Motas Motas-6, User Manual

Page 1: ...User Guide document version 1 31 non printed for screenreaders for firmware version 0602011A June 12 2021 ...

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Page 3: ... Modulation 12 9 1 Global Modulation Sources 13 9 2 Low Frequency Oscillator LFO waveforms 15 9 3 Global Low Frequency Oscillators LFOx 16 9 4 Dedicated Low Frequency Oscillators LFO 18 9 5 Envelope Generators EG 19 9 6 Editing parameters with rotary knobs 21 10 Parameter pages in depth 23 10 1 Master Pitch 23 10 2 Oscillator 1 23 10 3 Oscillator 2 25 10 4 Oscillator 3 26 User Guide v1 31 FOR SCRE...

Page 4: ...iator 37 14 1 Main arpeggiator settings 37 14 2 More arpeggiator settings 37 14 3 Internal arpeggiator settings 38 15 Pattern sequencer 39 15 1 Control overview 39 15 2 Pattern edit mode 39 15 3 Load save copy patterns 41 15 4 Sequence edit mode 41 15 5 Load save sequences 41 16 Monitor 42 16 1 Volume level monitor 42 16 2 MIDI in monitor 42 16 3 Oscilloscope 43 16 4 Spectrum analyser 43 17 Setup ...

Page 5: ...6 Poly chain 52 17 17 System settings 52 17 18 Custom settings 52 17 19 Calibration 52 17 20 Calibration values 53 17 21 System status 53 17 22 Version info 53 A Audio and modulation routing 54 A 1 Audio signal routing 54 A 2 Modulation controls per parameter page 54 B MIDI messages and implementation 55 B 1 Real time patch change recording 55 B 2 MIDI Implementation Chart 55 B 3 MIDI SysEx messag...

Page 6: ...r informa tion on techniques capabilities and advanced topics We hope that you will enjoy using MOTAS 6 as you explore creating interesting new sounds For the latest news firmware and user guide updates please visit motas synth uk For technical support general enquiries or user feedback gratefully received please email support motas synth uk Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that this gu...

Page 7: ...ions damaged liquid spilled or objects have fallen into the apparatus the apparatus has been exposed to rain or moisture apparatus does not operate normally or has been dropped The apparatus used on its own or with amplifiers speak ers or headphones can generate volume levels that may do irreparable damage to your hearing The apparatus is designed exclusively to produce low frequency audio signals...

Page 8: ...EXT or BUTTON EG ATTACK refers to a push but ton on the top panel labelled with that text or symbol KNOB TEXT or KNOB LEVEL refers to a rotary knob on the top panel labelled with that text or symbol TIP Tip section highlighted with a lightbulb icon i INFO Information section highlighted with an i icon ADVANCED INFO Advanced information section highlighted with a gears icon These may be advanced pa...

Page 9: ... patch in a 2 D space from a set of 4 patches using the morph x and morph y modulators which can be freely assigned to any MIDI controller or CV signal Analogue oscillators MOTAS 6 has three analogue voltage controlled oscillators VCOs with various hard sync pulse width and phase mod ulation options These are true analogue oscillators and not DCOs The oscillators analogue noise source with white p...

Page 10: ...has a flexible arpeggiator There are global and patch specific arpeggiator settings The play mode oc tave range pattern note length and swing can be adjusted and synced to MIDI CV or internal clock A special global mode allows rapid patch changing as the arpeggiator plays The pattern sequencer allows 1 bar patterns to be entered where each note in each pattern can be adjusted for pitch velocity ti...

Page 11: ... 5 ROTARY ENCODER and buttons BUTTON PUSH 1 x 4 for data entry options 6 buttons BUTTON PUSH 1 to access other features x 9 Panic combination pressing the ROTARY ENCODER and BUTTON DOWN simultaneously will turn off all playing notes and reset controllers Useful if for example a con troller keyboard is unplugged leaving notes hanging The lettering at the top of the rear panel is printed upside down...

