Aly James Lab VSDS-X SIMMONS DRUMS EXTENDED VST User Manual

Based on sdsv - sds7 - sds1 drum brains, windows & mac 64bit

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Summary of Contents for Aly James Lab VSDS-X SIMMONS DRUMS EXTENDED VST

Page 3: Table Of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION..........................3 INSTALLATION..........................6 CONTROL PANELS ......................... 9 THE SDS-V............................11 FULL MODE..........................17 TRIGGERS ............................19 BASS VOICE..........................21 SNARE VOICE ..........................22 TOM VOICES ..........................23 HIHAT & CYMBAL VOICES ......................24 SETTINGS .............................27 EPROM LOADING .........................30 PRESETS IMPORT / EXPORT......................32 MIDI AUTOMATION........................33 VERSION 2 ADDITIONAL INFO .......................34 LINKS............................38 DISCLAIMER &...
Page 4: Introduction
INTRODUCTION My name is Aly James; French funky musician, composer and creator of strange musical DIY devices and software. I was planning for a long time to make an accurate Simmons VST dedicating to the 1 Great Analog drum synth in History, mainly because I have never been happy with packs of samples coming from different recording chains, lack of control over the pitch and source mixing and all that makes the unique sound of that legendary drum brain invented by Dave Simmons.
Page 5 I grew up listening to a lot of 80s music, the Simmons drum sound was preeminent and was a huge part of the sound. The SDS-V was mostly analog, a secret tool the make some drum layering with real drums or drum machines like the Linn LM-1 or DMX…the clever design allows a great range of drum sounds from real sounding drums to sci-fi and experimental sounds.
Page 6 A special thanks to Dave Simmons (Simmons drums Creator) & Wolfgang Stoelzle (simmonsmuseum.com) Mainly, VSDSX can be triggered via MIDI following mostly the GM MIDI Drums mapping. Each trigger will engage some envelope generators that will act on different part of the circuit.
Page 7: Installation
INSTALLATION COMPATIBILITY Windows 7 to 10. 64bit Host (DAW) VST2 VST3 Mac OSX Snow leopard to Mojave 64bit host AudioUnits (AU) INSTALL WINDOWS Decompress the downloaded zip archive file Run the VSDSX Installer Load it in your DAW (rescan plugins if needed) INSTALL MAC Decompress the downloaded archive file Copy VSDSX.component (AU) into the official default AudioUnits folder...
Page 8 State of VSDSX current features WIN 32 VST runs on 32/64Bit Systems and it is multicore compatible. HIGH QUALITY GUI (Different panels for controls etc...) INSTANT UPDATE FOR ALL CONTROLS FULL MIDI AUTOMATION With midi learn (right click to assign MIDI) ANALOG MODELED OSCILLATOR The special tone character of the drum synth is mainly caused by the raw analog waveform generation and by the circuitry itself, it generate harmonics that are normally not present in an ideal...
Page 9 The noise source was filtered by an SSM2044 low pass filter chip, the filter acts on the noise and clicks part and behaves differently depending on the voice, on bass & toms the resonance resistor was usually set to no resonance, but this can be tweaked inside the VSDSX if you want. PITCH BENDING &...
Page 10: Control Panels
LOAD & SAVE FULL PATCH & BANKS in many formats CONTROL PANELS Overview VSDSX GUI INTERFACE is pretty straight forward; it stores the different parameters on different panels. The main interface let you select the voice you want to edit, for each voice you have those basic controls: The SENSITIVITY controls let you fine tune how the trigger velocity will affect the sound.
Page 11 MULTI OUT: Will set the VST to multiple outputs configuration. This will route all the voices to a separate output labeled with the voice name. You have to enable the multiple outputs in your DAW. Each DAW has its way of doing it but it is generally straight forward.
Page 12: The Sds-V
Right click on a knob, button or slider will open a midi learn assign menu. Ctrl click + move allow fine tuning. THE SDS-V...
Page 13 The SDS-V usually comes with a basic Bass, Snare + 3 Toms configuration but some lucky ones had the hihat and cymbal modules.
