Here's the crude sound I have built on the saw preset in Motif XF and adjusting the LFO to be close enough to act as an FEG.

There's other finer details I would want to tweak - but the general idea is there. Certainly the filter "EG"-by-LFO part is working fine.

Although this was recorded from a mono connection (I don't normally have it hooked up) to a Motif XF -- the Motif is completely representative of what MODX could do since the architecture is highly leveraged and there's nothing used (including the samples) that isn't inside MODX.

I've got the "real" FEGs set to a depth of 0 to disable them rather than flat-lining them to a level of 0.

EDIT: also available online for who knows how long here:

http://sndup.net/qmyw

(if you'd prefer not to download attachments and play online instead)

I just tried it. It works. I just need to improve my User Wave design.

I have built an Attack/Release type wave, I have Key On Reset = Each On and Loop = Off, so it gives me a 1-Shot LFO.

I got close using 8 Steps, but think I'll try the full 16 Steps next, to get the Attack/Release gradients better matched.

Cheers!!

During the era of this song, and a bit of time either side, there was a significant point-of-difference flavoured set of endeavours around dynamically playing synths, that's somewhat been lost since. This can explain a lot of the things you hear in songs of the time. Watch the right hand in this video, modulating the envelope in realtime, for an example of this sort of thing and what it can do, for the next 30 seconds or so...

https://youtu.be/OC_g_hDGTcM?list=PLfRh37c5lvivcJIo4HZY-GHWSJCw_XB26&t=555

@Andrew... I am becoming more aware of that kind of stuff since getting a Hydrasynth. It's not 100% Knob Per Function, but it's closer than Workstation type Synths (MODX included).

Tragically, the Filter/Portamento relationship on the Hydrasynth is bugged (ASM are well aware), so I thought I'd give it a crack on the MODX7. I have been pleasantly surprised with the results.

I have suspected the "Da Funk" is real-time manipulated, because the Attack gradient seems to change depending on which part of the Riff os being played. Later on in the song it's almost certainly a case of "playing the knobs", so I guess the actual riff is played by a Sequencer.

I've been looking at other cases of "playing the knobs" like on Jarre's Oxygene album... all those pops, "bubble-streams", dive-bombs and "laser-machine-guns" are apparently made just by twisting knobs on an EMS Synthi... no keyboard, just knobs.

Still trying to get my head around it.

@Antony, what the MODX offers with the "macro" knob that is the SuperKnob is pretty cool, and somehow Yamaha has made it seem gimmicky and tacky, and shallow and, worst of all, difficult to program for exactly the kind of people you'd ideally want programming it - tactile knob twiddling synth playing experts like the guy in the video.

Putting that aside, don't think too much about doing this stuff with a sequencer, automation and modulation. You're a guitar player... have at it with some cheap tactile synths. Probably the best is the Behringer clone of the one you see in this video, or anything with sliders for envelopes. Then get stuck in and play with your left hand whilst twiddling with your right hand.

Kind of like pot twiddling the volume on a guitar to make it sound bowed, but so much more.

On the MODX, you can invert this, as with most synths, and send what you want to the Mod Wheel (and Pitch Wheel, it doesn't have to be pitch), and use them like more tactile/fun SuperKnobs, and then wire up other things to the SuperKnob such that you can spin that with a pedal and have it affect other parameters.

This is what I'm doing when pissing around with arpeggios. You can even record all your inputs into the Pattern Sequencer, and overdub, too, for all the times when you get it not quite right.

You can also record just enough bars for what you want to experiment with, and then let that loop within a much expanded length of sequence, and the Pattern Sequencer automatically extends the sequence with loops overwritten with your new control inputs over the continuing note pattern loops.

Sadly, as I've said before in a few threads, there are some truly head scratching limitations to the things that can be shifted in realtime and quite annoying aspects to the Envelope Generators that reveal their age and lack of modern conception.

You can also wire up the ribbon on the Hydra, getting you direct input, which is uniquely cool, and get stuck into live tweaking the mutators for all sorts of fun, too. Which takes this a quite a bit further.

After 2 years with MODX, I felt I needed to go away and get to grips with "Basic Synths".

The Hydrasynth filled that need, and has been beneficial teaching me (Spoon feeding me?) with "normal" Subtractive Synthesis behaviour.

Jumping back on the MODX, and now having the benefit of understanding some of the stuff Yamaha puts before me (us)... the MODX, as a Subtractive Synth, really does have something to offer... it's finally making sense.

Since they also have a great heritage in Analogue Subtractive Synths, I wish they would just hurry up and give us the "knobby" VA Synth we've all been anticipating.... AN-X.

I really hope it is "Pure Yamaha" including all their awkward, alternative ways of doing things. I hope it's a modern CS80.

[quotePost id=119375]

Since they also have a great heritage in Analogue Subtractive Synths, I wish they would just hurry up and give us the "knobby" VA Synth we've all been anticipating.... AN-X.
[/quotePost]

Just get a DeepMind 12 second hand somewhere and have at it. It's got a Juno-esque sound and very good effects, and knobs and sliders for twiddling in exactly the spots that make them fun to play with.

For the money, it's good!

Interesting observation there... You can get so wrapped up in trying to figure how to get a keyboard to "automatically" behave like some synth sound you've heard, when maybe even the original synth didn't automatically behave that way, it was manual manipulation all along!