Daniel wrote:

Completely new to synthesizers.... Just bought the MOXF8. I need to program portamento effect, but have NO idea how. I'm slowly working my way through the manual and getting familiar with the keyboard, but I have an immediate need to program a portamento and there's not much help anywhere except explaining the various parameters involved. Having no luck accomplishing this on my own - please help! 🙂

Manuals can really only do what they do, give you definitions and basic explanations. The best way to learn is through experimentation and exploration.

Find a Voice that is programmed to use portamento; explore it, pull it apart, change it... all the while you will be learning by the best method, hands-on. We should mention, you can't hurt anything so feel free to change parameters as you go...

Portamento has several definitions in music. This is confused by the fact that some instruments have their own 'version' of portamento. The word predates electronic instruments which have their own 'version' of portamento. As a synthesizer attempting to emulate both acoustic and electronic instruments, the MOXF has an interesting implementation of Portamento.

So not knowing exactly what version of this musical effect you are looking for, here is a typical use case of portamento to learn from:

The Start for many, in the world of synthesizers, is the iconic Keith Emerson MiniMoog Lead sound used in the Emerson-Lake-& Palmer song "Lucky Man"
Recall Voice, "Lucky" PRE5:046(C14)
On the main Voice screen press [F3] PORTA to view the quick access portamento parameters.

_. Notice that "Mono/Poly" mode is set here. Acoustic instruments that originally used portamento are gloriously mono in nature... like a penny whistle, Trombone, etc, they support one note at a time. This partially defines this type of portamento.

_. The "On/Off" Switch for portamento is self-explanatory, you can activate and deactivate it with a momentary Foot Switch set to cc65

_. The "Time" parameter setting controls how long the sound takes to get from start to destination pitch - with 127 being the maximum time. You can also control this setting in realtime by assigning a controller to cc05. For example, an FC7 (Foot Controller) set cc05 would manipulate the speed of the portamento movement.

_. The "Mode" parameter determines whether the effect is there at all times, "fulltime", or only when you articulate a Legato gesture, "fingered".

There are a couple of additional parameters that can fine tune the Portamento function that can be found by going to [EDIT] > [COMMON] > [F1] GENERAL > [SF3] PORTA

These parameters affect how the portamento behaves when you expand the distances into the arena of 'science fiction' ...

That should get you started with experimentation.