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Modor NF-1 User Manual

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USER MANUAL
MODOR DIGITAL POLYPHONIC SYNTHESIZER

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Summary of Contents for Modor NF-1

  • Page 1 USER MANUAL MODOR DIGITAL POLYPHONIC SYNTHESIZER...

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Contents 1 Getting Started . . . Connections and settings ......Menu navigation ......Loading patches .
  • Page 4 5 Amplifier section 6 Effects section Chorus/Flanger effect unit ..... . . Delay effect unit ......7 Modulation section LFOs .

  • Page 5: Getting Started

    Getting Started . . . 1.1 Connections and settings Before you can start playing the Modor NF-1 a few connections have to be made. This chapter is written to help you make the very first connections and some system settings so that you can immediately start playing your instrument. By following these instructions, you will have your Modor synth up and running in a few minutes time.

  • Page 6: Menu Navigation

    VALUE control [1-16]. Next press MENU again or press NO/DEST to leave the menu. 1.2 Menu navigation The menu of the Modor NF-1 exists out of 9 menu items. When the MENU button is hit you enter the menu, and the first menu item is shown on the upper display line. A black dot starts running from right to left over the display.

  • Page 7: Loading Patches

    MENU again and confirm with SRC/YES. When you play the keyboard during the save operation, you can hear the patch in the Modor NF-1’s memory that’s about to be overwritten. This way you can check which memory position can be overwritten before actually doing it.

  • Page 8: Patch Initialisation

    1.5. PATCH INITIALISATION CHAPTER 1. GETTING STARTED . . . 1.5 Patch initialisation A last thing we explain in this ”Getting Started ...”-chapter is how to reinitialise the actual patch. If you want to start building up a new patch completely from scratch, this might be helpful.

  • Page 9: Overview

    finally somehow altered by the Effects section. That is the general basic structure of many so-called ’subtractive’ synthesizers, among which the Modor NF-1. There is also a fifth section, the Modulation section. In this section a number of modu- lation signals is produced which can be used to alter or ’modulate’...

  • Page 10: Frontpanel Overview

    2.2 Frontpanel overview You can find 43 rotary knobs and 20 pushbuttons on the frontpanel of the Modor NF-1, grouped in the sections described above. Each of these sections get further detailing in the next chapters.
  • Page 11 2.2. FRONTPANEL OVERVIEW CHAPTER 2. OVERVIEW – WAVEFORM selection button, to set the selected oscillator’s waveform – FM CARRIER and FM MODULATOR buttons, to select harmonics of the ADD, FM and FBFM waveforms. These buttons have no function if the selected oscillators have other waveforms than ADD, FM or FBFM.
  • Page 12 – The LFO subsection, containing 3 LFO’s and a random sample-and-hold modulator. LFO3’s amplitude is set by the modwheel. SYNC button to syncronise LFO2 with a MIDI clock fed to the Modor synth by an external sequencer. WAV1 and WAV2 buttons to set the waveforms of LFO1&2.

  • Page 13: Oscillator Section

    The oscillators are the sources of the sound in a synth. There are three identical fully independent oscillators in the Modor synth, oscillators 1, 2 & 3. Every oscillator has a ”modification” parameter (MOD), a pitch (TUNE and FINE) and 2 modulation controls to set an amount of low frequency oscillator and/or an envelope modulation (LFO and ENV).

  • Page 14: Oscillator Waveforms

    Remark that these selection pushbuttons are not enabling or disabling the oscilla- tors. This might be a little confusing when using the NF-1 for the first time. To enable or disable an oscillator, just set its volume with the OSCILLATOR MIX controls.

  • Page 15: Square Pwm Oscillator

    3.2. OSCILLATOR WAVEFORMS CHAPTER 3. OSCILLATOR SECTION sawtooth waveform, turning up MOD creates ”holes” in the sawtooth that sound a bit like the classic PWM on a square waveform. 3.2.2 Square PWM oscillator The square oscillator generates a classic ”square” or ”pulse” waveform in which the MOD parameter determines the duty cycle of the pulse.

