Modal 008R, User Manual

Page 1: ...1 Machines for Musicians Modal Electronics 008R 8 voice polyphonic analogue synthesiser User Manual OS Version 1 01 00 ...

Page 2: ...hat no liquids are spilt onto or come into contact with the apparatus In the event this should happen remove power from the unit immediately and seek expert assistance Be careful to allow free air movement around the apparatus and do not block any air vents or exits during operation this apparatus produces heat This apparatus produces sound that could cause permanent damage to hearing Always opera...

Page 3: ...lope Amplitude Envelope LFO s Modulation 04 Keyboard and Quick Recall Key Modes Keyboard Quick Recall 05 Sequencer Animator and Arpeggiator Sequencer Animator Arpeggiator Modes 06 Dual and Split Performance Mode Performance Edit Performance Storage 07 Snapshot 08 Digital Input Output Board 09 Settings 6 8 9 10 12 13 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 36 37 38 40 42 44 48 50 51 52 53 54 56 58 60 70 ...

Page 4: ...ponents black metal case aluminum turned encoders and high quality 4 3 LCD screen Among the many connections Modal 008R features an ethernet port to connect your synth to your network and enable updates via the internet no need for MIDI sysex dumps and also access to the Modal cloud features and HTML Web User Interface Please update your unit immediately Internet connectivity is a key point for Mo...

Page 5: ...during first power on create a pop and this may cause damage to your speakers and the sound guy s ear drums Then power on You will see a progress bar on the screen When the synth has loaded it will change to show the main patch page Press down a key and slowly turn up the volume to a comfortable level If your 008R is out of tune then you would need to run the Auto Tune feature We recommend waiting...

Page 6: ...ATCH PERFORMANCE SEQUENCER ANIMATOR PARAMETER RECALL A B C Hover mode Dark grey cursor and white text Turning datawheel and navigates around the screen to different parameters Keypad can be used to shortcut to specific parameters and enter edit mode Push datawheel or press select to switch to edit mode Select button Alternative to pushing datawheel up to user s preference Select is mainly used for...

Page 7: ...and Stack 6 Arpeggiator Status whether arpeggiator is currently on or off 7 Animator Status whether animator is currently on or off Load patch If you want to load another patch Scroll through the patches either using the Datawheel or the buttons above or directly type the slot patch number with the keypad Now you see a different patch name but no new patch has been loaded yet the patch number on t...

Page 8: ...g the datawheel or the buttons Once you found the right slot press Select to confirm Now the LCD shows the QWERTY keyboard where you can type a new name for the preset Using the datawheel which can also be tapped to confirm selection is probably the easiest way to type the name Once you are done just scroll down to the Done box and confirm You will need to confirm what you have just typed so press...

Page 9: ... ports of your synthesiser are not operational Analogue Out D Sub connector providing individual pure analogue output for each of the 12 voices Power AC power inlet accepting standard grounded IEC power cord It operates over a range of 90 to 260 volts and 50 to 60 Hz Connect the cord included with your 008R then press the power switch on the front panel to turn the synth on MIDI In Out Thru To rec...

Page 10: ...18 19 03 Synthesis engine In this section we are going to have an in depth look at every section related to the sound engine of the 008R 0 8 7 4 1 2 3 5 6 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 CC MW PB PB ...

Page 11: ...semitones 3 Fine This parameter controls the fine tuning of the oscillators with the maximum value of 127 corresponding to about a semitone 4 Sync VCO2 has a hard synchronisation input driven by VCO1 When this option is On the two oscillators are hard synced VCO1 is the slave oscillator you can detune it or modulate its pitch but it will always follow VCO2 master pitch 5 Pulse Width PW If the Puls...

Page 12: ...me of the incoming external audio signals if there are external sources connected to the 008 s Audio Input You can process any instrument producing a line signal e g a drum machine another synth or DAW output with our VCF and VCA through a pure analogue signal path You have two separate controls for L and R Inputs so you can effectively process two separate mono sources please bear in mind that Le...

