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Thursday, March 28th, 2024 10:26 pm

Synth Glossary

Envelope:
An envelope generator generates a signal that changes through the length of a sound, normally to control the loudness of that sound. An example of its use is to control the volume of a piano sound. It creates a signal that goes from low to high very quickly (the loud bit when the key is pressed), then goes down slowly as the sounds gets quieter. They are also used to drive other parts of the synthesizer, for example the filter....

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Matrix-6
This synthesizer was based on the popular Matrix line. The Matrix-6 is basically a stripped down Xpander with a 5-octave, 31-note (C-C) keyboard, which features on and off velocity, as well as channel aftertouch. It features 6-note polyphony and pitch and modulation levers (not wheels) to the left of the keyboard. Each voice has two DCOs (as opposed to the Xpander's VCO), a VCF, three envelope generators (5 stage: Delay, Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release), two ramp generators (simple envelopes), tracking (not just for the keyboard but for remapping any modulation source), portamento and FM controls, three LFOs, and two VCAs. Along with other "Matrix" products from Oberheim, the Matrix-6 features what Oberheim called, "Matix Modulation System", which makes for very flexible and powerful modulation programming. With this much programmability it is unfortunate that the only user interface is a single slider and a keypad.

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