  • Page 16: Sync Oscillator

    3.2. OSCILLATOR WAVEFORMS CHAPTER 3. OSCILLATOR SECTION 3.2.4 Sync oscillator This oscillator creates a synced square wave with a decaying amplitude as shown in the figures below. This sounds very much like a synced waveform found on many other subtractive (virtual) analog synthesizers. 3.2.5 Additive harmonics oscillator The additive harmonics waveform creates harmonic sine waves with frequencies in multiples of the base frequency f.

  • Page 17: Sonar Noise Oscillator

    3.2. OSCILLATOR WAVEFORMS CHAPTER 3. OSCILLATOR SECTION The additive harmonics oscillator still has another parameter: The FM-carrier pa- rameter can be used to make the harmonic series start with another harmonic than f. Juse the FM CARRIER button and the SELECT encoder to set another start harmonic. For example: S=2 en N=3 : 2f, 5f, 8f, 11f, .

  • Page 18: Arcade Noise Oscillator

    3.2. OSCILLATOR WAVEFORMS CHAPTER 3. OSCILLATOR SECTION 3.2.8 Arcade noise oscillator This oscillator creates a type of hard noise with a certain tonal character. This type of noise is remodelled after the noise creation algorithms present in early arcade video game machines.
  • Page 19 3.2. OSCILLATOR WAVEFORMS CHAPTER 3. OSCILLATOR SECTION The modulator’s frequency is in the audio range, just as the carrier frequency. You won’t hear a sine wave going up and down in pitch, as you might expect when hearing the term ”Frequency Modulation”, as if it’s frequency is modulated by an LFO. The modulation process goes that fast that it changes the ”character”...

  • Page 20: Sine Feedback Fm Oscillator

    3.3. WHITE NOISE CHAPTER 3. OSCILLATOR SECTION oscillators. This way, it gives the unique possibility of combining for example a glassy 80’s style-FM oscillator with classic analog or other waveforms. You don’t have to use one oscillator to frequency-modulate another. Some very typical 80’s FM-style patches can be made using an envelope to mod- ulate the fm amount (MOD ENV).

  • Page 21: Ring Modulator

    3.4. RING MODULATOR CHAPTER 3. OSCILLATOR SECTION 3.4 Ring modulator The ring modulator creates a multiplication of the signals from oscillator 2 and 3, which results in a mix of sums and differences of the frequencies present in the source oscillators.

  • Page 22: Filter Section

    Filter section 4.1 LP/HP/BP/BS filter The main filter of the modorsynth is a selectable LP/HP/BP/BS resonant filter. You can select it to be a lowpass (LP), highpass (HP), bandpass (BP) or bandstop (BS) filter. A filter eliminates a certain part of the sound and and lets another part pass. In a lowpass filter for example, the sound frequencies above a certain cutoff frequency are blocked, while the frequencies below this cutoff frequency pass trough the filter.
  • Page 23 4.1. LP/HP/BP/BS FILTER CHAPTER 4. FILTER SECTION resonance cutoff With the RES control at maximum [127] the filter goes into selfoscillation. This means that a bright, sinusoidal wave is generated by the filter itself. Even without input, with all oscillator volumes set to zero, the filter keeps producing sound. With the KEYB control set at +32, you can even ”play the filter”.

  • Page 24: Formant Filter

    4.2. FORMANT FILTER CHAPTER 4. FILTER SECTION Three standard modulation sources are hardwired to the filter’s cutoff frequency. You can modulate the filter by a low frequency oscillator (LFO), an envelope (ENV) and/or by the note’s base frequency (KEYB) using the three rotary knobs LFO/ENV/KEYB of the filter section.
  • Page 25 CHAPTER 4. FILTER SECTION 2800Hz, it sounds like a ’A’. Ten presets of these peak frequency combinations are programmed inside the Modor NF-1 and can be selected and placed in the three vowel slots at left, center and right positions of the FORMANT-control.

  • Page 26: Filter Configuration

    4.3. FILTER CONFIGURATION CHAPTER 4. FILTER SECTION 4.3 Filter configuration The filter configuration can be set to serial or parallel, using the ROUTE button in the formant section. The corresponding leds on the frontpanel indicate which is the actual configuration. Serial In the serial configuration the sound of the oscillators is first led into the for- mant filter and then into the LP/HP/BP/BS-filter.

