SQ-80 — Musician's Manual
MODULATORS
About Modulation
To modulate something is simply to cause it to change. Within the Voice architecture of the SQ-80 we
begin by setting basic, or Manual,
levels for Volume, Pitch. Brightness, etc., and we then modulate those
levels in various ways in order to create movement and dynamics within the Sound.
Suppose you switch on your stereo, and turn the volume half way up. We can call this the Manual
Volume
setting. It will stay at that level until it's changed. Now suppose that you take the Volume knob and begin
quickly turning it up and down, so the volume gets continuously louder and softer, louder and softer.
What you would be doing is modulating the volume of your stereo. If you were to take the Treble
control, and do the same to that knob, you would be modulating the brightness of your stereo.
In much the same way we modulate various levels within the SQ-80 (though generally the approach is
less haphazard). There are 15 different Modulation Sources available, and they can each be
independently assigned to vary the Manual
levels for:
− > The Pitch of each Oscillator [OSC I, OSC 2 and OSC 3]
− __ > The Volume of each Oscillator [DCA 1. DCA 2 and DCA 3]
____ > The Filter Cutoff Frequency. or the Brightness of the Program [FILTER]
The Depth of the Low Frequency Oscillators [LFO UFO 2 and LFO 3]
and
− > Panning the Program within the stereo mix [DCA 4] Page
The Final Volume of the Program [DCA 4] is a special case — it is always controlled by Envelope 4,
which is fixed as its Modulator.
Selecting a Modulator
On each of the Oscillator Pitch Pages. [OSC 1, OSC 2 and OSC 3]. the Oscillator Volume Pages,
[DCA 1, DCA 2 and DCA 3], and the FILTER Page, you can select two different Modulators. The
format is similar for all these Pages — the controls on the bottom row of the Page are used to Modulate
the Levels set on the top row. Take for example the OSC 1 Page:
To select a Modulator (or Modulators) for
the pitch of Oscillator 1. first press the
OSC 1 Button. then press either of the
Select Modulator "Soft" Buttons on
the Display, as pictured above. Use the
Data Entry Slider and the Up and Down
Arrow Buttons to select from among the
15 available Modulation Sources. Follow
the same procedure
to select Modulators on the other Pages listed above.
For Modulating Program Pan [DCA 4 Page] and LFO depth [LFO UFO 2 and LFO 3 Pages] only
one Modulator can be selected.
Helpful Hint: Moving the Data Entry Slider all the way up selects *OFF*, which is handy if you don't
want a Modulator applied in a particular location.
40 Section 3 — Voice Programming
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