Page 14 If you look at these circuit diagrams you can see how the signal flows, basically the trigger will engage envelope generators that will trigger the VCAs which will shape the noise generator, click and tone VCO. The click itself is composed of the same filtered noise source. Let’s look at the noise generator…...
Page 15 It is called a gimmick capacitor, used to get a very small pico-farad capacitance and it is here in place of a proper compensation capacitor on the op amp. It seems to let one be able to 'tune' the noise easily, this is available to tweak in VSDSX as the HPF knob.
Page 16 The raw analog VCO triangular output get filtered by a basic RC circuit which form a low pass filter at 338.6Hz. This filtering is only applied in VSDSX when you are in ANALOG mode. ANALOG SOUND The nature of analog is that every part of the circuitry will influence the other.
Page 17 One of the main things that get affected is the sound harmonics and distortion. VSDSX lets you switch between a CLEAN (read ideal mode) and ANALOG (harmonics and filtering) The nature of the tone VCO will be affected by this setting, especially because an ideal triangle wave contains only odd harmonics, it has a characteristic sound, similar to a square wave.
Page 18: Full Mode
The volume can get pretty high so be sure to reduce your DAW channel volume to keep plenty of headroom. FULL MODE...
Page 19 The Full mode gives you access to all the fine tuning controls of the voice card. • VOL: Set the general volume of the voice, can reach analog clipping if pushed hard.
Page 20: Triggers
• HPF: This setting Controls the internal filtering of the noise generator, usually set to high excepted for snare, you can tune this parameter like you want. • RES: This is the SSM2044 VCF lowpass resonance, usually set to none on SDS-V, excepted for snare;...
Page 21 The VSDSX is highly velocity sensitive, when a trigger is sent it will follow this path: The amount of which the velocity will affect those parameters can be fine tuned The pitch setting will send the pitch higher depending on the velocity, for example if you set the tone pitch at 440Hz (A) and the pitch sensitivity is set to 2 SEMI (2 semitones) when you hit the pad hard (velocity 127) the starting tone will be 2 semitones higher so a B note.
Page 22: Bass Voice
The attack setting will affect the short pulse that is sent to the VCO pitch, it is so short (19ms) that you don’t notice a pitch change but instead it gives a more pronounced attack to the sound, you can really hear it if you set for example the BASS to no click, no noise and change the attack parameter.
Page 23: Snare Voice
Noise cutoff gets brighter with velocity No bend velocity R25 Filter Dynamic Sweep (Filter Cutoff envelope affect) 75% R27 No resonance R26 No mod Depth R71 Noise is equal gain with tone 50/50 SNARE VOICE This is the classic configuration of the SNARE card: SNARE: 100 - 880Hz No bend velocity R25 Filter Dynamic Sweep (Filter Cutoff envelope affect) 0%...
Page 24: Tom Voices
R26 50% Mod (on hard hits) The SNARE featured 2 additional parameters, the FULL NOISE (which lets all the noise generator frequencies pass through) and the VCF modulation switch (it will send the full modulation amount to the VCF cutoff, regardless of the modulation amount). VCF modulation is applied additionally to the VCO modulation, so you will still have control over the VCO modulation.
Page 25: Hihat & Cymbal Voices
This is the classic configuration of the TOM cards: TOM HI & TOM MED : 100 - 880Hz TOM LOW : 30 - 880Hz Noise gets brighter with velocity Bend amount velocity R25 Filter Dynamic Sweep (Filter Cutoff envelope affect) 75% R27 No resonance R26 No mod Depth R71 Slightly more tone then noise...
Page 26 The Hihat & Cymbal modules were pretty rare and unique sounding, mostly they were sample based, same configuration for both cards, but in a very particular way. Honestly, the metallic waveform has nothing to do with a real hihat or cymbal sound, you can hear its looping and the raw 8bit character, but: This is a CULT sound! If you play this with bending up or down while toying around with noise and filter, you get these famous cymbal sweeps! Velocity can also act on the sample rate and it sounds pretty original.
Page 27 PLEASE NOTE A PARTICULAR BEHAVIOR for the NOISE filter knob, when set fully anti clock wise it is affected by the envelope and behaves like the BASS and TOM voice (the noise gets duller as the envelope decays). When it is set at 12 o’clock it behave like the SNARE voice (cutoff is not affected by the envelope) and when set fully clock wise, the noise starts dull and gets brighter as the envelope decays.
