch doesn't just settle for subtle either. It's rather a nice update on those B movie spacescapes so popular in the '60s and early '70s. Also Quest 02 isn't shy about being a little cheezy courtesy of the Formant-X wave used in Voice 2. Pianette This is a voice-economic alternative to the full Dynamic Grand Piano on the SQ-2 and SQ-R Plus, the versions that contain the MegaPiano 16-bit piano waveforms. It will not work on an ordinary SQ-1 or SQ-R, I'm afraid. This piano uses just one voice, which means you can stuff lots of piano into your song along with chords, bass, drums, etc. etc. without getting into mo-more-voices trouble. The Dynamic Grand Piano, on the other hand, uses 3 voices for each key played. Even though "Pianette" manages with just 1 voice, it still sounds darn good! Space Battle Any further description of this sound shouldn't be necessary. It makes heavy use of the SQ's Waveform Mutilation possibilities. Ok, so it isn't exactly practical, but it's a lot of fun. Better keep the volume down to a reasonable level when trying out this sound though! Gretchen's Question Jeffrey Rhoads: Gretchen is a lovely lade who asks serious questions in a playful way. Hence this patch - a lilting soprano rises above darker, more ominous strings. Gretchen's Question is a combination of Soprano Sax (something not found in the SQ's ROM or current SC collections) and Strings. Breath Soul Age, "Breath" was originally a sort of entry-level vocal pad, nice for use on New Soundtracks etc. However, we gave it a kick by tweaking some parameters and adding a bit of badly needed soul. Hence: "Breath Soul". We made a slight pitch fall at key release, then we boosted the Chorus in the Effects section. Lastly, we added a touch of tremolo and vibrato. Martian KrybX or Atmospheric nightmareish sound here - I can't quite make up my mind as to whether not it sounds Oriental - but there's something there... I like this one! 2-Phazed T-Wave You're going to have to twists this! feel it It look for a while to find a cooler lead sound than and bends, squirms and tweaks, and sometimes you can more than hear it! The sound is made so that only one key can play at a time; something which works wonderfully when using it to play solos. Try it out! Note! The Effect setting is an important part of the sound - don't mess it up. Phew! That's it. If any of you have made your own sounds for the Ensoniq SQ-series, please send them in to AM/FM, so we can share them with others! This also goes for all other synthesizers, of course! Please include a few words of description for each sound/patch. the sounds above were originally found in "Transoniq Hacker". Some of Bjᵒrn A. Lynne AM/FM [Ed] AM/FM
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