Alesis Fusion Tutorial

ALESIS FUSION ANALOG SYNTHESIS TUTORIAL
Vocal Formant filters
The human voice tract has three frequencies called ‘formants’ that shape the vowel sounds we
make. These formant frequencies move independently of each other and it is their relative
frequencies that create different vowel sounds:
Fusion has three Vocal Formant Filters that boost and attenuate harmonics at certain
frequencies to recreate human vowel sounds. :
When these frequencies remain static, you might hear a certain ‘vocal’ quality but it is when
they move that you can hear something approaching vowel ‘movement’ (for example, moving
from ‘ooo’ to ‘aaaa’ or ‘aaaa’ to ‘eeee’, whatever).
To facilitate this, a controller such an LFO or modwheel needs to be assigned to the filter’s
frequency (which we will look at later) although you can hear the effect when setting these
filters’ FREQUENCY control.
Although these filters won’t allow Fusion to ‘talk’ (!!), they do have a curious, eerie vocal quality
that can be quite endearing in certain circumstances and with certain sounds.
Sound processors / modifiers Page 12

Alesis Fusion Specifications

General

Type	Workstation
Polyphony	64 voices
Synthesis Types	Sample Playback, Virtual Analog, FM, Physical Modeling
Display	240 x 128 pixel LCD
MIDI	In, Out, Thru
RAM	64MB (expandable to 192MB)
Weight (61-key)	28 lbs
Keyboard	61 or 88 keys
Keyboard Type	Semi-weighted (61-key), Hammer action (88-key)
Effects	Reverb, Chorus, Delay, Flanger, Phaser, Distortion, EQ
Storage	40GB internal hard drive
Sampling	Yes
Inputs	2 x 1/4" inputs, 1 x XLR
Outputs	4 x 1/4" outputs, 1 x Headphone