  • Page 27: Amplifier Section

    Amplifier section The amplifier section is quite straight-forward. First the output of the filter section can be overdriven using the DRIVE-control, next it sets the volume and panning of the sound, using the Amp envelope (ENV4) and the VOLUME and PAN settings in the PARAMETER menu.

  • Page 28: Effects Section

    The delay time can be modulated by a triangle LFO. The Modor NF-1 contains a comb filter effect unit in which all the parameters can be set separately by a dedicated control, to offer maximal freedom.
  • Page 29 6.1. CHORUS/FLANGER EFFECT UNIT CHAPTER 6. EFFECTS SECTION DELAY Delay length modulation Dry-wet mix This control sets the balance between the dry signal and the delayed signal. This is set to zero to disable the comb filter effect unit, and often around halfway to get a maximum chorus or flanger effect.

  • Page 30: Delay Effect Unit

    The delay lengths go up to around 750 milliseconds. The Modor synth’s delay effect unit has a 1-pole lowpass filter in the delay line. By setting it at maximum, the filter is inactive. Lowering this value applies a filtering to the signal that gets more and more dull with each repeating echo.
  • Page 31 Sync Button By pressing the Sync button, the delay syncronises to the midi clock signals sent into the Modor synth by an external sequencer. The time control can now be used to set the delay length from half notes to sixteenth notes.

  • Page 32: Modulation Section

    An LFO, or ”Low Frequency Oscillator” produces a cyclic modulation signal that can be used to modulate a number of sound parameters. The frequency of the Modor LFO’s can be varied between around 0,1Hz and 10Hz (or its cyclic period between 10 seconds and 100milliseconds).

  • Page 33: Sample&Hold

    7.2. SAMPLE&HOLD CHAPTER 7. MODULATION SECTION be synced to an external MIDI clock, by hitting the SYNC button in the LFO section. LFO3 is a global triangle LFO of which the amplitude depends on the setting of the MODWHEEL, found next to the pitch bend wheel on most synth keyboards. If the modwheel is down the amplitude of LFO3 is zero, with the modwheel fully up LFO3’s amplitude is identical to the other LFO’s.

  • Page 34: Envelopes

    The envelopes are 3 stage + release envelopes, and therefore contain more controls than found on typical ADSR-envelopes. There are four envelopes on the Modor NF-1. You select which envelopes you want to edit using the ENV1 ... ENV4-buttons on the left side, much like the OSC-selection buttons in the OSC section.
  • Page 35 There are 4 envelopes available on the Modor NF-1 (ENV1, ENV2, ENV3 and ENV4). They are connected in hardware to the sound parameters in the table. ENV1 alters the modification parameter of...

  • Page 36: Modulation Matrix

    T2=0 7.4 Modulation Matrix The Modor NF-1 has a ”modulation matrix” of 7 freely assignable modulation lines that can route some modulation source signals to a large number of destination parameters, opening a near endless number of modulation possibilities.

  • Page 37: Pitch Modulation

    LFO1 speed can be different for every note. 7.5 Pitch Modulation The front panel of the Modor NF-1 doesn’t seem to show any pitch modulation con- trols. But they’re not far away. If all three oscillator selection buttons (OSC1, OSC2 and OSC3) are deselected, the LFO and ENV controls in the oscillator section double up as pitch modulation controls.

  • Page 38: Amplitude Modulation

    Pitch Envelope Also, there is no dedicated pitch envelope control on the front panel of the Modor NF-1, but with OSC1, OSC2 and OSC3 buttons disabled you can use the ENV-control of the OSC section to set an amount of pitch modulation by ENV1.

  • Page 39: Other Popular Modulations

    7.7. OTHER POPULAR MODULATIONS CHAPTER 7. MODULATION SECTION Tremolo After patch initialisation, the third modulation wire is preset as a tremolo effect. Push the Src/Yes or Dst/No button 3 times and set the tremolo amount with the VALUE-control. Volume pedal The fourth modulation wire is preset at initialisation to use a foot pedal to control the volume.
  • Page 40 7.7. OTHER POPULAR MODULATIONS CHAPTER 7. MODULATION SECTION L1=L2 L3=S T1=A T3=D T4=R T2=0 And so on . . . And of course, a lot more modulation wires can be set up! How about an envelope that alters the oscillator mix? The aftertouch opening and closing your filter? A random LFO speed? A pedal to set your envelopes attack speed? A velocity sensitive formant filter? .

