By tuning the suboscillators in the V-Synth to a musical value like a third or a fifth (or seventh, sixth, etc.) you can create 4-voice chords that can be triggered with one finger. Great for those typical house and d&b progressions. To tune the suboscillators you need to use the "Fat" parameter. Since there is no readout in real-world values for the tuning of the sub-oscillators, you need to rely on your ears to tune them to an appropiate interval.

If you want to recreate the distrinct sound of the 303, you have to know a couple tricks that will make your patch sound like a real TB bass line.

First off, you need an analogue wave similar to that of the original TB. Basically, it's a square wave, but with a slightly wider pulse width. I suggest to use the "LA Square" wave, and set Pulse Width to 8-10.

Then, of course you need to set COSM1 to "TB Filter". Set Cutoff to 0, Resonance to 50-80, and create an envelope for Cutoff (A=12-14, D=35, S=0, R=35) with depth of +30-40. Note the short filter attack: it recreated the original "duck" type envelope of the real 303.

You may add a slight attack (A=12-14) to the TVA envelope to make the sound smoother. Route this patch to "Guitar Multi" MFX to make it sound like a TB with an analogue overdrive pedal.

With it's semi-modular architecture the V-Synth allows the user to create all kinds of hybrid synthesizers by combining different building blocks. Take two sine wave oscillators and combine them with FM to mimic a classic DX7 and run the result through the TB Filter to create a DX-303 or a TB-7. Or combine an LA Waveform with a PCM wave that is using VariPhrase for a 21st century version of the D-50.

In order to make your V-Synth patches sound closer to real analogue synthesisers, you need to set all available LFOs to (subtly) randomly modulate sound's parameters. If some of the LFOs in your patch are already occupied, just use the rest. In order to archieve the best results of parameter randomisation, be sure to set the rates of LFOs to different values. Simply use random LFOs with rates of 50-70 and modulation depths of around +/- 8-12.

Despite that there is only one LFO per synthesis block (OSC, COSM, TVA), you can route the same LFO with several parameters with different depth values (positive/negative). For example, set OSC1(2) LFO pitch depth to +10 and formant (fat) depth to -8, then set COSM1(2) parameter 1 depth to +12 and parameter 2 depth to -10.

You'll be amazed how much more lifeful your patches will sound. Not only this method can be applied to VA patches, but to any sounds that need some more life in them.

The nice feature of the time trip function is that no matter how and for how long you mangle the sample, when you stop using the time trip (e.g. release the TTP or the D-beams), if the tempo sync is on, the sample will keep on playing with the beat - it instantly restarts from the proper time. This way you can scratch the sample or freezee it at certain moments, adding various cool effects to it, and you'll never loose the beat - and this makes this tool truly amazing.

In addition, if you switch the legato playback on, you can freeze the sample at some point, and play the freeze buzz legato like a synth wave, and then release it to return to the original sample loop - this makes adding interesting ad-libs to the loop using the time-frozen parts of the loop itself.

By using the direct output wired to the line input, and layering two patches, you can send one patch to the external OSC of another, and virtually multiply the V-Synth's possibilities by two.

Create a patch, and, using the Effects screen, send it to the direct output; save this patch. Then create another patch with one of the OSCs set to external and save it. Now layer these patches (e.g. in MODE -> Setup -> MIDI -> Part MIDI set them both to MIDI channel 1) and you will have patch 1 routed to the external OSC input of patch 2.

This way, you will virtually have a monsterous modular synth that boasts 26 envelopes, 10 LFOs, 3 multi-mode oscillators and two modulators!

Using a combination of the "envelope ring" modulator and a side-band filter, it is possible to make te V-Synth turn your drum loops into buzzy rhythmic vocoder-like sounds.

All you need is choose a saw wave for OSC1, then pick up a drum loop for OSC2 and set it's playback mode to legato so you can change chords continuously. Choose "envelope ring" for the modulator, which will make the saw wave's (OSC1) level be modulated by the drum loop (OSC2). Now add a bit of life to this sound by turning on COSM1 and setting it to a side-band filter with a width of 30-40. This way the sound gets more "robotic", and very alike with that you'd create using a real vocoder. Play some chords, change them smoothly (legato) and hear what a magic pulsating sound you got.

You can set the COSM2 to Dual Filter (BPF/BPF) and tweak it a bit to add a more distinct character to the sound. Set a tempo-sync'd LFO to modulate both filters' cutoffs and your vocoded loop will "talk".

In the main tab of the OSC 1 and 2 you can see that it is possible to switch the TimeTrip function of the oscillators off. Here are some wonderful applications of this powerful feature which seems too simple at the start.