Page 28: Settings
SETTINGS The OPEN SETS panel will let you fine tune some global parameters like control voltage curve, output stage emulation modes and SSM2044 (VCF) sensitivity. These settings affect VSDSX globally.
Page 29 Output Stage VSDSX let you choose between CLEAN and ANALOG MODE • CLEAN: In this mode the circuitry will behave like an ideal system, pure triangle waveform and less filtering. This can be useful for a brighter and edgy sound. •...
Page 30 Control Voltage Curve The internal control voltage can be tweaked in VSDSX, it is normally a linear behavior but you can also set it to a logarithmic behavior. This will change the way the voltage from the envelopes is send the VCAs and change the resulting sound behavior. SSM2044 Sensitivity As seen previously the trigger velocity can affect the VCF cutoff, this sensitivity setting will let you fine tune the amount of voltage applied to the VCF cutoff.
Page 31: Eprom Loading
EPROM LOADING...
Page 32 Custom EPROMS The VSDSX features an import function for compatible EPROM Binary Images (.bin files) • Note that the PROM CARD voice is an additional voice which means that it does not contain EPROM data unless you load some in. •...
Page 33: Presets Import / Export
PRESETS IMPORT / EXPORT VST3, FXP & FXB, XML, AU presets VSDSX can load and import its own format presets & banks. All Custom EPROMS file paths are also saved with the patch. All MIDI LEARNED & ASSIGNED parameters will also be saved with the patch. Simply name the preset and right click the PROGRAM MENU to save either 1 preset or the whole bank, you can also copy the current patch to another location.
Page 34: Midi Automation
MIDI AUTOMATION MIDI LEARN Almost all of the VSDSX parameters can be automated via midi learn or DAW automation allowing great control over the sound. Simply right click on a button, knob or slider to assign external MIDI Control or use DAW automation. Almost all type of MIDI message can be assigned or MIDI learned.
Page 35: Version 2 Additional Info
VERSION 2 ADDITIONAL INFO Change log • Added Cross Platform capability (Windows VST2/VST3 and Mac AU (AudioUnit). • 64bit build using latest OS and IDE (Windows 10 Visual Studio and Mac Mojave Xcode) • Updated GUI (graphic Interface). • Refined HIHAT and CYMBAL modules (more detailed sound process, better envelopes, more accurate sound source and features).
Page 36 MIDI Map VSDSX can now have its triggers customized; clicking on MIDI MAP button will open the MIDI Map panel.
Page 37 First SELECT DRUM must be set to the drum you want to customize. Then engage the LEARN MODE by clicking on the LEARN button (when engaged a blue LED will be lit), now each new incoming MIDI note will be assigned to that drum (2 notes are available per drum, excepted the hihat which got 2 for closed and 1 for open) While still in learn mode you can change the SELECT DRUM to assign another drum.
Page 38 New settings VEL  LFO: This option will route the MIDI velocity of the incoming trigger to the amount of LFO modulation applied if any. The harder you play the more modulation will pass through (this is dependent on the initial amount of modulation already set) OSC Custom: If ON this will tell all VSDSX oscillators based on the classic Simmons shape to output a Sine shape.
Page 39: Links
LINKS Aly James centric links Official Website www.alyjameslab.com Dev Blog www.alyjameslab.blogspot.com Facebook News www.facebook.com/alyjamesound Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alyjameslab/ Youtube Channel www.youtube.com/alijamesproduction Soundcloud demos http://www.soundcloud/alyjameslab Twitter @alyjamestwitt CONTACT alyjames.info@gmail.com External links Simmons Museum Website http://www.simmonsmuseum.com/ ELECTRONGATE Archive http://www.electrongate.com/dmxfiles/downloads.html PROMENADE Software http://www.electrongate.com/dmxfiles/promenade/index.html HOPE YOU HAVE FUN WITH THE VSDSX!
Page 40: Disclaimer & Licence Agreement
All such authorized redistribution must be accompanied by clear messages stating the origin of the software as an Aly James Lab product, this license, a link to the Website alyjameslab.com. By Using the Software, you are agreeing to this disclaimer and license.