  • Page 41: Menu Reference

    Menu Reference The menu of the Modor NF-1 exists out of 9 menu items. When the menu button is hit you enter the menu, and the first menu item appears on the upper display line, while a black dot moves from right to left over the screen. By pressing again before it reaches the left side, the next menu item is selected.

  • Page 42: Save

    8.2. SAVE CHAPTER 8. MENU REFERENCE Pressing the No/Dest-button cancels the load-operation, exits the menu and re- stores the active patch. Pressing the Menu-button gives you a choice: Load (Y/N). Use Yes/Src to finish the load operation, or No/Dest to cancel and leave the menu. After choosing Yes/Src the active patch is being overwritten by the selected patch from memory.

  • Page 43: Parameter

    DEST/NO. 8.5 Parameter Although there are many controls on the Modor NF-1 frontpanel, a few parameters can not be changed with a dedicated control. They have to be changed in the PARAMETER- menu. Select the parameter to edit using the SELECT encoder, and change it using VALUE.

  • Page 44: Formant Frequencies

    8.8 Tonescale At initial settings, the Modor NF-1 has a standard tuning existing of 12 equal subdi- visions (half tones) in an octave. Most modern-day western musical instruments use this tonescale of 12 equally spaced pitches in an octave, including almost all synthe- sizers.

  • Page 45: Sysex Dump

    VALUE control. The tonescale is saved as part of a patch in the Modor NF-1. A patch that is used in a song using a deviating tonescale can be saved with it’s special tonescale, without affecting other patches.
  • Page 46 MENU again, and hit SRC/YES to confirm (or cancel with DEST/NO). Note that if the Modor NF-1 receives a Patch dump, this is not yet stored perma- nently in it’s memory. If you want to store the patch you received via a patch dump, you still have to save it.

  • Page 47: Menu Overview

    8.10. MENU OVERVIEW CHAPTER 8. MENU REFERENCE 8.10 Menu overview...

  • Page 48: Midi Implementation

    MIDI Implementation 9.1 Midi implementation chart MIDI Implementation Chart v. 2.0 Manufacturer: Modor Music Model: NF-1 Version: 1 Date: March 2015 Transmit Recognize Remarks 1. Basic Information MIDI channels [1-16] [1-16] Note numbers [0-127] Program change [0-31] Bank Select response? [0-13] [A-N] via cc#0 &...
  • Page 49 9.1. MIDI IMPLEMENTATION CHART CHAPTER 9. MIDI IMPLEMENTATION Notation Information Turn GM1 System On Turn GM2 System On Turn GM System Off DLS-1 File Reference Controller Destination Key-based Instrument Ctrl Master Fine/Coarse Tune Other Universal System Exclusive Manufacturer System Exclusive NRPNs RPN 00 (Pitch Bend Sensitivity) RPN 01 (Channel Fine Tune)

  • Page 50: Midi Controller List

    9.2. MIDI CONTROLLER LIST CHAPTER 9. MIDI IMPLEMENTATION 9.2 Midi controller list Control Function Transmitted Received Remarks Bank select Bank A - N Modulation wheel Mod Source MODW Portamento Volume pedal Mod source PEDL Osc 1 mod LFO1 Osc 2 mod LFO1 Osc 3 mod LFO1 Osc 1 mod ENV2 Osc 2 mod ENV3...
  • Page 51 9.2. MIDI CONTROLLER LIST CHAPTER 9. MIDI IMPLEMENTATION Control Function Transmitted Received Remarks Wire 1 amount Wire 2 amount Wire 3 amount Wire 4 amount Wire 5 amount Wire 6 amount Wire 7 amount Delay feedback LFO3 speed S&H speed Osc 1 coarse tuning Osc 2 coarse tuning Osc 3 coarse tuning...
  • Page 52 9.2. MIDI CONTROLLER LIST CHAPTER 9. MIDI IMPLEMENTATION Control Function Transmitted Received Remarks ENV 2 T4 ENV 3 T4 ENV 4 T4 ENV 1 L1 ENV 2 L1 ENV 3 L1 ENV 4 L1 ENV 1 L2 ENV 2 L2 ENV 3 L2 ENV 4 L2 ENV 1 L3...

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