[A6] Ordered A6, patch sets and data card

[protokol13]

> The LFOs stop at 25 Hz, the EGs are only 2 ms fast, the Arp and
> Sequencer don´t send Midi, the knobs send only NRPR, etc...
>

I wish the LFOs went faster in some cases as well, but I don't think it's a
big issue for the types of sounds I'm doing with the A6 anyway.
I don't really understand the whole 2ms argument which is stated in many of
the forums.  The EG HAS to fade in to not cut the waveform, especially when
you have an analog oscillator (which might have it's start point anywhere on
the waveform).  If you bring in the VCO too quickly you can get a noticeable
click from the waveform shooting up from DC.  The issue with the A6 is not
the EGs attack, it's the slope and envelope configuration.  You need to make
sure that you give the EG plenty of headroom so distortion is not an issue
(causing an oogy, slow sounding attack) and you also need to make sure you
have the initial attack decay into a slightly lower sustain (this is why the
A6 has 2 delay stages for).  The Roland synths do most of these things
without any choices, thus you get a bass that sounds snappy because of it's
preprogrammed attack to sustain portion, and there's also VCOs that sound
like they've been passed through a highpass.  Go easy on the levels, and you
should be able to do basses as snappy as anything out there.  The percussive
modes are also helpful because they tighten the attack to the point that the
waveform clicks (if you need that kind of sound).  Just don't confuse
punchiness to attack time, they are two different things and sometimes
people automatically think a quick EG yields a punchy sound.

The knobs sending NRPN is not a big issue for me.  Alesis did this because
you can fit greater resolution with NRPNs, given that you have more bits to
work with.  Having a VCF controlled by a 7bit CC would be pretty cheap IMHO.
I think that Alesis did a good choice here, although it wouldn't have been
too hard to add a really low controller transmit mode to just send 127
steps.  I know that you can choose to thin the controller transmit on the A6
if midi events are slowing your project down.

-=proto=-