Page 12: ... ternatively monitor on headphones HEADPHONE SOCKET 4 Plug in the 12V DC power supply into connection DC POWER INPUT 5 Turn on MOTAS 6 using the power button POWER The display will show the start up image 6 Press BUTTON MONITOR in the 3 group and then the right arrow button BUTTON RIGHT The display will change and show MIDI diagnosics monitoring infor mation for the incoming MIDI data if everythin...

Page 13: ...hese are explained in de tail in chapter 10 To access a particular parameter page turn the appropriate rotary knob 1 The active parame ter page is shown by the adjacent flashing LED Fast patch changing MOTAS 6 has 5 patches sound setups in memory ready for fast access To change the active patch press a fast access patch 2 buttons 1 2 3 4 or 5 The corre sponding fast access patch 2 LED will be lit ...

Page 14: ...EL overall volume level KNOB PITCH pitch control and hard sync options KNOB TRIANGLE triangle waveform volume level KNOB SAWTOOTH sawtooth waveform volume level KNOB SQUARE square waveform volume level KNOB SUB sub oscillator waveform volume level KNOB OSCILLATOR 3 pages KNOB PHASE MOD phase modulation level KNOB LEVEL overall volume level KNOB PITCH pitch control KNOB TRIANGLE triangle waveform v...

Page 15: ...ER and BUTTON UP up and BUTTON DOWN down buttons 5 All of the modulation sources see chapter 9 add or sub tract from this offset to generate the final level The RO TARY ENCODER BUTTON UP and BUTTON DOWN adjust the basic offset for the active page only when the basic offset is the active editable item shown as flashing oth erwise they will control other parameters However the rotary knobs 1 always ...

Page 16: ...urrent position of the rotary knob 1 i INFO When the parameter page displays MODULATIONS NOT ACTIVE the current value will follow the basic offset since all the modulations amounts are set to zero i INFO The current value bar tries to follow the parameter page value in real time However if the modulation is very fast this display will not be able to keep up and so you will only see a snap shot of ...

Page 17: ...idered as modulation is simply applying an envelope modulation to the output signal level With this modulation the volume increases once a key is pressed and decays away once the key is re leased Without this modulation a constant sound volume would be heard whether or not a key was pressed which would be used for a drone sound patch ADVANCED INFO In addtion there is the advanced modulation featur...

Page 18: ...p BUTTON UP or down BUTTON DOWN buttons the amount of this modu lation source applied to the parameter page the primary destination is shown as a small vertical bar on the left hand side above the modulation icon Set positive values to increase the parameter page basic offset with increas ing modulation signal or set negative values to decrease the parameter page basic offset with increasing modul...

Page 19: ...output page to use the unique EG Now higher pitch notes will have an EG envelope which processes faster such as is common for real world stringed instruments Note pitch modulation On row 2 of the display starting at the left hand side is shown the note modulation setting indicated by the NOTE symbol This controls how much the MIDI note on signals or CV pitch voltage affect the page s destination w...

Page 20: ...egrees RAMP90 RAMP HOLD ramp hold RMPHLD 3 STEP 3 step 3 STEP 4 STEP 4 step 4 STEP RANDOM sample and hold S H NOISER sampled noise NOISE RANDOM TRIANGLE random triangle RANTRI PULSE R pulse short reverse PLSE1R PULSE R2 pulse medium reverse PLSE2R PULSE R3 pulse long reverse PLSE3R RAMP R ramp hold reverse RMPH R BOUNCE pulsed wave speeding up BOUNCE BOING pulsed wave speeding up variant BOING RET...

Page 21: ...h row down on the display on the left hand side the settings for LFOx are shown TIP The global LFOs are useful when the same LFO modulation signal is desired applied to more than one destination e g a tremolo modu lation volume modulation at the same frequency as vibrato pitch modulation Note that although the LFOx are global the level applied to each des tination is independent To change the LFO ...

Page 22: ...o edit and the ROTARY ENCODER to change the values There are 4 options Choice of global LFO 1 4 Choose from one of the 4 global LFOs to assign to this pa rameter page GLOBAL1 GLOBAL2 GLOBAL3 or GLOBAL4 LFO single shot OFF the LFO runs continuously S ON the LFO will do one cycle of oscillation however this is only active when the LFO is also set to a sync mode see below LFO sync reset options OFF t...

