Making Acid on a Deluge

Learning to make some acid with a Synstrom Deluge is a good way to start understanding the Deluge's sound structure.

Firstly a brief comparison between the Roland TB-303 & the Synstrom Deluge.

The 303's specs are:

1. Monophonic

2. Just 1 oscillator : switchable between Sawtooth or Square waveforms with a tuning control pot.

3. A single filter - 3 pole , 18dB/oct lowpass resonant filter 

    with controls for cutoff, resonance, and envelope amount

4. A single VCA with control pots for Decay time and Accent intensity

5. Two Envelope Generators.(one for the VCA & one for the filter). Looks like they are simple
     two stage attack- decay EGs. (Not ADSR).

     a. VCA Envelope:  Sharp Attack, and a long Exponential decay. 
         I understand the attack & decay is fixed??

         (In the Devil Fish decay can be altered between very short, normal and infinite sustain.) Robin W.

     b. Filter Envelope. It's main job is to drive the filter frequency.

         Fixed attack time (3ms?). Decay is exponential. The decay time is controlled by the Decay knob, 

         but the knob is partially bypassed on accent steps. 

         Robin W (Devilfish) describes it thus:

         "On accented notes, this is shorted out and MEG (the filter envelope) runs to the relatively 

          short time which is the same as when the Decay pot is fully anti-clockwise.
          (The Devil Fish provides independent control of MEG time for
            both normal and accented notes.) "

6. Sequencer . 

    The sequencer is impt. ...We need a glide function. where notes can overlap one another.

7 Control knobs. There are 6 of these.

    Pitch, Cutoff frequency, Resonance, Envelope Mod, Decay, Accent.

    I think they are all important
    So what do the 6 knobs actually do?
     a. Tuning ..VCO Pitch ... obviously
     b. Cut Off Freq ... effects the Filter of course
     c.  Resonance   ... effects the Filter of course
     d.  Envelope Mod ... This controls & limits the amount the filter EG effects the cutoff & res

     e.  Decay ..... controls the delay time of the filter EG
     f.  Accent .... a bit complex ... read Robin Whittle's article.

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  So on the Synstrom Deluge we need these ingredients:

 1. Single Oscillator.
     a. Monophonic.
 2. Two Envelopes
     a. A simple decay based envelope for the filter
     b. An Amp envelope
 3. Filter (The original 303 has a18dB/oct low pass resonant filter
     with controls for cutoff, resonance, and envelope amount)
     The deluge has a 12dB or 24dB LPF filter {and a Drive filter (24dB per octave with saturation)}
 4. VCA
      The original 303 had control pots for Decay time and Accent intensity
 5. Accents & Slides
     Acid glide (use legato/ portamento and overlapped MIDI notes). ??
 6 Control knobs. There are just 2dedicated gold parameter knobs they control

     Cutoff frequency, Resonance.

     Maybe I can also map Envelope Mod, Decay & maybe pitch or accent to Custom 1, 2 & 3.

    

Extras:
 7. Delay
 8. Reverb
 9. Distortion
 10. Unison or a phaser
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The Deluge has a cool shortcut Grid which provides quick access to the sound parameters.

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Steps:

1. Press Shift + Synth ... this creates a new synth
2. Shift + Type (Osc 1) (level is at default 50)
       The 303 has both Square & Ramp waves.  I prefer the saw tooth. ... sounds more agressive.
       You can use the analog or digital waves but I like using analog.
       Although the 303 was only capable of producing one voice we
       can always double up to create a thicker sound later in the process.

3. Use the Analog Saw or Square
    To Change press Shift + Type/shape

4. Envelope1 is already the Deluge's default VCA envelope.
     It needs to be configured as a basic attack/decay envelope
     Settings: Sustain at 50 (full). Zero attack., Zero decay, Zero release

  5. Map the LPF frequency to Envelope 2
    a. To Select frequency:
         Shift + LPF Frequency tab (the tab will start flashing)
    b. to Map the envelope amt to Frequency
        Shift + MOD amount Env 2

       (both tabs are now flashing.. though the MOD pad is flashing faster)   

 5c. Map the custom 2 gold knob to the MOD amt pad.
        +Press Custom 2 button
         +Hold down Learn
         +Turn the top gold parameter knob

   

 6. Envelope 2 settings:
     Fixed attack time (zero). Decay is very important.
     A = 0
     D = decay knob (map this)
     S =15 to 20
     R = 0
    The envelope decay time (for the filter on the 303) is controlled by the 303's Decay knob.
    We can map Custom 3 to do this.
         +Press Custom 2 button
         +Press Shift & Decay tab (of envelope 2)
         +Hold down Learn
         +Turn the lower gold parameter knob

  7  go to Polyphony mode.
       Shift + Polyphony tab
       Set to Legato (use select knob)

9.  Add portamento
     Shift + Porta tab
     Use select knob to adjust to taste (about 4 is nice)
     For the slide to occur, the notes on the sequencer must overlap.

10. Accents
      To add an accent to a note.
       + hold down the note tab in question with one finger
       + Turn the Left/right knob. This increases the velocity of that note. Turn it up to 127.

  11. Adding slides
        Add overlapping notes by making longer tails

   12. Maybe change the filter slope ?
         The default is a 2pole. Try the 4 pole. (The 303 used a 3 pole).
        
Links
+ Synthstrom
+ Tinyloops
+ Realworld Interfaces

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Please let me know if there are any errors or omissions