Mutable Instruments ambika, Manual

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Page 3: ...te It took a long time but he was thoughtful enough to record a particular video for me It s a great build coming from a very good person and hopefully a new friend My girlfriend Camila Mendon a for a...

Page 4: ...quencer and arpeggiator settings S5 28 Sequence editor S5 30 Multi settings 31 Clock settings S6 31 Performance page S7 31 The library 33 Selecting an object 34 Loading programs multis sequences patch...

Page 5: ...llators per voice with 36 oscillator algorithms wavetables 1 sub oscillator also configurable as a transient generator Pre filter overdrive and bit crushing effect Analog 4 pole filter or 2 pole multi...

Page 6: ...onnected to the MIDI output of a computer MIDI interface master keyboard sequencer 3 MIDI out connector This output is by default used as a MIDI thru but you can also use it to transmit the notes gene...

Page 7: ...an voice in an orchestra which staff they must play on a musical score If you assign the 6 voices to the same part Ambika will behave like a classic monotimbral polysynth If you assign each voice to a...

Page 8: ...s or to fine tune the value of a parameter The 8 LEDs L1 L8 indicate which page is active The 8 switches S1 S8 are used to display synthesis pages For example S1 shows the oscillators and mixer page S...

Page 9: ...ce editor S6 Voice and parts mappings Tempo clock S7 Performance knob assignments Each page displays up to eight related synthesis parameters Each parameter can be edited by turning the knob sitting a...

Page 10: ...ange is here the active parameter wave saw para 0 Rang 0 tune 0 wave squa para 32 rang 12 tune 12 Rotate the encoder clockwise to make tune the active parameter rotate the encoder counter clockwise to...

Page 11: ...1 is played on the lower half of the keyboard and part 2 on the upper half The lower part of the screen displays which voices are assigned to the active part For example in the display capture shown a...

Page 12: ...together You can adjust the balance of each ingredient 5 A controllable amount of fuzzy overdrive is applied to the signal The resulting signal is sample reduced by a controllable amount 6 The resulti...

Page 13: ...para 32 rang 12 tune 12 Each row displays the settings of an oscillator The parameters are the following wave waveform Oscillator waveform family Contrary to most synthesizers in which waveforms are...

Page 14: ...or Depeche Mode like leads This waveform is band limited and only a limited amount of aliasing will be heard when playing high pitched notes You will observe that there is a slight difference in sound...

Page 15: ...a sine wave The parameter controls the brightness of the sound from a sine wave to a sawtooth then from a sawtooth to a sawtooth gone through an ugly transistor amp Good for dirty bass guitar sounds o...

Page 16: ...nalog filters ztriangle mystery This waveform vaguely evokes two hardsync ed oscillators the parameter controlling their frequency ratio It may or may not have been used in the Casio CZ 101 pad swarm...

Page 17: ...he note it controls the modulator frequency and has a drastic impact on the timbre 8bits bitwise anarchy A palette of 8 bits sounding waveforms obtained by applying bitwise operations to a basic sawto...

Page 18: ...between different vocal like sounds 14 vowels and 2 consonants Wavetables The remaining waveform families are wavetables collection of single cycle waveforms synthetic or sampled from real instruments...

Page 19: ...mple vibes Transwave extracted from a vibraphone sample slap Transwave extracted from a slap bass sample epiano Various single cycle waveforms extracted from electric piano samples organ Various combi...

Page 20: ...tion for the infamous a new sound at each note effect Mixer S1 Mix 32 nois 0 sub 0 wave squ1 xmod off amnt 31 fuzz 0 crsh 0 mix osc mix Balance between oscillator 1 and 2 nois noise Noise level sub su...

Page 21: ...l adds a metallic sounding high pitched click pop adds a low pitched discontinuity useful for spicing up a kick drum The crossmod parameter controls how oscillator 1 and oscillator 2 are blended toget...

Page 22: ...voice LFO is specific to each voice and there will actually be a small amount of detuning dephasing between them for a richer sound Consider the example of a guitarist playing a guitar through a trem...

Page 23: ...are note values relative to the global tempo or to an external MIDI clock For example if set to 1 4 the LFO will play one cycle every quarter note The other values are increasing frequencies from 0 0...

Page 24: ...is the notion of bipolar modulation source Let s take an example We have a triangle LFO mapped to the filter cutoff with a modulation amount of 30 If the cutoff is set to 80 the actual value of the c...

Page 25: ...nois White noise sampled at 1kHz random Random value updated every time a note is retriggered 256 to 4 Boring constant values The modulation destinations are the following prm1 prm2 Oscillator 1 2 pa...

Page 26: ...e two inputs of the modulation modifier in1 and in2 and the operation oper to apply modif 1 in1 lfo1 in2 lfo2 oper prod In the example above the modulation source mod 1 is defined as the product of lf...

Page 27: ...wo lega legato Legato mode on off This setting has an effect only in mono mode This option specifies how the part will interpret overlapping notes When legato is off the envelope retriggers everytime...

Page 28: ...any modulation source in the modulation matrix 1 note pattern up to 32 step long All parts follow the same global clock which can be set to a fixed BPM or synchronized to an external MIDI clock Howev...

Page 29: ...the note pattern Let us now discuss the most devilish confusing thing about Ambika sequencer sequencer memory sharing Ambika only has memory for 16 steps long patterns Yet the len1 len2 lenp lengths...

Page 30: ...ty Turn the knob to a middle position to enter a tie slide The fourth and fifth columns display the value of the step sequence 1 and 2 editable by the third and fourth knobs of the upper and lower row...

Page 31: ...during which the internal clock continues running after you have released all keys This allows the internal arpeggiator or sequencer to keep counting for a while after you have released all keys from...

Page 32: ...sed without a MIDI keyboard While a note is being played through this mean you can turn the encoder to transpose all parts up and down To select the parameters parts shown on the performance page pres...

Page 33: ...d save versions more exit The first row displays the following information pt 1 program is the current object that is to say the kind of thing you want to load save from to the memory card In this cas...

Page 34: ...128 patches sequences programs multis Loading programs multis sequences patches Turn the encoder to move to the previous next program Remember that you can hold S8 while turning the encoder to scroll...

Page 35: ...save cancel Before saving a program multi sequence patch its bank letter number and name must be set Use the encoder to increment decrement the value or letter at the cursor To move the cursor click t...

Page 36: ...patch paste S3 replaces the current item by the content of the clipboard Note that there are actually 4 clipboards one for patches one for multis one for programs and one for sequences S5 reverts the...

Page 37: ...it to upgrade the main processor Ambika contains seven ports to which devices are attached The first 6 ports port 1 to port 6 are used for connecting the voicecards the last port port 7 is used for co...

Page 38: ...as SysEx blocks over MIDI A syx or mid file with the latest data is available on the Mutable Instruments website While receiving blocks of MIDI data the unit displays the number of bytes loaded the f...

Page 39: ...RPN patch editing SysEx Memory card storage Filesystem layout File format A full MIDI implementation chart https docs google com spreadsheet pub hl en_US hl en_US key 0Ai4xPbRS5YZjdG1mWmRJSzRkWG51ZnFD...

Page 40: ...atch by Igor Cristo who is also responsible for all graphic and text editing in this document Image manipulation respected Mutable Instruments orientations and there was no change made on the brand lo...

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