Page 23: ...he dedicated LFO can be modified To change the frequency press BUTTON FREQUENCY for lo cal LFO and then use ROTARY ENCODER or BUTTON UP BUTTON DOWN In non pitch tracking mode the frequency can be set from 0 001Hz 452Hz time period from 1000s to 2 2 ms Press BUTTON UP and BUTTON DOWN simultaneously to reset the frequency to 1Hz The icon displayed is F In pitch tracking mode the frequency can be off...

Page 24: ...cillators 2 or 3 with LFO frequency modulation from a global LFO and or the EG for some really complex sound effects Press the BUTTON LEFT or BUTTON RIGHT button again to return to the main parameter page display 9 5 Envelope Generators EG Each parameter page can be assigned either a dedicated local EG labelled on the screen as EG or one of four global EGs labelled on the screen as EG1 EG2 EG3 and...

Page 25: ...eleased EVERY EG gate trig on every note on event release phase starts when all notes are released HIGHEST EG gate trig on highest note on event release phase starts when all notes are released MIDDLE EG gate trig on middle note on event release phase starts when all notes are released LOWEST EG gate trig on lowest note on event release phase starts when all notes are released TX TRIG X EG gate tr...

Page 26: ...NFO EG keytrack mode HIGHEST means that whenever there is a new highest note played the EG will trigger This means that the EG will trigger when a first note is played as this is a new highest note The EG will then re trigger if a sec ond note is played whilst the first is held down as long as the second note is higher If a third note is played but lower in pitch then the EG will not react If the ...

Page 27: ...SONANCE LPF 1 EG decay KNOB LEVEL LPF 1 EG sustain KNOB HIGH PASS FILTER FREQUENCY HPF EG release KNOB LEVEL HPF EG level KNOB LOW PASS FILTER 1 FREQUENCY LPF 2 EG shape KNOB LEVEL OUTPUT Page offset KNOB MASTER PITCH global LFO1 frequency KNOB PHASE MOD OSC 2 global LFO2 frequency KNOB PHASE MOD OSC 3 global LFO3 frequency KNOB NOISE LEVEL MIXER global LFO4 frequency The figure below shows the sa...

Page 28: ...and 3 OSC 1LEVEL KNOB LEVEL This parameter page sets the overall volume level of the waveforms from oscillator 1 into the mixer Although each waveform from oscillator 1 has it s own level parameter page you can easily apply offset and modula tion to the overall volume level of oscillator 1 from this parameter page i INFO If the overall level is zero from the oscillator level page then no output fr...

Page 29: ...olyphonic operation Setup 1ST for OSC 1PITCH 2ND for OSC 2PITCH and 3RD for OSC 3PITCH Also setup OSC 1LEVEL to have an envelope that is triggered only by the 1st note OSC 2LEVEL with an envelope triggered by the 2nd note and OSC 3LEVEL with an envelope triggered by the 3rd note As a variation use the HI MED and LOW track ing modes for each of the oscillators so that when only one note is played a...

Page 30: ...ve the problems of pitch stability that can occur with fre quency modulation OSC 2LEVEL KNOB LEVEL This parameter page sets the overall volume level of the waveforms from oscillator 2 into the mixer Although each waveform from oscillator 2 has it s own level parameter page you can easily apply offset and modula tion to the overall volume level of oscillator 2 from this parameter page TIP Setup a g...

Page 31: ... OSC 1 3 hard sync to oscillators 1 and 3 TIP To make an oscillator have a fixed pitch regardless of the incoming MIDI note value set a note modulation amount of 12 semi tones OSC 2TRIANGLE KNOB TRIANGLE This parameter page sets the volume level of the triangle wave output of oscillator 2 This waveform can be phase modulated to distort the wave form from a pure triangle OSC 2SAWTOOTH KNOB SAWTOOTH...

