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Voyager User’s Manual - The Components
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Voyager User’s Manual - The Components
D. The Envelopes Section
Musical sounds have a start, middle and an end. For example, a plucked string sound starts with an initial
burst of energy and then slowly fades out until it is silent. In synthesis terms, this progression is called an
envelope – a shape that defines the changes that occur in a sound over time. An envelope can define any
aspect of change in a sound – volume, timbre, or pitch. The circuits that create envelope control signals in
synthesizers are called Envelope Generators (EGs).
When triggered, EG’s produce a time-varying control volt-
age that has a specific start, middle and end profile. The
parameters that define this CV profile are Attack, Decay,
Sustain and Release, sometimes abbreviated as ADSR.
Attack determines the character of the onset of the sound.
The EG’s
ATTACK
knob controls this parameter by adjust-
ing the time it takes for the envelope to go from zero to
full value (in other words, the fade-in time). The
DECAY
control adjusts the second stage in the envelope’s evolu-
tion by determining the time that it takes for the signal to
drop from the full level to the level set by the
SUSTAIN
control. The envelope will remain at the Sustain level as
long as an envelope gate signal is present (i.e. a key is held
down). When the gate signal is released, the
RELEASE
control determines the time it takes for the envelope
to transition from the Sustain level to zero (refer to the
ADSR Envelope Signal figure below).
TheVoyager has two identical EG circuits; one EG is dedicated
to the filter (to control the cutoff frequency), and one is EG
dedicated to the amplifier (to control the volume). Both EG’s
can also be used as a modulation sources or modulation shap-
ing through the Modulation Busses..
Additional CV Connections (applies to all Voyager keyboards and the RME with the VX-352 CV Input Ex-
pander only):
Filter:
The
FILTER
jack allows you to connect an external CV or expression pedal to control the filter cutoff
frequency. Both filters are effected by this connection, regardless of the filter mode setting. The effective
input range is -5 to +5 V, where a positive CV will add to the filter cutoff dial setting, and a negative CV will
subtract from the setting. Note that if an expression pedal is plugged into this jack, the cutoff can only be
made to increase from the cutoff dial setting since the pedal connection supplies only a positive voltage.
Voyager
Keyboard
Voyager
RME
