Sounds Produced Using The Pads - Yamaha DTX-MULTI Owner's Manual

Sounds Produced Using the Pads

Whenever the internal tone generator receives a trigger sig-
nal produced by striking a pad or by operating a controller
or foot switch, it will play a voice assigned to that pad, con-
troller, or foot switch. As described below, three different
types of voice are available for assigning – namely, preset
voices, patterns, and waves.
• Preset voices
Drum sounds such as snares, bass drums, and cymbals;
percussion sounds; and pitched-instrument sounds such
as piano, xylophone, and guitar.
• Patterns
One-shot or looped phrases containing performance data
for a range of different instruments.
• Waves
Audio files imported into the DTX-MULTI 12 from a
variety of sources.
To assign a voice to a pad, controller, or foot switch, access
the VOICE setting area's Select Voice page (VCE1) by
pressing the [VOICE] button (and if necessary, the [B]
button). On this page, voices are categorized by instrument
type (in the case of preset voices), as patterns, or as waves.
While preset voices, patterns, and waves can all be
assigned to pads in the same way, it is important to remem-
ber that each voice type plays in a different way and is con-
figured using different parameters.
■ Preset Voices
As an electronic percussion instrument played by striking
pads, the DTX-MULTI 12 comes preloaded with a vast
library of drum sounds, such as snares, bass drums, and
cymbals, together with a broad spectrum of percussion-
instrument sounds. Also included are many pitched instru-
ments, such as piano, xylophone, and guitar. The term "pre-
set voices" is used to refer to these built-in drum and
instrument sounds.
Drum and percussion voices from this preset-voice collec-
tion are not rooted at one specific pitch; instead, you can
intuitively adjust their tuning in order to match the sounds
of other instruments. Meanwhile, pitched-instrument
voices such as piano and guitar can be assigned to pads
with a specific pitch setting, thus allowing you to play sev-
eral different notes together to produce chords, or with
voices at different semitones assigned to the twelve pads, to
freely play melodic parts. With the timing and strength of
your playing reflected in the sound produced by preset
voices, you can perform with practically the same level of
expressiveness as afforded by acoustic instruments.
■ Patterns
The DTX-MULTI 12 can also play rhythmic or melodic
phrases known as "patterns". Capable of reproducing the
sound of performances on many different instruments, each
pattern can be up to several measures in length. In the same
way as snare sounds are produced by striking a pad to
which a snare voice has been assigned, you can start and
stop the playback of a pattern by striking the pad to which
it is assigned. In effect, pads with pattern assignments oper-
ate as start/stop switches whenever struck (regardless of
how hard or soft they are actually struck). Your DTX-
MULTI 12 comes pre-loaded with 128 Preset patterns
(including 3 demo patterns) containing performance data
from a host of different instrument genres, and by assign-
ing these freely to pads, you can easily create your own
unique kits. For even more flexibility, you can also record
your own performances and even import standard MIDI
files (Format 0) to create up to 50 additional User patterns.
■ Waves
The DTX-MULTI 12 is fully equipped to playback audio
files that can be created, edited, and played on computers.
Commonly called "samples" or "sample data", these files
contain short portions of sound, and once imported into the
DTX-MULTI 12, they are referred to as "waves". Either
WAV or AIFF type audio files can be imported into the
instrument's internal wave memory and assigned to pads in
much the same way as preset voices and patterns. You can
also edit imported waves.
As audio files imported into the instrument's wave memory
are assigned to pads as a single voice much like preset
voices and patterns, the term "wave data" is used within
this manual in the same way as "preset voice data" or "pat-
tern data". In contrast, the term "wave file" is used to refer
to data that has not yet been imported and is handled in the
form of a file on a computer, sampler, or USB memory
device.
Internal Design
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Owner's Manual