Let's talk Timbre

atiexpensive · Post by **atiexpensive** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:13 am

Is there a way to find out the number of TIMBRES the radias can hold at once?

Let's say 256 programs X 3 timbres = 768

Just being curious in getting an approximation. My next question is can
all TIMBRES be edited and saved effectively overwriting the factory presets? Correct?

rfoshaug · Post by **rfoshaug** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:45 am

The Radias has 256 programs, each with up to 4 timbres each. That is a total of 1024 timbres that can be stored.

Yes, you can overwrite every program, including the presets.

pierreb · Post by **pierreb** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:27 pm

Are timbres shareable among programs. Or is the program the container that defines it's timbres. Thanks.

meatballfulton · Post by **meatballfulton** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:01 pm

Timbres are sharable in the sense that you can send a program change message over MIDI to the Radias to switch in a timbre from another program.

rfoshaug · Post by **rfoshaug** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:20 pm

Also, when creating a program, for each timbre you can either create that sound from scratch, or select any timbre from any program to copy into the timbre you're working on, to modify it or just to mix timbres from different programs into one new program.

I must say that I really like the timbre system on the Radias. Instead of having separate "Program" and "Combi" modes, both are the same and a program can contain just one timbre, or several (up to 4). It's a very flexible system.

bsp · Post by **bsp** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:03 am

I found the timbre system a bit awkward at first but started loving it after a short time.
One really cool thing about the Radias is that you can change the timbre data really fast (if you connect it via USB MIDI).
While you are of course still "limited" to 4*2 FX units and certain timbre parameters --those which may be changed after sending a note on (e.g. filter cutoff)-- will affect all voices on a MIDI channel, you can do things
like "send timbre data", "send note-on", "send new timbre data", "send note-on" so that each voice will sound with different parameters.
By this and by using the Drumkit timbre as 16 separate mono timbres (all must share one effect unit, though), it is possible to even "circumvent" the "4 timbre" limitation.
This requires some clever MIDI programming, though but I find it really really cool that it *is* possible to do this, the Radias starts to feel like a super-soundchip all of a sudden