Novation Ultranova User Manual Download Page 20

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RE3: Not used.

RE4: Portamento Time

Displayed as:

PortTime

Initial value:

Off

Range of adjustment:

Off, 1 to 127

With Portamento active, notes played sequentially glide from one to the next, rather than
immediately jumping to the desired note pitch. The synth remembers the last note played
and the glide will start from that note even after the key has been released. The

Porta-

mento Time

is the duration of the glide, and a value of 70 equates to approximately 1

second. Portamento is primarily intended for use in a mono Mode (see

RE5

below), where

it is particularly effective. It can also be used in a Poly mode, but its operation can be un-
predictable, particularly when chords are played. Note that

Pre-Glide

must be set to zero

in order for Portamento to be operative.

RE5: Portamento Mode

Displayed as:

PortMode

Initial value:

Expo

Range of adjustment:

Expo or Linear

This sets the ‘shape’ of the Portamento and

Pre-Glide

(see

RE6

below) transitions from

one note to the next. In

Linear

mode, the glide alters the pitch evenly between the previous

note and that being played. In

Expo

mode, the pitch changes more rapidly at irst, and then

approaches the ‘target’ note more slowly, i.e., exponentially.

RE6: Pre-Glide

Displayed as:

PreGlide

Initial value:

Range of adjustment:

0, -12 to +12

Pre-Glide

takes priority over Portamento, though it does use the

Portamento Time

parameter to set its duration.

Pre-Glide

is calibrated in semitones, and each note played

will actually begin a on a chromatically-related note up to an octave above (value = +12)
or below (value = -12) the note corresponding to the key pressed, and glide towards the
‘target’ note. This differs from Portamento in that, e.g., two notes played in sequence will
each have their own

Pre-Glide

, related to the notes played, and there will be no glide

‘between’ the notes.

Although the use of Portamento is not recommended in Poly modes when playing
more than one note at a time, this restriction does not apply to Pre-Glide, which
can be very effective with full chords.

RE7: Polyphony Mode

Displayed as:

PolyMode

Initial value:

Poly1

Range of adjustment:

Mono, MonoAG, Poly1, Poly2, Mono2

As the names imply, three of the possible modes are mono and two are polyphonic.

Mono

– this is standard monophonic mode; only one note sounds at a time, and the “last

played” rule applies.

MonoAG

– AG stands for Auto-Glide. This is an alternative mono mode, which differs

from Mono in the way Portamento and Pre-Glide work. In Mono mode, Portamento and

Pre-Glide apply both if notes are played separately, or in a legato style (when one note is
played when another is already held down). In MonoAG mode, Portamento and Pre-Glide
only work if the keys are played in a legato style; playing notes separately produces no
glide effect.

Poly1

– in this polyphonic mode successively playing the same note(s) uses separate

voices and the notes are therefore ‘stacked’, so the sound gets louder as more notes are
played. The effect will only be evident on patches with a long amplitude release time.

Poly2

– in this alternative mode, successively playing the same note(s) uses the original

voices, so the volume increase inherent in Poly1 mode is avoided.

Mono 2

– this differs from Mono in the way the Attack phases of the Envelopes are trig-

gered. In Mono mode, when playing Legato style, the envelopes are only triggered once, by
the initial key press. In Mono 2 mode, every key press will re-trigger all the Envelopes.

RE8:

Not used

envelopeS

The UltraNova provides a great deal of lexibility in the use of envelopes in sound creation,
based on the familiar ADSR concept.

The ADSR envelope can be most easily visualised by considering the amplitude (volume)
of a note over time. The envelope describing the “lifetime” of a note can be split into four
distinct phases, and adjustments are provided for each of these:

Attack

– the time it takes for the note to increase from zero (e.g. when the key is pressed)

to its maximum level. A long attack time produces a “fade-in” effect.

Decay

– the time it takes for the note to drop in level from the maximum value reached at

the end of the attack phase to a new level, deined by the Sustain parameter.

Sustain

– this is an amplitude value, and represents the volume of the note after the initial

attack and decay phases – i.e., while holding the key down. Setting a low value of Sustain
can give a very short, percussive effect (providing the attack and decay times are short).

Release

– This is the time it takes for the note’s volume to drop back to zero after the key is

released. A high value of Release will cause the sound to remain audible (though diminish-
ing in volume) after the key is released.

Although the above discusses ADSR in terms of volume, note that the UltraNova is
equipped with six separate Envelope generators, allowing control of other synth blocks as
well as amplitude – e.g., ilters, oscillators, etc.

Pressing the

ENVELOPE

button [15] opens the Envelope Menu, which has two pages for

each envelope. One of the

SELECT

buttons and one of the

PAGE

buttons will be illumi-

nated, indicating that more than one envelope is available to be controlled and that further
menu pages are available. A total of 16 parameters per envelope is displayed for adjust-
ment, eight per Page. Note that the last parameter on Page 2 is common to all envelopes,
and this appears on Page 2 for all envelopes.

Envelope 1 (Amplitude) parameters (Page 1)

Envelope generator 1 controls the ADSR parameters of the notes’ amplitudes.

RE1: Amplitude Attack Time

Displayed as:

AmpAtt

Initial value:

Range of adjustment:

0 to 127

This parameter sets the note’s attack time. With a value of 0 the note is at its maximum
level immediately the key is pressed; with a value of 127, the note takes over 20 seconds
to reach its maximum level. At the mid-setting (64), the time is approx. 220 ms (provided

Amplitude Attack Slope

(Page 2,

RE1

) has a value of zero).

TIME

KEY "ON"

PITCH

Portamento Time

TIME

KEY "ON"

PITCH

Portamento Time