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Synapse DUNE 2, User Manual

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1 Introduction

Thank you for choosing Dune 2!

Dune 2 is an advanced polyphonic synthesizer

VST/AU plugin, designed for creating music on a com-
puter, or playing live on stage.

The design goal was to develop a synthesizer which

offers yet higher sound quality and more flexibility
than its predecessor, Dune 1. Fast vector processing as
well as support for multiple processor cores allow the
plugin to run with a moderate CPU load on modern
systems.

Dune 2 was tested by music producers to guarantee

its ambitious design goals were met. It comes with
high quality sounds, created by experienced sound de-
signers.

1.1 Installation

Important note for Dune 1 users:

Dune 2 is a

new synthesizer which is not compatible with Dune 1
in any way. Both run fine in parallel, there is no need
to uninstall Dune 1 prior to installing Dune 2.

Installation PC

Unzip "Dune20win.zip" and run SETUP.EXE to com-
mence with the installation process. The installer will
guide you through the necessary steps. You will be
asked to select the location of your VstPlugins direc-
tory. Make sure to choose the correct directory for
your host software. Refer to your host software’s man-
ual if you are unsure about where the host software’s
VstPlugins directory is located. The plugin file "Dune
2.DLL" and the manual will be placed in the chosen
directory. Presets, MIDI files and wavetables will be
placed in your user documents directory (Synapse Au-
dio/Dune 2). The next time you start your host soft-
ware, Dune 2 will appear in the VST instrument list.

If you use a 64-bit host such as Orion 64, be sure

to provide the proper VstPlugins path for the 64-bit
edition of Dune 2.

Installation Mac

Download and open the file named "dune20mac.dmg".
Afterwards, double-click on the installer icon to be-
gin the installation process. The installer will guide
you through the necessary steps. The next time you
start your host software, Dune 2 will appear in the
AU and/or VST instrument list, depending on which
format your host software supports.

5

DUNE 2 User’s Manual

Summary of Contents for DUNE 2

Page 1: ...User s Manual...

Page 2: ...ications in the product described in this manual are subject to change without notice The document may not be changed particularly copyright notices may not be removed or changed VST is a registered t...

Page 3: ...ch Bend and Modulation Wheel 12 3 The Center Screen 13 3 1 Main 13 3 2 Settings 15 3 3 Mod Matrix 18 3 4 Arpeggiator 19 4 Sound Parameters 22 4 1 Patch Structure 22 4 2 Oscillators 1 2 24 4 2 1 Common...

Page 4: ...5 3 9 FX Bus 1 2 68 6 MIDI Reference 70 7 Optimizing performance 72 7 1 Optimizing your system 72 7 2 Optimizing patch settings 72 7 2 1 Polyphony 72 7 2 2 Modulation Rate 72 7 2 3 Patch structure 73...

Page 5: ...tion process The installer will guide you through the necessary steps You will be asked to select the location of your VstPlugins direc tory Make sure to choose the correct directory for your host sof...

Page 6: ...ows XP or later and should be equipped with a 2 GHz quad core CPU or better Most importantly Windows must be op timized for realtime audio in order to maximize the benefits of Dune 2 s multi threaded...

Page 7: ...sitions within the wavetable for exam ple in between two waveforms Modulating the wavetable position is now much smoother than previously in fact perfectly smooth when choos ing a proper modulation so...

Page 8: ...classic up down random modes known from many synthesizers and works bet ter when playing live via a MIDI keyboard The step sequencer adds a slide feature and allows to import MIDI files Polyphonic se...

Page 9: ...y not possible 1 4 9 Multi threaded processing Most DSP algorithms employed in Dune 2 are a magni tude more complex than previously in order to achieve a yet higher sound quality This also means a muc...

Page 10: ...all at once or in dividually This makes Dune 2 a multi part syn thesizer which facilitates synthesizing more com plex sounds The gray switch buttons C toggle the bottom view between the keyboard effec...

Page 11: ...ight click on a parameter then choose Learn to link it to a particular MIDI controller Afterwards turn any knob or fader on your MIDI gear to link it to that parameter Unlink controllers by right clic...

Page 12: ...f the box your individual playing style or usage of sounds may require adjusting the polyphony parameter at times 2 5 Pitch Bend and Modulation Wheel At the bottom left of the user interface the pitch...