Page 13: ...mpensation algorithm to counteract this effect 4 Mode 008R peculiar filter design features 15 different modes Low Pass 1LP 2LP 3LP 4LP classic low pass filter design from a 1 pole 6dB oct to a 4 pole 24dB oct configuration Notch 2N notch filter design in a 2 pole 12dB oct configuration High Reso values narrow down the selected frequency range to be removed Notch LowPass 2N LP combination of the pr...

Page 14: ...pe reaches its maximum value If Delay is 0 then Attack is equal to the time passing from the moment you press a key until the envelope reaches its maximum value 3 Decay This parameter controls the time passing for the envelope to drop from its maximum value to a sustain level see below 4 Sustain This parameter controls the level of the sustain phase of the envelope while keeping the key pressed th...

Page 15: ... see below 3 Sustain This parameter controls the level of the sustain phase of the sound while keeping the key pressed this value is reached immediately after the Decay phase until the note is released For a percussive sound put Sustain to 0 and a short Decay time 4 Release This parameter controls the time passing from the moment you leave a key i e MIDI Note Off message until the sound reaches si...

Page 16: ...ed of the LFO 4 Delay This parameter controls the initial delay of the LFO The LFO is initially silent then it s amplitude increases until it reaches its full amplitude and keeps constant Delay regulates the time needed to complete this initial phase 5 Release This parameter regulates the time needed for the LFO to decrease it s amplitude until it becomes silent once it has entered the Release pha...

Page 17: ...he right The only exception is the Recall button that switches the first 8 buttons to Quick Recall mode Matrix On the LCD parameters screen 3rd menu button C there is a Modulation Matrix page option 10 This displays a page showing all sources of modulation as well as their destinations and depths More information on this page can be found in the next section Modulation Matrix Per Page On the LCD i...

Page 18: ...st desitinations The available destinations and their order are displayed in the table below The final destination PitchBend Amount is only available for the joystick axes Destination Destination Destination Destination 1 VCF CutOff 10 VCO2 Mod 19 FEG Release 28 MIX Sub2 2 VCF Reso 11 VCO1 PW 20 FEG Delay 29 MIX ExtIn L 3 VCO1 Note 12 VCO2 PW 21 AEG Attack 30 MIX ExtIn R 4 VCO2 Note 13 VCO1 Fine 2...

Page 19: ...gle voice and uses most recent note priority Mono standard monophonic mode where you can play just one note at time using just one voice Unison standard unison mode where you can play just one note at time mono keyboard but you can use up to 8 voices simultaneously for that note Stack special poly unison mode where you can decide how many notes you can play together polyphonic keyboard and also ho...

Page 20: ...n normal mode the glide circuit is always enabled 4 Glide Curve this parameter controls the shape of the glide curve between notes either linear or exponential 5 Transpose This allows you to transpose the Keyboard Sequencer and Arpeggiator To use the function simply hold down the transpose button whilst pressing a key on the keyboard A Zero transpose is obtained by pressing the third C from the bo...

Page 21: ...alls banks can be saved in the same way as patches or sequences and up to 100 banks are available The bank contains the 8 Quick Recall slots that are present at the time of saving To access a slot to edit or load via the screen navigate to the corresponding slot number and press Select Quick Recall Slot The Quick Recall Slot page shows what is currently on the slot as well as providing options to ...

Page 22: ... page there are some key parameters to edit and control each feature the Tempo parameter expressed in BPM controls the speed of the Sequencer Animator and Arpeggiator This parameter is located in the top right of the screen but can only be accessed on certain screens If the parameter is accessible then the tempo has a darker font colour the Clock start stop starts the internal clock which starts t...

Page 23: ...er can have 32 steps only 8 steps can be shown and edited at a time Underneath the first row you can find A set of 4 direction buttons on the left hand side for changing the rows Up Down arrows and the 8 steps Backward Forward arrows being displayed on the LCD Note Parameter Selection these two boxes allow you to select the row function On the Sequencer a row can either play a note sequence or mod...

Page 24: ... if Legato is on the parameter will slew to the next step value allowing you to create a smooth transition between steps Sequencer setup The Setup sub menu page contains the following options 1 Mode allows you to set the direction mode of the sequence You can use either the dedicated button or the screen controls to change the value of this parameter The available Mode options are similar to those...

