Alesis QuadraSynth Plus Reference Manual page 105

QuadraSynth Plus Piano Reference Manual
Decay & Sustain (00 to 99)
As soon as the attack portion of the envelope finishes (when the
level reaches maximum), the envelope will decay (decrease in
level). The level it reaches is set by the Sustain control; how long
it takes to get there is set by the Decay control. In the special case
where the Sustain level is all the way up (99), then there is no
decrease and the Decay time segment is bypassed. Whatever
level the sustain is set to is the level that the decay section of the
envelope will head for. Depending on the setting of the Sustain
Decay control (see below), the envelope will either hold at the
sustain level until you release the note on the keyboard, or decay
to 0 at the Sustain Decay rate (which is on page 2 of the
envelope). You can create a long "plateau" at the start of a note
by setting the Sustain to 98 and the Decay to 99. This will cause
the envelope to take the maximum amount of time to get from
peak level to a level of 98, before the Sustain Release portion of
the envelope begins.
Release (00 to 99, Hold)
Eventually, you will let go of the note that you've been holding
(either by releasing the note on the keyboard, or releasing the
sustain pedal if it was pressed). It is at this point that the Release
portion of the envelope takes effect. The Release is the time that
the envelope takes to get from its current level back down to
nothing. Setting the Release time to 99 will take the envelope a
very long time to reach zero level.
The Pitch Envelope is unique from the other two envelopes in
that its Release time can be set above 99. When this is done, the
value in the display will read "Hold". This indicates that the
pitch envelope will remain where it is even after the note is
released. This is important when you want the pitch effect to
continue even after releasing the key. Example: If the PENV is
bending a note up, and you don't want the pitch to fall when
you release the key, set the Release parameter to "Hold".
Pitch Envelope (Page 2)
Delay (00 to 99, Hold)
This is the amount of time that the envelope will wait before
doing anything; very useful if you want to affect one element of
a sound sometime after the sound starts. When the Delay is set
to 0, the envelope attacks right away, without any delay. Play
some notes while turning up the delay and see that the time
between playing the note and hearing the effect of the Pitch
Envelope gets progressively longer as the Delay control is turned
up.
If the Delay is set above 99, the display will read "Hold". This
indicates that the Delay stage of the envelope will wait
indefinitely until the key is released before continuing on to the
remaining envelope stages (Attack, Decay, etc.). This requires
Editing Programs: Chapter 6
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