Page 13: ...bank to choose a different bank category Soundbanks and Patches are stored in the following directory Mac OS X Music Synapse Audio Dune 2 Soundbanks Windows User Documents Synapse Audio Dune 2 Sound b...

Page 14: ...patch that has been modified is marked with an asterisk after saving the patch the aster isk is removed Copy FX 1 2 copies all effect bus 1 2 param eters into the clipboard in order to apply them to a...

Page 15: ...can be smoothed Strong smoothing is useful in a setup where the MIDI hardware and or host sequencer sends too few messages thus causing a steppy response The downside of smoothing is latency and lower...

Page 16: ...g the velocity curve setting you can change the effect the MIDI Velocity has on the selected patch To change the velocity curve left click on the curve then drag the mouse up or down in vertical direc...

Page 17: ...her modulation rate does not equal better sound if you cannot hear a difference do not use a higher modulation rate this will just waste pre cious CPU cycles Plugin Kb This control allows you to set t...

Page 18: ...modulate In the amount column click and drag vertically to change the modulation amount for a specific slot In the exam ple above fig 3 2 LFO 1 modulates the amplitude with an amount of 100 giving a...

Page 19: ...to 32 steps can be programmed directly within Dune Click on buttons 1 8 9 16 17 24 or 25 32 to edit eight steps simultaneously Each step has three parameters note velocity and tie A nonzero note valu...

Page 20: ...IDI file transposed according to the current MIDI key pressed Pressing more than one key simultaneously has no effect in this mode Playback mode is the only mode that al lows to play back polyphonic M...

Page 21: ...and can be specified in musical intervals such as 8th note 16th notes dotted notes triplets T etc When SYNC is disabled the rate is specified in Hz Length Using the length parameter the duration of al...

Page 22: ...l is processed by the filter block which atten uates frequencies specified by the user usually high frequencies are removed Hence this type of synthe sis is commonly called subtractive The final block...

Page 23: ...haser Delay Reverb FX Bus 1 Adjust the brightness over time Filter Env Adjust the volume over time Amp Env Unison Voice 1 Unison Voice 2 Unison Voice 3 Distortion EQ Phaser Delay Reverb FX Bus 2 Perio...

Page 24: ...er interface labelled Oscillator 50 Sawtooth Pulse Sine Triangle Figure 4 2 Basic oscillator waveforms 4 2 1 Common parameters Density The number of oscillators can be changed by left click drag on th...

Page 25: ...ch around the center frequency Spread When two or more oscillators are active in the stack the SPRD knob allows to spread the oscillators in the stereo field around the center Turned fully left the os...

Page 26: ...nc in Dune When sync is enabled Dune automatically generates a virtual master oscillator needed to perform the syn chronisation The frequency of this oscillator is ad justed by the frequency knob FREQ...

Page 27: ...ne Applying feedback creates more inter esting timbres The amount of feedback is controlled with the FBK knob In order to create interesting FM sounds it is impor tant to change the operator levels A...

Page 28: ...oise generator White noise is a type of noise which contains an equal distri bution of all frequencies Lowpass The white noise emitted by the noise generator passes through a low pass and high pass fi...

Page 29: ...modulator and the noise generator before they enter the filter All mixer parameters can be controlled via the modula tion matrix too This allows to fade in or out an os cillator cross fade between osc...

Page 30: ...s all frequencies below the cutoff frequency and passes the higher frequencies unchanged Frequency Magnitude Cutoff frequency The filters described above form the basic filters en countered in most sy...

Page 31: ...of the transistor ladder filter models see below drive will additionally saturate the signal regardless of resonance Keytrack The KTRK knob determines how much the cutoff fre quency is affected by the...

Page 32: ...tion per octave around the cutoff frequency CL Highpass 2p A two pole highpass filter with 12 dB attenua tion per octave below the cutoff frequency CL Highpass 4p A four pole highpass filter with 24...

Page 33: ...e cutoff frequency SK Bandpass 2p A two pole bandpass filter with 6 dB attenua tion per octave on either side around the cutoff frequency SK Highpass 2p A two pole highpass filter with 12 dB attenua t...

