A while ago, one of my good friends tossed a bunch of notes at me and told me to compile it into an HTML FAQ. I looked at the notes and thought they would make a much better manual. Here they are, now you tell me which would be better! :) By the way I should mention my friend wrote these notes for the Roland MC-505 so don't sue me if your Alesis functions differently. The basic information should be transferable regardless ...

Sound and waves.

Sound is waves of air pressure, hitting the eardrum. There are many other tutorials out there which explain this better than I will so GET SEARCHING!! You'll want to know about amplitude, frequency, different types of waves, etc. for when you get back (although none of this is imperative)

So basically we will construct a (hopefully cool) sound from scratch on the 505. Follow my instructions and you will learn a few things along the way ... :)

Waveforms

The waveform is your friend. It is your basic building block on your way to make sound. On a system like the 505, when you press a note, (basically) a WAVEFORM is played back. Waveforms come in many shapes and sizes. On the 505 there are sine, saw, square, and triangle waveforms, as well as drum hit waveforms, bell waveforms, synth waveforms, and (yikes!) really horrible voice waveforms. The basic characteristic of your sound will come essentially from the wave(s) chosen to comprise the sound. So choose wisely Obi-Wan.

So let's start with a nice mellow sounding waveform. Initialize a patch space on your SmartMedia card (you DO have an SM card right? Saving is just THAT much quicker when you save to an SM card so you should pan out for one. Come on, they're down to about $15US if you're lucky with your Net search!)

Now ensure the first tone is ON (Hit TONE SELECT, then ensure the leftmost green button above "TONE SWITCH" is lit) and select all four tones for editing (ensure all four green buttons above "TONE SELECT" are flashing). Frankly you shouldn't have to touch anything because this is the default after you INITIALIZE a patch space. Now hit EDIT and let the fun begin.

WAVE/FXM

As I said above, the waveform is your basic building block. Your choice of waveforms will have a tremendous effect on your final sound, so I suggest you put a fair amount of care and thought into your waveform. That said, don't forget we're not engraving any of this into stone. The waveform (like everything else) can always be changed later.

To get to waveform/fxm mode hit WAVE SELECT (or EDIT+[1]). Now twirl the alpha dial until you get to A069 for all the tones. This is a D-50 waveform that's sort of mellow and nice to listen to at low octaves. Play with it a bit. Get used to it up high, and down low. BECOME it for a few moments. Okay, that's enough.

Now it's pretty boring as is, so the first thing we will go through is LAYERING. You're still in TONE SELECT mode right? (You should be as I didn't tell you to touch anything!) Press the second green button above "TONE SWITCH" to turn on the second waveform. Now when you press chicklets you should hear a slightly "fatter" sound. To some it might just be louder - oh well. Now, this isn't so interesting because when you layer two waveforms at the same frequency (note) you just get an output which is the same as either of the input waves (which are equal) but which has twice the amplitude. So basically you're upping the volume. Wahooo eh?

Coarse Tune

So let's spice things up a bit. Hold EDIT and twirl the COARSE TUNE knob. Holding EDIT will stop the values from shifting while you spin the knob - useful for a lot of things, so keep that in mind. You can accomplish the same objective by EDIT+[2], but that's more boring. The display should now say PITCH:CoarseTune and have four 0s. Select only the FIRST waveform (press the CYM button, or the first green button above "TONE SELECT" - from this point on I will assume you know how to turn waves on and off, and select waves for editing [NOTE: PUT THIS IN THE INTRODUCTION - also put in about the four sliders above TONE SELECT, the alpha dial, the DEC/INC and twirling knobs as equally valid editing techniques]). Now twirl the alpha dial to -5 and hit a key. Note how you now hear the wave twice, at two different frequencies? This is layering at its most simplest. Now, you have two waves playing. One at the frequency of the note you are playing, and one playing 5 semitones below the note you are pressing. This probably won't sound good, so twirl it to -12 (an octave below). Can you guess what this will sound like before you press a key? Press a key. Hear the bass? That's from the lower frequency waveform. Now all this is nice, but frankly let's get to some excitement. Most coarse tune adjustments just make the sound discordant, except for octave mistunes. And those get boring. Twirl that puppy back up to 0. Off we go!

Fine Tune

Instead of coarse tuning, we will fine tune to add some nuances to our sound in the search for a nice "phat" sounding bass. Oh, speaking of which why not tune the patch down a few octaves by pressing the OCTAVE - key twice. Ahhhh nice deep D-50 ... :)

So press PAGE > once to move sideways within the PITCH menu and we get to FINE TUNE. Now press and hold a chicklet (you can choose!). Hear the sound? Now twirl the alpha dial down to about -10. You will notice two things if you are good. First, the sound will take on a more "three" dimensional sound as you do this. Second, the sound will change WITHOUT you REpressing the chicklets as you had to do with the COARSE TUNE knob adjustments above. Yes, the 505 will adjust FINE TUNE on the fly, but COARSE TUNE requires a new NOTE ON to trigger it. If you're MIDI savvy you can correctly attribute this to the fact that COARSE TUNE plays with the MIDI note of the current sound. If you're like everyone else about MIDI then ...

So you have a nice three-dimensional sound now! Hooray! But can you hear it? Try alternating from 0 to -30 a few times to hear the difference the "detuning" causes to the sound. Note that -50 is half a semi-tone.

So wonderful, we have a nice three dimensional sound. But you probably want to play with filters right? Well tough, you'll have to wait until I update this! Sorry.

/ Audio/ Patch Creation Manual