Page 25: ...r s one with the additon of a Relative Absolute mode Once enabled the Animator will take relative control of the assigned parameters by default This means that the current parameters value is offset by the current step value In absolute mode the current step value will overide the current parameters value It is important to understand that unlike sequences animations are linked to patches The Anim...

Page 26: ...value expressed in BPM At the moment the Gate of the arpeggiator is set at a default value of 50 Modes In this section we are going to explain the different modes available for the Sequencer the Animator and the Arpeggiator From now on pressed order means the order in which you played the notes on the other hand note order means the keyboard ascending descending order no matter which notes you pre...

Page 27: ... page if you press Yes first menu button again the synth will switch to Dual Split Mode after a momentary wait message if you press No second menu button you will stay in Sngl Mode When in Performance Mode the top bar of the screen displays either Low or Up highlighted inside a grey box which shows the currently acitve part You can switch between Lower and Upper parts by using the Lower and Upper ...

Page 28: ...as no effect in Dual Mode To exit Performance Mode and go back to Patch Mode just press the first menu button A again Once you select the Part Setup page from the main Performance page you are shown the page below 1 Destination this sets where notes and parameter CC messages are being sent i e the internal sound engine only Int external MIDI Out only Ext or Both 2 MIDI Channel this parameter sets ...

Page 29: ...hile you are editing a part not a performance in Performance Mode However if you are in the main Performance page and you press the 4th menu button D it will automatically detect that you are working on an entire Performance and proceed with saving it as shown in the picture below With the word Performance we mean several things together a link to a patch for each part so up to 12 different patche...

Page 30: ...d sound When Snapshot is enabled or disabled the user is kept on the current page A useful example of this functionality is when a user has changed some filter settings on the VCF page but wants to know what the original filter settings were Pressing the snapshot button will show the saved settings then pressing again will show the current settings Please note any changes made when Snapshot is ena...

Page 31: ...it provides a stereo input from a DAW pre filter stage on the 008R allowing external audio to be processed by the 008R analogue VCF and VCA again at either 48 96 or 192KHz 24 bits The I O Card also features three discrete effects buses with Chorus Delay and Reverb channels which can be configured and controlled to create custom effects presets and easily be applied to single timbre patches or mult...

Page 32: ...US RETURN RIGHT FX REVERB LEVEL ECHO RETURN LEFT ECHO RETURN RIGHT REVERB RETURN LEFT REVERB RETURN RIGHT DRY LEVEL RIGHT CHORUS ECHO LEFT CHORUS ECHO RIGHT ECHO SEND RIGHT PERFORMANCE PART GAIN OUTPUT LEFT OUTPUT RIGHT STEREO ECHO STEREO REVERB PERFORMANCE PART MUTE INPUT FROM VOICES Digital Input Output Board Diagram ...

Page 33: ...dows If using the Digital I O Card for USB audio on a Windows system Modal recommends using the ASIO4ALL universal ASIO driver Please download and install ASIO4ALL from http www asio4all com then plug the USB cable coming from your 008R s USB Audio MIDI port In your DAW preferences please select the Driver Type where applicable to ASIO and the Audio Device to ASIO4ALL to the left is a screenshot o...

Page 34: ...FX preset contains all the individual FX settings as well as three Return controls but not Sends and Dry Wet see below 2 Dry Wet each Patch has standard FX Dry Wet parameter 0 fully dry 64 equal mix 127 fully wet which controls the global effects mix for the Patch Please note that this is a Patch parameter as opposed to FX parameter 3 Sends each Patch has three Send parameters which control how mu...

Page 35: ...ECHO DELAY Cross Level amount of left input sent to the right delay line and viceversa Left Time delay time on the left channel Left Feedback amount of feedback on the left channel which determines the total length of the echo on the left Right Time delay time on the right channel Right Feedback amount of feedback on the right channel which determines the total length of the echo on the right Chor...

Page 36: ...are going to have a look at the settings page of the Modal 008R You can access this page by pressing the sixth menu button F You can access the nine available sub menus by pressing the corresponding number on the keypad or using the Select buttons ...

Page 37: ...dal 008R will now check for available updates If there is no new software available the screen will go back to the patch loading page If there is a new version of the software it will ask if you want to download it from our servers and update the system Please note that the update procedure may take from 3 to 10 minutes depending on the size of the update during this time the screen will display a...