Assign a drum loop to OSC 1 and a phrase loop (e.g. a bassline) to OSC 2, then make sure they play in sync. Switch the TimeTrip function for OSC 2 off. Now press and hold a key, and scratch the TTP. The phrase loop plays normally while you can add various reverses, effects and scratched by mangling the drum loop - and since the V-Synth will always keep these samples in sync you will get very cool music out of it with just two loops.

Now try mixing two different synchronised drum loops, one with TTP on and other with TTP off. When working with the TimeTrip Pad, remember that you can freeze the sample, and perform these freezes by fast tapping/hitting it, creating "frozen" buzzy ad-libs. This is a very good method for creating new complex grooves.

One of the most remarquable interest of V-Synth lies in its ability to stretch one sample across the whole keyboard range with a higher realism compared to any other conventional sampler (we are not talking about multi-split samples here). When a sample is encoded using the "Solo" algorithm, one can add further realism by programming a formant key-follow (e.g Formant KF=+50 and possibly correct the overall tonal balance using the global Formant parameter). Formant key-follow acts as a kind of physical modelling, modifying the shape of the vocal tract to make it fit the frequency range one wants to played: a male singer sample with an original pitch of C2 can't be transposed up to G4 convincingly, even on a V-Synth (just as the male singer can't sing a G4 in real life!!!), unless one modifies the vocal tract accordingly (the Formant parameter), turning it into a female or child vocal tract for example.

That's what Formant Key-Follow does automatically, increasing the formants on higher keys, decreasing the formants on the lower range. And it not only works for vocal samples, but for a wide range of monadic acoustic instruements: here, Formant KF can be used to emulate a change of the instrument shape itself, turning a larger body (alto) to a smaller one (soprano) for example. And this works as a wonder for wind and brass instruments, as well as plucked strings (sometimes).

Load a drum/percussion loop wav file into V-Synth, encode it with the Backing algorithm and make sure to set the encoding threshold properly to ensure that all individual sounds have been detected.

Then, start programming a patch with the following settings (starting from INIT PATCH): OSC1: PCM, make sure you select the imported loop, turn the playback mode to EVENT and assign pitch key follow to +0. You then can access each individual sound through each key: instead of a drum loop, you get a drum kit (and you can use the arpeggiator to trigger new rhythm and sounds).

But, the fun really begins when you use VariPhrase to turn this drum kit into life: for example, try to assign time control to velocity (time=+10, time offset=ZERO, env. depth=+63, velocity curve=1, velocity sens=+63) and pitch to aftertouch (through the matrix control). Then you get an incredible kit where each "slice" that has been assigned to each key starts having it's own life: the softer you play, the longer the sounds become, the harder, the shorter (you can emulate muted congas with success) and you can use aftertouch with one finger to control the pitch of a sound triggered by another finger (great for congas as well).

And if you are interested in noise/industrial kits, just leave time offset=ZERO with no other velocity sensitivity. It is really worth a try!

By setting up different zones with a different combination of COSM filters for each zone and external audio as the source for each zone you can create all kinds of cool realtime filtering effects by simply pressing the keys for the different zones to switch between a high resonant LPF to a HPF that is modulated by an LFO to a side-band filter etc.

When the audio is coming from an external MIDI-sync'd source, you can sync the LFOs and delay effects in the V-Synth so everything is happening under one groove. On top of that you can use the arpeggiator to travel through the different zones. You can create all kinds of impossible filter sequences using this approach.

Resample the result and use it as a new waveform that can be time-stretched and pitched after encoding.

OS 1.x waveform set contains "attack" and "sustain" menu waveforms. Ever wondered what these are good for? After all they all play the same pitch. Not if you activate the robot. Then all the waves will be tuned to the actual key that they are on. Now use the time functions to stretch the attacks into full soundscapes or squeeze the sustains until they sound like short attacks. Or combine the attacks and the sustains by using two PCM oscillators. Anyway you will get a patch that sounds different on every key.

The side-band filters will take out all the non-harmonic content from a waveform and leave only the harmonics of the fundamental frequency (corresponding to the key played) intact. If you use it on the white noise waveform in the analog oscillator section you can create all kinds of interesting attacks and sustains. Check the patch called Dreadnought in the Howard Scarr collection to see what it can do. In this patch the side-band-filtered white noise is used to create the overtones of a steel string guitar. Combined with the PCM sample of a nylon guitar it makes a very realistic-sounding guitar patch. Try changing the length of the noise burst for variations.