New Voyager user with some questions

[SanderVeeken]

Hi all,

Yesterday evening I became the lucky owner of an Electric Blue Voyager. I've started playing and programming it today for a gig on Friday and I'm running into a few questions. I'm not new to synths but have to get used the the Voyager OS and was hoping some of you could point me in the right direction.
Or perhaps what I'm expecting isn't even possible.

Question 1;
I would like to use the LFO to modulate both filter frequency and pitch, and use the mod wheel to control it. This is done on my Micro with a simple switch, but on the Voyager, I can't seem to do it both at the same time. I tried looking into the PGM stuff but I can't seem to find it. Is this even possible? If not, is there an alternate route to get to that effect? I should mention I also have the VX-351, if that helps.

Question 2;
The filter seems a lot mellower than the one on my friend's old Mini. Specifically, in the low-mid range I seem to lack a lot of presence - all the real filtery stuff seems to occur way high up. When doing a single saw bass sound, turning up the filter doesn't seem to have a very great effect until I get to quite high overtones. Since it's a bass patch, I can't do much with the resonance either, but resonance isn't exactly what I'm after. It's a little hard to explain. I wasn't expecting a 1 on 1 copy of the old Mini, but thought to get closer than this. Is there something I'm overlooking, or anything I can do to try and get it to sound more aggressive?

Question 3;
I've run into a few hanging notes problems, mainly when doing whole hand slides downward. Often quickly sliding up after a hang solves it, and I've set the Master to to Panic as well, so that helps. I was just wondering if this is considered normal behavior. It makes me feel a bit iffy about using it live, and that's the specific reason I bought it. Also, sometimes the glide switch (on/off) seems to trigger itself. Or rather, in the off position, the display sometimes shows as if I touched it, even when I didn't. It seems a similar problem to the hanging notes, in a sense; the midi control surface or the os flipping out a bit. Should I bring it in for checking or will this just be considered "normal"?

Thanks for anyone taking the time to read and/or answering this!
I'm having a blast otherwise!

[ColorForm2113]

Hi all,

Yesterday evening I became the lucky owner of an Electric Blue Voyager. I've started playing and programming it today for a gig on Friday and I'm running into a few questions. I'm not new to synths but have to get used the the Voyager OS and was hoping some of you could point me in the right direction.
Or perhaps what I'm expecting isn't even possible.

Question 1;
I would like to use the LFO to modulate both filter frequency and pitch, and use the mod wheel to control it. This is done on my Micro with a simple switch, but on the Voyager, I can't seem to do it both at the same time. I tried looking into the PGM stuff but I can't seem to find it. Is this even possible? If not, is there an alternate route to get to that effect? I should mention I also have the VX-351, if that helps.

cant you just send mod buss one to pitch and mod buss two to filter. i think you have to change something in the menu for the source on mod buss 2 to get the mod wheel to work it...or you can just get the vx-351 and be able to patch things where ever the hell you want on the fly

Question 2;
The filter seems a lot mellower than the one on my friend's old Mini. Specifically, in the low-mid range I seem to lack a lot of presence - all the real filtery stuff seems to occur way high up. When doing a single saw bass sound, turning up the filter doesn't seem to have a very great effect until I get to quite high overtones. Since it's a bass patch, I can't do much with the resonance either, but resonance isn't exactly what I'm after. It's a little hard to explain. I wasn't expecting a 1 on 1 copy of the old Mini, but thought to get closer than this. Is there something I'm overlooking, or anything I can do to try and get it to sound more aggressive?

you will need a "Y" cable to use on the mixer in/out jack and insert various boosting enhancing pedals in the loop. ive heard good results come from the bbe sonic maximizer, or even your favorite fuzz if you want a harder sound. you can always do the ol' headphone-out-to-external-in trick too

Question 3;
I've run into a few hanging notes problems, mainly when doing whole hand slides downward. Often quickly sliding up after a hang solves it, and I've set the Master to to Panic as well, so that helps. I was just wondering if this is considered normal behavior. It makes me feel a bit iffy about using it live, and that's the specific reason I bought it. Also, sometimes the glide switch (on/off) seems to trigger itself. Or rather, in the off position, the display sometimes shows as if I touched it, even when I didn't. It seems a similar problem to the hanging notes, in a sense; the midi control surface or the os flipping out a bit. Should I bring it in for checking or will this just be considered "normal"?

sorry cant help with this one, i am not an actual voyager owner (yet!) so all my info is solely based on things ive read over the years on the interwebs and paging through the manual. im sure some one will be able to give you more detailed answer. what version operating system is your voyager running? maybe that has something to do with it???

Thanks for anyone taking the time to read and/or answering this!
I'm having a blast otherwise!