Page 34: ...t of reduction is controlled using the AMOUNT knob If the signal range is reduced to 2 bits for instance each sample pass ing through the filter is reduced to only 4 differ ent states Strong reduction...

Page 35: ...quency is controlled via the AMOUNT knob and can be modulated via the modulation matrix The ex tra filter can be used to fine tune the response of the main filter for example a 2 pole bandpass filter...

Page 36: ...mes and the envelope attack and sustain set to their minimum values This cre ates the most common timbre which is a bright start followed by a darker sustain stage a property shared by many acoustic i...

Page 37: ...has previously reached zero already 4 8 Amplitude Envelope Located below the Filter envelope the amplitude enve lope controls the progression of the volume of a sound see fig 4 8 It works in the same...

Page 38: ...to stack different sounds In order to cause an audible change multiple voices must differ in one or more sound parameters The most common change is to slightly detune the stacked voices resulting in...

Page 39: ...d hard left and the other one hard right In case of three voices one voice will be panned hard left one dead center and one hard right etc Solo Allows to solo individual voices Note that only voices t...

Page 40: ...mance param eters and allows to set the global volume Polyphony The polyphony popup menu allows to specify how many notes can be played simultaneously The main purpose of limiting the polyphony is to...

Page 41: ...ors with custom shapes Using the editor Create new points either with the left mouse but ton double click or with the middle mouse but ton single click Delete points with the right mouse button Move p...

Page 42: ...cts synchro nized to the song tempo Sync When the sync switch is off the envelope operates in seconds The time line shows seconds and the maxi mum length can be adjusted in seconds If the sync switch...

Page 43: ...envelope when pressing higher keys The purpose of key tracking is to imitate the behavior of acoustic instruments such as the guitar high notes on the guitar decay more quickly than low notes Key tra...

Page 44: ...ignals Random modulation signals are useful for special ef fects or to simulate the behavior of old analog hard ware by choosing a very slow and subtle modulation Rate Sync By default LFOs run at a co...

Page 45: ...on can be objec tionable in the early attack stage of the sound To preserve the transients the fade in parameter can be used to gradually increase the modulation from zero to its maximum value for a d...

Page 46: ...pressor effect to a different position 4 14 1 Distortion A distortion effect changes the signal in a nonlinear manner which creates new overtones and usually re sults in a harsher sound Dune 2 offers...

Page 47: ...his is useful to e g add more bass to a sound increase its presence or to achieve formant type effects Dune features a classic 3 band equalizer The Low Shelf EQ amplifies or attenuates fre quencies be...

Page 48: ...is useful to fine tune the overall timbre 4 14 4 Phaser A phaser modifies the phase of the signal around some frequency then adds it back to the original signal The result is a notch in the frequency...

Page 49: ...entire frequency spectrum Depth Sets the modulation depth of the LFO Set to zero there is no modulation and thus no sweeping effect the sound will be static When increasing the modula tion depth the p...

Page 50: ...depth of the LFO Set to zero there is no modulation and thus no sweeping effect the sound will be static LR Offset Since the chorus operates in stereo both channels have their own LFO With the offset...

Page 51: ...hannel The result is a pair of echoes alternating between the left and right channel Diffuse works similar to the Simple delay ex cept that each echo becomes increasingly diffuse Tape works similar to...

Page 52: ...back parameter adjusts how long the echoes are repeated The percentage specifies the level change from one echo to the next so 100 creates an infinite series of echoes 50 cuts the level of each subseq...

Page 53: ...b times of 3 5 seconds and above Slapback Hall simulates a hall with strong early reflections occurring after a few millisec onds Stadium simulates a very large reverberant space Predelay Adjusts the...

Page 54: ...At low s Dry Wet Blends between the dry and processed signals 4 14 8 Compressor The purpose of a compressor is to reduce the dynamic range of a signal which increases the perceived loud ness and can...

Page 55: ...ld Input dB Output dB Threshold 1 1 2 1 100 1 Threshold The threshold knob sets the level at which a passage is considered loud that s the point at which the compressor will start working For example...

Page 56: ...evel in decibel dB Dry Wet Blends between the dry and processed signals While a compressor is traditionally used 100 wet mixing in the dry signal has become a popular trick known as parallel or New Yo...