Page 32: ... There are the following 10 note track options LST LAST pitch set to the last note on 1 1ST pitch set to the 1st or earliest note on 2 2ND pitch set to the 2nd note on 3 3RD pitch set to the 3rd note on HI HIGHEST pitch set to the highest note on MED MIDDLE pitch set to the middle note on If fewer than 3 notes are on then pitch is set to the highest note on LOW LOWEST pitch set to the lowest note ...

Page 33: ...density with frequency To the ear this sounds very hissy because for each rising oc tave of pitch there is a doubling of frequency so most of the energy is present at the higher oc taves Pink noise has a frequency spectrum such that the energy density is inversely proportional to the frequency To the ear this sounds more uni form since although for each octave of pitch there is a doubling of frequ...

Page 34: ... the setting the more filtering will be applied to the input signal At higher settings more of the input harmonics are pased through with corresponding brighter sound LPF 1 input options This parameter page also allows control of which audio signal is input to the filter View and edit the additional options by pressing BUTTON LEFT or BUTTON RIGHT when the active item is the basic offset MIX MIX th...

Page 35: ...ing in bass as the cut off fre quency is increased HPFFREQ KNOB HIGH PASS FILTER FREQUENCY This parameter page sets the cut off frequency The higher the setting the more of the input signal at low frequencies is attenuated HPF input This parameter page also allows control of which audio signal is input to the high pass filter View and edit the additional options by pressing BUTTON LEFT or BUTTON R...

Page 36: ...ameter page sets the level of the audio signal pass ing into the final mixer stage Note that when chaining the output of this filter to the input of another filter this set ting is not relevant it only sets the level to the final mixer 10 9 Output stage OUTPUT KNOB LEVEL The final parameter page is the main output stage This is where the level of the outputs of the filters are mixed and sent out o...

Page 37: ...ary page See chapter 13 for more details TIP When a lot of modulation is being used it sometimes be difficult to work out what is go ing on Use the patch summary page to see an overview of the patch settings 11 1 Parameter mapping If BUTTON PAGE LOCK and BUTTON VALUE LOCK are both en abled and parameter mapping is on see section 17 5 then the rotary knobs allow real time editing of the parameters ...

Page 38: ...UE LOCK and the param eter page you were previously on is shown To explore the loaded patch without immediate editing press one of the buttons 3 or the current fast access patch 2 button to leave the load page If polychain is enabled for playing multiple MOTAS 6 units together see section 17 16 then pressing BUTTON LFO X WAVEFORM INCREASE transmits the current patch i INFO The load save page remem...

Page 39: ...e etc to all pages from the current page and set the EG to the same type either local EG or global EG 1 4 TIP A fast way to zero a modulation on all pages is to set the values to zero and then do a copy to all pages operation Reset page Press BUTTON UP BUTTON DOWN to select the RESET PAGE option and then press BUTTON RIGHT to reset all parame ters to default values on the current parameter page Re...

Page 40: ...e new sounds Re peatedly applying the randomise will take the pa rameters on a random walk Press BUTTON LEFT to randomly deviate back to the original in slot 1 Repeatedly pressing BUTTON LEFT will eventually cause the patch settings to return exactly to those for the patch in slot 1 User Guide v1 31 FOR SCREENREADERS page 35 ...

Page 41: ... SWITCH mode as the morph position moves to a new dominant patch the discrete patch settings are suddenly switched over to match those of the new dominant patch Discrete settings include parameters such as LFO wave shape EG trigger settings and filter routing any settings that cannot be smoothly adjusted In SMOOTH mode only the continuously variable parameters are adjusted e g LFO amount offsets E...

Page 42: ...r of pitch UPDN plays in ascending and then descending order of pitch UP2 plays in the order of the keys as played within each octave but ascending octaves when the RANGE is greater than 1 DOWN2 plays in the order of the keys as played within each octave but descending octaves when the RANGE is greater than 1 U D2 plays in the order of the keys as played within each octave but ascending and then d...

Page 43: ...choose from notes played from follow ing chords MAJOR major triad chord C CM MINOR minor triad chord Cm Cmin AUG augmented triad chord Caug C DIM diminished triad chord Cdim Co DIM7 diminished 7th chord Co7 Cdim7 M7B5 half diminished 7th chord Cø7 Cm7 5 MINOR7 minor 7th chord Cm7 Cmin7 MMAJ7 minor major 7th chord CmM7 Cmmaj7 DOM7 dominant 7th chord C7 Cdom7 MAJOR7 major 7th chord CM7 CM7 AUG7 augm...