No problem! i am very envious of voyager owners. i stare longly at pictures, much like a teenage girl would at pictures of ...who do these kids like now...i don't know, Paul Newman

[EricK]

I have both a voyager and a Micro and I can attest, there ae some features of the Micro’s modulation that I wish were in the voyager, namely the auto function.

Yes, you can just use Mod’s 1 and 2 on the Voyager to route to Osc and Filter, and you should be able to use pot mapping also. I don’t have my Voyager handy to test that, but yeah, you can send that same LFO output to the filter bank from the 351 also.

2. There really is no way to duplicate the filter sound of the Model D on the Voyager. You can use various ways mentioned above but it really won’t sound the same, due to the D’s filter feedback paths, and the VCA clipping, but Im really speaking beyond my element here.
Just don’t use the headphone out back into the mixer input, theres an impedance mismatch there that will make your electric blue sad.
You can also try sending noise to the filter input in addition to various boost pedals, but really

Here is an interesting take on it with much more accurate information that I can provide, because I simply don’t have the electrical knowledge.

Did you try a factory reset, or try to download and reload the latest operating system?



lol @ Paul Newman. (RIP) Really though, it's more like Cary Grant. (RIP)

[SanderVeeken]

Good idea about the second mod bus, thanks both! I had confused myself and was looking at more destinations for mod bus one, instead of setting up the second one to the same controller. I also had a pedal plugged in for opening the filter slowly, but I can just put that directly into the filter control on the back, right?

I'm glad to not have to use the 351 as it seems it would complicate things for live use. Not just the extra cables and box, but with patch switching as well.

I have a few fx boxes, but my RAT and OD808 both have some kind of HPF going on, so that seems less useful. I also have a BBE Sonic Maximizer DI that I could try, but just from knowing its character, that would seem to do the opposite of what I want; bring more clarity and presence to the high frequencies, when what I'm missing is balls in the mid or lower midrange. I'll give them a try though, thanks for the suggestions. More are always welcome, I have all day today

As for the hanging notes and glide switch, I have the latest OS (3.5) and the serial of the unit is around 1800 or so, so it seems to be as up to date as it gets. Knowing not to do full hand downward slides seems to cure the hanging so I can live with it for now. I'd rather not load a new OS considering I have only today to program it and have a gig with it tomorrow. In the long term, I'm somewhat bothered by it though. Knowing a little bit about these things, it seems more like a slightly loose connector than an OS issue, but I could be wrong.

[SanderVeeken]

Adding to my last post, I've run into another problem. Using mod bus 1 for pitch seems to work as expected; I set source to triangle, destination to pitch, shaping to something that doesn't really get used (in this case aftertouch) and amount about a third of the way in. Now, I have no modulation when the wheel is down, and get pitch modulation when it's up. But using the second mod bus in the same way for filter makes the filter modulate even when the wheel is all the way down. The only way to get around this is to put the amount (nearly) all the way down but then I don't get an effect, or very little. What I'm looking for is simply having the filter go up and down together with the pitch, controlled by an LFO and adjusted by the mod-wheel. I'm getting a little frustrated as this was a single "click" on my Micro and doesn't seem a very complicated feature...

[EricK]

Try the Amount to FIlter knob and tweak that a little and see if that works. The modulation amount also, or you can go into the menu and make sure the mod wheel amount is set to a percentage of your liking.

Really, it just takes a few minutes to do an installation of the os, there are detailed instructions to do it in case your screen goes black, but at least consider waiting until there isn't a looming job and get to it when you get a chance.

Otherwise you can law some towels down and unscrew the bottom, and remove the keys and the mod wheel (not necesarily in that order but im saying it here just as a suggestion, if you want to go that route we can post more clearer directions) so you can check the keyboard connections.


Good luck
Eric

[SanderVeeken]

Ok, I've "solved" the mod bus issue, although I don't really understand why what I was trying didn't work. I first tried to pot map the mod wheel to "mod 2", as I understood that that is the controller for the mod bus 2. This had no effect whatsoever, no matter what other settings I tried. Then I "accidentally" pot mapped the mod wheel to the "pedal amt". Now it works as expected. I suppose I'll dive into the manual and figure out why that does what I want it to. The whole "shaping" bit is not very intuitive to me. For now, I've just put it to On/PGM and set it to an offset of 0 so as to not confuse myself any further. The only issue left is that I can now not control HOW MUCH the filter is affected anymore, like I can for the pitch using mod bus 1's "amount" control. It'll do for now. I'm just so used to Roland and Korg synths, modern and vintage, and they seem to have a completely different layout to do these things. And my Micro doesn't really compare in complexity and options.

As for the OS, I'll get to it after the gig, I suppose. It seems at least worth to try before opening up the thing physically. Flicking the glide switch vigorously a few times seems to have cured that problem for now.