Page 38: ... BPM always displayed in the top right corner of the screen When using external the 008R s clock will be synced to the MIDI clock coming from an external source note that you need the external source to keep sending clock messages otherwise the Sequencer and the Animator will not work MIDI In In this page you can individually enable or disable 5 different categories of external MIDI messages recei...

Page 39: ... Note On Note Off and Velocity 2 Control this option enables disables processing MIDI Control Change messages 3 Patch this option enables disables processing MIDI Bank and Program Change messages 4 AfterTouch this option enables disables processing MIDI Aftertouch messages 5 PitchBend this option enables disables processing MIDI Pitchbend messages 6 Clock this option enables disables processing MI...

Page 40: ...e max value 63 equals a one semi tone offset above the standard tune and min value 63 equals a one semi tone offset below the standard tune 3 PageSwitch the Modal 008R display is context sensitive this means that the parameter associated to any encoder touched by the user is immediately displayed You can disable this option by turning the value of this PageSwitch option off 4 Brightness This param...

Page 41: ...m of the 8 008R s analogue voices outputs can be very hot and this can cause problems in the input stage of the Digital Card s DSP this is particulary true when using Unison patches with a large Size value or even just Poly patches with very long releases In order to prevent digital clipping the Auto Gain algorithm applies a gain factor before the signal enters the DSP based on the current patch D...

Page 42: ...ehavior on your 008R see Troubleshooting section you can reset parts of the operating system with the 3 options in this page 1 Network this option resets all Network settings and it is very useful anytime you connect the 008R to a different router or in a different network configuration 2 Preferences this option resets all the Setting preferences to the original factory values 3 Factory this optio...

Page 43: ...CO2 Fine 8 0 127 63 OFFSET VCO1 Square 9 OFF 0 ON 127 VCO Sync 10 OFF 0 ON 127 11 12 VCA Drive 13 OFF 0 ON 127 MIX VCO1 14 0 127 MIX Sub1 15 0 127 MIX VCO2 16 0 127 MIX Sub2 17 0 127 MIX Ext In L R 18 0 127 VCF Resonance 19 0 127 20 VCF EG Amount 21 0 127 63 OFFSET VCF EG Attack 22 0 127 VCF EG Decay 23 0 127 VCF EG Sustain 24 0 127 VCF EG Release 25 0 127 VCA EG Attack 26 0 127 VCA EG Decay 27 0 ...

Page 44: ...63 OFFSET 32 33 34 35 LFO1 Rate 36 0 127 LFO1 Depth 37 0 127 63 OFFSET NRPN LSB 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 LFO2 Rate 47 0 127 LFO2 Depth 48 0 127 63 OFFSET 49 LFO2 Wave 50 0 3 51 52 53 54 Function CC Values 55 56 57 58 LFO2 Sngl 59 OFF 0 ON 127 60 61 62 63 Sustain 64 OFF 0 ON 127 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 VCF CutOff 74 0 127 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 ...

Page 45: ...h 96 0 96 97 NRPN Parameter 98 NRPN Bank 99 KEYB Mode 100 0 3 KEYB Size 101 0 12 ANIM Status 102 0 1 VCO2 PW 103 0 127 LFO1 Wave 104 0 3 105 KEYB Transpose 106 24 84 48 OFFSET LFO2 Delay 107 0 127 108 Function CC Values 109 110 111 112 KEYB Spread 113 0 63 KEYB Octave 114 0 4 2 OFFSET 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 ...

Page 46: ...oblem The front panel has stopped responding If you turn an encoder neither the LCD screen updates nor can you hear the sound changing However all the screen controls i e keypad 6 menu buttons Select and DataWheel should still be functioning If that is the case then try to simply switch to the Settings page by pushing the sixth menu button F then try to move another encoder this should wake up the...

Page 47: ... Settings you can t get any IP address please press 5 to re Apply you might need more than a couple of attempts before getting a result If this doesn t help try to disconnect and re connect the Ethernet cable to the 008R socket then go to Settings and trigger a soft Reboot Other issues If you experience any kind of odd behavior on your 008R please contact support modalelectronics com we can use th...