Page 44: ... on the top row of the display In pattern mode only the current active pattern is played in a loop In sequence mode the patterns in the sequence are played as determined by the sequence settings 15 2 Pattern edit mode To enter pattern edit mode press BUTTON PATTERN The active pattern can be selected using the BUTTON LFO X WAVEFORM INCREASE and BUTTON LFO X FREQUENCY DECREASE buttons There are 15 t...

Page 45: ... mode Press and hold BUTTON UP to create a series of new val ues and then use the BUTTON LEFT and BUTTON RIGHT but tons to select the events and the ROTARY ENCODER to change the values times Press and hold BUTTON DOWN to delete a series of values i INFO To create new discrete or continuous events enter record mode and adjust the patch set tings as the pattern plays These recorded events can be the...

Page 46: ...buttons to navigate the options for the active pattern PATTERN NAME pattern to play at that slot REPEATS set number of repeats TRANSPOSE transpose in semitones PATCH change patch for the pattern T OFFSET shift the timing of the pattern in units of 6 clock ticks 0 8 15 5 Load save sequences Sequences can be loaded and saved in much the same way as for patches see section 12 There are 2 banks of se ...

Page 47: ... response time to a traditional analogue VU meter Limiter Press BUTTON UP and BUTTON DOWN to toggle the audio limiter function When enabled the output levels will be attenuated automatically to not exceed approximately 0 dBU on the main audio out MAIN AUDIO OUT When the limiting is activated LIMIT will appear on the display TIP MOTAS 6 can generated very strong au dio signals use the limit feature...

Page 48: ... e 21 2 thousandths of a second per division Press 2 to pause unpause the display pause shown by P on the screen Press 1 to auto scale the vertical dis play shown by an R on the screen Note that the rescal ing is limited and so for weak signals rescaling may not cause the waveform to fully fit the display Press BUTTON UP and BUTTON DOWN to manually set the vertical display scale from x1 to x16 zoo...

Page 49: ... mode to look at the harmonics of a waveform With a sawtooth wave there are harmonics at 1f 2f 3f 4f 5f all at decreasing strength With a pure square wave there are harmonics at 1f 3f 5f 7f that is the main reason for the different sound to the ear On the other hand a pure sine wave tone has only the 1f component Look at the spec trum analyser signals and listen to the differences TIP Look at the ...

Page 50: ...n the setting the rate will be shown as octaves per second O S semitones per second S S or cents per second C S TRACK NOTE OFF sets whether the pitch of the oscillators can update and the envelope gen erators can re trigger after note off events There are 3 options OFF PITCH and P EG With settings PITCH and P EG the pitch of the oscillators can update on note off events With setting P EG re trigge...

Page 51: ...ce if present CLK SOURCE sets the active clock source for any synced LFOs the arpegiator and the pattern sequencer Choose EXT MIDI for external MIDI incoming on USB or MIDI in EXT CLK for gate pulses on the CV Gate inputs or INTER NAL for internal clock source The internal clock tempo INT TEMPO can be set from 30 to 300 beats per minute bpm CLK OUT sets the options for output clock only when in in...

Page 52: ...NSE EG4 DELAY EG4 ATTACK EG4 DECAY EG4 SUSTAIN EG4 RELEASE EG4 KEYTRACK EG4 RESET LOOP EG4 SHAPE EG4 RESPONSE There are 24 slots Each slot can be set to a specific des tination parameter The PAGE option chooses the type of parameter destination either OFF GLOBAL PARAM a parameter page specific destination or PATCH SETTINGS There are more than 1600 possible valid destinations The table left shows t...

Page 53: ...nd de activated otherwise In the case of KBD the trigger sources are activated from different note values TRIG 1 from MIDI note C TRIG 2 from note C TRIG 3 from note D and so on At the bottom of the display a longer name for the cho sen source is displayed MIDI mod wheel in the screenshot shown above and whether the EG trigger is activated or not 17 9 Morph patch change MORPH X sets the source to ...