Page 57: ...and offers far greater flexibility Classic desti nation parameters include Pitch to obtain a vibrato effect Volume to obtain a tremolo effect as well as Filter Cutoff Further sources include the graph...

Page 58: ...orama which creates a very spa cious effect The Synapse Audio WASP is such a syn thesizer The idea behind Dune is to make the power of the unison mode accessible to sound designers Why re strict the u...

Page 59: ...rameters directly by using the Voice Edit section By editing voice pa rameters directly you perform absolute changes to the unison voices This is required if you want to use different filter types dif...

Page 60: ...ther than its note number MWheel The MIDI modulation wheel data controller 01 PWheel The MIDI pitch wheel data Note that the pitch bend wheel always changes the pitch up or down dependent on the Bend...

Page 61: ...urpose parameter which should be used in combination with Pitch Semi as a destination and with the Arp Mode set to Silent This will result in direct pitch changes within a voice an effect com mon in o...

Page 62: ...emolo effects with the depth controlled by the modulation wheel LFO AT The value of LFO 1 LFO 2 or LFO 3 multiplied by the aftertouch data Useful to create vibrato type effects when applying pressure...

Page 63: ...pitch range use Pitch Semi as a destination instead The modulation can be re stricted to specific voices if desired For example you could have a static low pitched sine wave on the first voice and a v...

Page 64: ...unt of 50 corresponds to a 180 degree phase shift an amount of 100 to 360 degrees etc While the human hearing is largely insensitive to the starting phase of a single oscillator the relative phase dif...

Page 65: ...n the oscillator is set to WT mode this parame ter sets the Wavetable position This allows to sweep through the wavetable by applying a LFO or MSEG Osc FM Amt A When the oscillator is set to FM mode t...

Page 66: ...e Filter Reso Adjusts the filter resonance relative to the front panel knob using the same value range Filter Env Amount Adjusts the filter envelope amount relative to the front panel knob using the s...

Page 67: ...ay Sustain Release Adjusts the amplitude envelope parameters relative to whatever is set on the front panel This allows you to specify different amplitude envelopes for different voices or to dynamica...

Page 68: ...lation wheel In that case you would choose Mod Wheel as a source and the MM slot s containing the modulation envelope as a destination You may also have one MM slot modulate another MM slot which in t...

Page 69: ...en delay sync is turned off the delay time may be mod ulated relative to the L R times specified with the front panel knobs Rev Adjusts the corresponding reverb parameters All pa rameters except pre d...

Page 70: ...e Dune the changes will be made persistent and apply to any future instance of Dune Dune Parameter CC MIDI Ctrl Name Common Modulation Wheel 1 Modulation Wheel Glide 5 Portamento Time Sustain Pedal 64...

Page 71: ...Filter Env Amt 43 Filter Key Track 46 Dune Parameter CC MIDI Ctrl Name Amp Envelope Amp Attack 73 Attack Time Amp Decay 36 Amp Sustain 37 Amp Release 72 Release Time Effects Bus 1 EQ 1 Mid Gain 89 EQ...

Page 72: ...or your system is not optimized enough for realtime audio playback 7 2 Optimizing patch settings The two most important patch settings affecting CPU usage are polyphony how many notes can be active si...

Page 73: ...with a single oscillator per voice is much more CPU intensive than using a single unison voice with a stack of 8 oscillators in it In contrast to its predeces sor Dune 2 has stereo oscillators with p...

Page 74: ...While Dune uses a controller map designed to not react on controllers such as bank change or volume which may be sent by some hosts it is possible that your gear sends other controller mes sages that...

Page 75: ...f this indicator never lights up Dune does not receive any MIDI messages Check the MIDI setup of your host sequencer as well as the setup of your hardware 8 6 The CPU usage is very high Check if your...

Page 76: ...ses you may only in stall and use a single copy of the Software on a com puter and or move the software to another computer provided that you are the only individual using the software If you are an e...

Page 77: ...the licensor will not be held responsible for any damage or loss to your per son or property as incidential or consequential result of installing or using this software Termination Your license to us...

Page 78: ...v sounds com EDT Ed Ten Eyck http www edtaudio com EX Daniel Thiel eXode https soundcloud com exodesound GW Vincent Bastiat http ghostwaveaudio com IW Ingo Weidner ingo_weidner web de JB Junebug http...

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