Glossary of M50 (and synthesis in general) Terms?

DaveMcKeen · Post by **DaveMcKeen** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:33 am

Love my M50! I don't play all that well, but really enjoy the sounds. I'm reading the user manual and following the exercises. I get to page 32 and see references to "F/A EG Attack Time" for example and also see the term (and similar terms) on the Page 0 Tone Adjust tab.

I am going nutso trying to figure out what F/A means. Of course I should know! But I've gone on line and done some searching for glossaries and theory articles. Found some great stuff but have not found any reference to F/A.

If you know what it is, please tell me and let me have the source!

Thanks, - Dave

Daz · Post by **Daz** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:50 am

F/A refers to Filter and Amp. So the 'F/A EG Attack Time' controls the Attack parameter of both the Filter and Amp Envelope Generators.

The Filter controls the tone and the Amp controls the volume of a sound. Both of those have Envelope Generators which change the tone/volume over time, to recreate how instruments typically behave (loud & bright after you hit the key, and then then increasingly less loud & bright as the sound dies out).

Daz.

DaveMcKeen · Post by **DaveMcKeen** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 12:32 pm

Hello Daz! Thanks very much for that. Makes sense to me. Is there a general reference you know of I can turn to and read more about the subject?

- Dave

Daz · Post by **Daz** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:52 pm

In the Operation Guide there is a section about editing Program's in Program mode that walks through a lot of this stuff.

There are many sources of info on the net of course e.g. (lol!) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSR_envelope

DaveMcKeen · Post by **DaveMcKeen** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:05 pm

I was following the guides (User and Param) about editing when I came up on F/A and got stuck. Now I'm unstuck.

) Thanks for the Wiki reference. Having ADSR laid out graphically helps a lot.

- d