Modal Electronics COBALT8X, User Manual, Page: 25 / 41

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Keyboard/Voice
• Oct -/+: These buttons control the key range available along the keyboard.
Tip: You can use this while holding notes to access unavailable notes. Particularly handy
when used in conjunction with Sustain and Chord mode.
• Transpose: Holding this button enters Transpose mode. Here you can directly transpose
the pitch of both oscillators using the keyboard. C2 (directly beneath the Transpose
button) is the default position. Keys below this transpose down 1 semitone per key and
keys above transpose up 1 semitone per key.
Note: Using transpose will not trigger a new note. If you are using low EG settings you
may not notice the change. This can be used to great effect while sequencing the synth
from its Arp or Seq or from external sources.
Note. Pressing Transpose without entering any key values will reset transposition to 0.
Transpose is a performance feature and as such is not saved per patch. It will remain until
it is either reset, turned off or the unit is power cycled.
• Chord:
Pressing this button while holding a chord (input directly from the keys or via
incoming MIDI) stores this chord and enables chord mode. This chord can then be
played from a single note trigger until the chord is changed, or chord mode is disabled.
To change a chord, simply turn Chord mode off and repeat the process holding your
new chord shape. To exit simply press the Chord button again. The Chord function is a
performance feature and as such is not saved per patch. It will remain until it is either
reset or the unit is power cycled.
• Mono:
This button selects Mono voice mode for the current patch. 4 oscillators will be
stacked into a single voice
• Poly: This button selects polyphonic voice mode for the current patch. 8 voice stereo true
polyphonic path all the way to the stereo FX engine input.
• Unison: This button selects Unison voice mode. Cycle through to choose between
Unison-2, Unison-4 or Unison-8. These are monophonic voice modes where multiple
voices are stacked and detuned, the number reflects the number of voices per note.
• Stack: This button selects Stack voice mode. Cycle through to choose between Stack-2
or Stack-4. These are polyphonic voice modes where multiple voices are stacked. Stack-2
offer 4-note polyphony and Stack-4 offers 2-note polyphony.
• Drift:
This encoder controls the oscillator drift amount. This is the amount of slop or
random detuning of each oscillators phase and tune.
• Width: Holding the ‘Shift’ button and (or when latched in shift mode) turning this
encoder controls the voice width of the current patch. This sets how far left and right the
alternating pan of the voices is from mono at 0 to hard panned & wide at 127.
Keyboard/Voice
• Chord Invert: Holding the ‘Patch’ button and turning the ‘Drift’ encoder controls Chord
invert. Chord invert looks at the notes that are being played across the voices on the
synth, then adds octave offsets to these notes depending on the setting:
Oct 1 : n
- adds 1 octave to the lowest n notes in the chord, inverting the chords in the
traditional way
Oct 2 : n - adds 2 octaves to the lowest n notes in the chord and 1 octave to all other
notes
Even 1 : n - adds 1 octave to the lowest n even notes in the chord i.e. the 2nd, 4th, 6th
and 8th notes
Odd 1 : n - adds 1 octave to the lowest n Odd notes in the chord i.e. the 1st, 3rd, 5th
and 7th notes
Shuffle 1 - adds an extra octave to each additional note in the chord up to 3 octaves. i.e
1 octave added to the 2nd note, 2 octaves to the 3rd note, 3 octaves to the 4th note, 1
octave to the 5th note
Shuffle n - the same as shuffle 1 but with different orderings of octave offsets
Note - Chord invert looks at the state of the synth voices rather than MIDI note input, so
pressing a 3 note chord with “Stack-2” voice mode will be counted as a 6-note chord.
You can take advantage of this for huge stereo pads by combining Chord Invert, Stack
and Voice Width/Drift settings.