General Music S2 Turbo, Owner'S Manual

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2 INTRODUCTION
I
NTRODUCTION
Congratulations and thanks for purchasing the S Series Music Processor - an instrument
conceived and developed with the most up-to-date technology to guarantee a high degree
of reliability and durability.
The name “Music Processor” describes the instrument’s ability to handle the complete
creative process, starting from sound synthesis right down to the registration of multi-
timbric songs and the complete control of the entire MIDI setup.
We are confident that you will find your S Series Music Processor beyond all expecta-
tions.
About the S Series instruments
S2 Turbo and S3 Turbo Music Processors are keyboard synthesizers with 61 keys and
76 keys respectively. This manual also refers to the previous models upgraded with the
“Turbokit” board. S2 and S3 also operate as Master Keyboards, thanks to the integrated
controls (Wheels, Function Controllers) and extensive MIDI programmability.
S2R is the 19” rack version of the S2/S3 Turbo. It is totally compatible with these two
keyboard synthesizers.
• Multitimbral generator
The S Series instruments are 16 part multi-timbral units with a maximum polyphony
of 32 notes.
• Sound generation method
Sound generation is based on a mixed digital/analog technology which permits,
through the use of analog techniques, the manipulation of Samples of real or synthetic
origin. The S Series Sounds are based on sampled Waveforms which are processed by
one or two digital State Variable Filters with programmable envelope. Separately,
each filter provide a 12 dB per octave slope (2 pole). Combined, they operate as a 4
pole filter with a 24 dB per octave slope.
• ROM and RAM Sounds
The permanent memory (ROM) houses 6 Megabytes of Waveform, the basic element
which provides more than 500 Rom Sounds.
2 Megabytes of Sample RAM are ready to receive (from disk or M
IDI
) other Wave-
forms, for the creation of Sounds based on new Waveforms created with the Sample
Translator.
The new Waveforms can be loaded from Atari/MS-DOS floppy disks in the formats
Sound Designer, Avalon, Sample Vision, Wave. They can be loaded from Akai S1000
disks, or received via MIDI.
The Sound Library is where the Sounds are housed. It can contain up to 2048
Sounds (ROM + RAM Sounds).
• Amount of RAM
The S Series units are fitted with 4 Megabytes of R
AM
(volatile):
– 2 Megabytes of Operative-Ram to process and control the Banks and the Songs;
– 2 Megabytes of Sample-Ram to control the Waveforms created with Sample Transla-
tor or loaded with the R
AM
-Sounds.
• 2 Digital Signal Processors
Two Digital Effects Processors, controlled in real time, enrich the sound with environ-