Don’t overlook the note priority setting in Voyager. It’s AMAZING how different your riffs sound depending on how you have this setting set. It really makes a big difference. This is especially noticeable when you play Voyager in a manner popular with the best mono synth players, which is playing with a back and forth action with gaps in between notes while traveling up the keyboard and down causing a whipping action. Try doing one of your favorite riffs, then changing the note priority and listen to the difference. You wouldn’t think it would make a difference, but it does!
I don’t ever change mine because Im so used to the low note priority. I think if I was doing all left hand stuff, I might want to change it to high note priority.
Do you know if that is a global change or can you program that for a preset?
It’s not global - you can set it different for each program. Try it anyway for a variety of different riffs. I think you’ll find that it gives the ‘motion’ of the riff a different kind of sound… or a different attack as such. It’s hard to describe. It’s particular noticeable when you switch from Low priority to High priority and vise versa, and subsequently when you’re traveling up or down the keyboard.
It’s subtle, but interesting.
One interesting note: I noticed this after I’d laid down a particular riff while recording into CuBase, and I was messing around during playback with the settings on Voyager. I was really listening instead of being concerned about playing.
One MORE interesting note: It has a practical use as well. I am more comfortable doing a trill holding a note down with my thumb and rapidly hitting the next note with my forefinger. One of Rick Wakeman’s favorite trills is to hold, let’s say the third finger down and rapidly striking a lower note with the thumb - the wider the distance, the more drastic the effect. That’s on a Model D, which is permanently set to Low Note Priority. You have to pay attention to the way you have the filter set for messing around with this so that the note doesn’t die out. Setting the patch on Multi Triggering fixes this also. You can really get your machine to scream with this.
Programmable per preset. Press the EDIT button scroll to Keyboard Modes 3.3. I’ve always used different note priority depending on the style I’m play, lots of fun/ What can be cool is if you MIDI two Voyagers together and set one for high note and one for low note. Don’t forget to also try different trigger modes (3.4) Single will let you play legato lines when you go from one key to the other without lifting the key ( ENV does not retrigger) or Multi trigger where the ENV’s trigger each time you press a key regardless if one is being held down.
For any of the Keyboard modes try different glide rates, a fairly short one works real well if you hold a key down and quickly play other keys. Kind of a Rick Wakeman( and a few others) trademark .
No problem. Wait till you dive into the other menu options But that is the cool thing with the Voyager ( and Little Phatty for that matter) you can do a lot with what’s on the surface but there are plenty of cool things to dive into under the hood when you want to… but don’t have to fi you don’t feel like it.
I love changing the filter poles and of corse the pot mapping. As far as the key note priority or multi-triggering I haven’t really sat down with that.
I think i maxxed out my preset memory.
You know what though, I keep erasing the last preset on the program. I go a little too fast sometimes.
Ok, here’s a little riff that Rick Wakeman uses when he plays the CTTE synth solo… you can cheat using MULTI TRIGGERING to make it easier to play.
First, find a nice crisp fast decay filter sound so that this is really pronounced. Set the preset to Multi Triggering and Priority to Last (latest?). Now, put your thumb on B and hold it down. Anchor it there. It’s going to remain down for the rest of this riff. Next, play the C# next to it with your index finger, and note shifts from B to C#… then LIFT to re-trigger the B. Stay with me here… move that same index finger to the Bb just below the B, now the Bb sounds… LIFT and once again the B re-triggers. Now, instead of the C#, do it with D#, and so on all the way up the B scale, each time (use additional fingering as needed), followed by the LIFT, then the Bb, and lift. It’s a rocking back and forth action that you’ll find you can do VERY fast. VERY VERY fast, actually.
[quote=“Christopher J. Boylan”]Ok, here’s a little riff that Rick Wakeman uses when he plays the CTTE synth solo… you can cheat using MULTI TRIGGERING to make it easier to play.
lot’s of little tricks you can do, been doing that one for years also.
Isn’t that one COOL? You can go through an octave of that, that shift up an octave each time and go all the way up on the keyboard… is SO much fun. And, it’s a lick that you can only do that way on a keyboard that has: Multi Triggering, and Latest Not Priority. I used to do that on my Memorymoog 'cause it had a longer keyboard.
Now, it took me a while to document that one… so I’ve found that it’s a bit of a challenge to do so. But we could start a thread for “Cool Synth Riffs” that utilizes little tricks like this.
I actually tried this the other day and it was really cool. Especially the LAST function. So, you can have LAST Note prioroty so all of the tricks that you do and that you have to reverse when you reverse the priority you can do both on LAST.
Now, it took me a while to document that one… so I’ve found that it’s a bit of a challenge to do so. But we could start a thread for “Cool Synth Riffs” that utilizes little tricks like this.
What do you think?[/quote]
Sounds like a good idea . There were all kinds of un things to do on the MemoryMoog. I used to love to put it in Mono Mode an use all six cards. Walls would move before you even hit a key .
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