[ColorForm2113]

Thats what it was! I know it had to do something with put mapping. Because mod bus 2 is default to work with an expression pedal the way mod bus 1 works with the wheel. Thats why one is called "mw" and the other "p"

[SanderVeeken]

Okay, so putting the mod wheel to "pedal amt" via pot mapping actually means it acts as the pedal shaping amount button, which is why I couldn't use that to control the amount anymore. But I think I got it now; I put the mod wheel to "mod 1" through pot mapping. I don't understand why it should be mod 1 instead of mod 2 (which I did try earlier), since it's the second mod bus, but it works. Now, using the mod wheel acts to increase filter modulation, and with the "amount" knob at the bottom of bus two, I can set the maximum. I put in an offset to make it a bit more extreme, but all in all, I'm pleased, if not at myself for taking so long to get there!

The options certainly are deep and powerful on this machine, but looking for this sure made me long for the micro's "osc+filter" switch setting! Wish that could be one of the destinations on the mod wheel bus like on the older models.

[ColorForm2113]

Glad it worked. Yeah the micro has a certain charm to its simplicity (that may be the wrong term as it can get pretty complex for such a basic design) and the immediate gratification in its sound design. But what draws me to the voyager is the fact that it can be as simple or complex as you need it to be, it really does seem to have endless possibilities.

[EricK]

Glad you figured it out.

I meant to post this link in my first response, as it is a cool comparison of the D vs Voyager courtesy of MC
http://moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... COmparison

The amount to filter knob didn't help?

[SanderVeeken]

If you mean the knob "amount to filter" of the envelope, no, that didn't work. Besides, I need that for the envelope's "amount to filter"
If you mean the one on the second mod bus - it worked to give me the lfo to filter effect, but I couldn't affect it by the mod wheel. It would either start modulating right when I opened it (no mod wheel), or not modulate when I closed it (even with the mod wheel closed). I got it working now but am still a little confused about the whole thing. I ended up pot mapping the mod wheel to "mod 1" as described above. But I had figured I would have to pot map it to "mod 2" which was the first thing I tried, since it's the second mod bus... but I guess something in my logic is off. I'll give myself a little bit more time though, since I only started playing the thing yesterday.

Thanks for all the suggestions, and the link!

[EricK]

Please stop me if Im telling you stuff you already know.

If your envelope is static you can use the amount to filter knob as a second cutoff knob depending on the position of the cutoff freq.

Generally, and remember I am not near my Voyager at all, I believe that if you want the LFO to modulate the filter, the best place for the cutoff would be in the 12:00 position, in order to sweep the filter through the widest range (I think). Because there are variables involved, such as the preset you might be using or the position of the cutoff frequency in relation to the amount to filter knob, this might explain why you aren't getting quite the sweep you are looking for, if I accurately understand what you mean by "HOW MUCH" the filter is affected.

Another thing you might want to be sure you are looking at is whether or not you are using the left or the right outputs to your amp or the board. I believe there is a difference in the two outputs, and, in this case, the filter cutoff starting point you might be using will also be affected by the spacing control.

For example, if the cutoff is at 12:00 and the amount to filter is at 12:00, and the spacing is at a left or right extreme, then you have effectively lowered the cutoff freq above or below your 12:00, and the LFO will have a limited range to sweep through.

You can test this out by using headphones and or using whatever means you are currently using to either amplify or monitor your Voyager.

I hope this helps.

[EricK]

I have also requested to Rudy that the Mod Amount pot should be a destination in pot mapping, which I think would be awesome.

[SanderVeeken]

Thanks Eric, I do know all of this but it's still useful seeing it explained from someone else's viewpoint, since it can help you think about those things in a new way.

I suppose I should have specified more about my patch, it's quite simple in my mind but when you put it all down it turns out it's more complicated than I thought.

I have a single oscillator bass sound (32'), I have pretty much a gate for a VCA envelope, and no attack and a quick decay for the filter envelope. The cutoff for the filter is set to about 12 o clock. I use the filter envelope's "amount to filter knob" to give the bass some more attack (turn it to the right) or less attack (back to 12 o clock). Since I'm mostly bassing left-handed, I also stuck a pedal in the filter cutoff input, for some filter swells. That was where I was before getting to this forum. Then I tried to also put the lfo to the filter cutoff via the mod wheel using mod bus 2 (since mod bus 1 was already doing the same thing for pitch).

After much fiddling, I got there.

I also figured out my issue with the filter by the way - when I was playing the old Mini, it was plugged into an Eden bass amp, while my Voyager was in my RCF full range powered monitor. That monitor has a LOT of low end, but it doesn't color the sound a whole lot, unlike the Eden as I found out today. It really has a great low mid bark - in about an hour I'll be bringing down the walls at my gig!