Alesis Fusion Tutorial

ALESIS FUSION ANALOG SYNTHESIS TUTORIAL
Fusion’s LFOs offer both!
Note-on
Delay
Fade
In ‘the olde days’, an analog synth’s LFO used to be free running in the background and
whenever you played a new note, the sound just picked up wherever the LFO was in its cycle:
Note-on Note-on
However, more recent synths offer a ‘re-trigger’ facility where the LFO’s cycle is reset to its start
with every note--on:
Note-on Note-on Note-on
Both have their uses
8
.
And of course, in ‘the olde days’, synths generally had just one LFO which had to be shared
between different duties and so it was always a compromise - if you wanted a slow filter sweep,
you had to forego vibrato; if you wanted vibrato, you had to forego slow filter sweeps. Fusion
can have up to six (!!) LFOs and, as a result, many things are possible. For example, one LFO
can provide vibrato, another can be providing a slow filter sweep whilst another is modulating
pulse width at another rate and another can be panning the sound left-to-right at a different
rate again!!!
These days as well, the rate of an LFO can be synchronised to MIDI clock allowing filter
sweeps, panning, whatever to be in time with the music (before, we had to guess!!!).
8 Ok - for those interested in early synth trivia.... the Minimoog didn’t have an LFO - instead,you
had to use Oscillator 3 in its ‘low frequency’ setting. As such, when used as an LFO, it was free
running with no re-trigger. However, its rival - the contemporaneous ARP Odyssey - had an LFO
dedicated to the task but it re-triggered with every new note. Many claimed at the time that the
Minimoog had a more ‘fluid’ sound as a result - vibrato was somehow more ‘natural’ because it
picked up at random in the cycle and slow filter filter sweeps flowed with the musical phrase.
Controllers Page 31

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