Page 54: ...e CV gate inputs CV GATE INPUTSD Each input can be configured independently and set to one of the following 11 options OFF ignored except for control of M1 M4 morphing etc CV PITCH signal routed to control master pitch VELOCITY signal routed to control note velocity GATE signal triggers note on on positive edges GATE signal triggers note on on negative edges CLOCK signal triggers clock s on positi...

Page 55: ...73 884 1018 1088 LEVENS ORG 12 112 231 316 404 598 597 702 814 933 996 1129 GAMELAN 12 0 182 267 427 510 572 702 746 996 996 1126 JAPAN KOTO 12 608 498 386 392 590 596 702 0 386 1088 1094 PRIME 5 204 386 702 884 GOLDEN 5 386 471 702 841 CLUSTER 6 182 316 498 814 884 PANPIPE 6 270 487 676 836 1035 APEX 7 204 386 590 702 884 1088 SCOTBAG 7 182 386 537 680 884 1049 TURKISH 7 112 386 498 702 884 996 Z...

Page 56: ...ection 17 5 You can enable send and receive over MIDI connec tions MIDI OUT SOCKET MIDI IN SOCKET and or USB MIDI USB CONNECTION Also you can optionally enable send of LSB least significant byte data over CC to capture fine parameter changes Note that if the parameter mapping is disabled then these options are greyed out Also note that when MIDI CC con trollers are enabled to be sent this prevents...

Page 57: ...y change to match that corresponding to the incoming external MIDI controller NRPN data ALLOW UPDATES when set to YES allows system firmware updates to be received over MIDI USB note that also the MIDI IN or USB IN must be set to receive sysex to allow upates MENUS RESET when set to YES menus return to first item in the list instead of remembering last edited option 17 18 Custom settings This page...

Page 58: ...ng time say several months 17 20 Calibration values This diagnostic page displays the current calibration val ues determined from the calibration process for refer ence only 17 21 System status This diagnostic page shows a series of bar charts repre senting the current settings of the 33 potentiometers the approximate CPU temperature the number of power cy cles of the unit and the ROTARY ENCODER s...

Page 59: ...INK WHITE GAIN BOOST NORMAL LPF2 NOISE LPF1 P6 LPF1 P5 LPF1 P4 LPF1 P2 LPF1 P1 HPF NOISE LPF1 P6 LPF1 P5 LPF1 P4 LPF1 P2 LPF1 P1 SUB O2 TRI O3 SAW O2 PULSE 1 NOISE HPF LPF2 P6 P5 P4 P3 P2 P1 BYPASS DRY SOFT HARD SOFT HARD CLIP DRY HARD CLIP HARD CLIP DRY SOFT CLIP SOFT CLIP NORMAL DRY NOTE TRACK HPF POLE 4 POLE 6 RESONANCE SOURCE EXTERNAL INPUT LOW PASS FILTER 1 LOW PASS FILTER 2 HIGH PASS FILTER ...

Page 60: ...tion 17 5 For details of the NRPN messages please refer to the How To Guide B 2 MIDI Implementation Chart For the MIDI implementation chart please refer to the How To Guide B 3 MIDI SysEx messages MIDI system exclusive SysEx messages allow transfer of bulk data such as patch data screenshot images and firmware updates For those wishing to develop software to communicate with MOTAS 6 please refer t...

Page 61: ...steel fixings and solid real wood end cheeks Display 128 x 64 pixel OLED monochrome graphic display User interaction 34 rotary potentiometers 33 tactile buttons and a rotary encoder with push button Audio input mono input on 6 35 mm 1 4 phone socket CV Gate inputs 4 CV Gate analogue inputs on 3 5 mm mono sockets In put impedance 22 kΩ Voltage range 0 12V max Audio outputs mono master out and headp...

Page 62: ...ion harmonisation legislation DIRECTIVE 2014 30 EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to electromagnetic compatibility DIRECTIVE 2011 65 EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011 on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment Stan...