Wersi EX20 demo 2

Multitracked Wersi EX20 with Ibanez SDR-1000 reverb. This synth is capable of some highly unusual sounds when (in)correctly programmed, so I thought I'd showcase that side of it. It's sort of a half tribute and half parody of 70s computer music (i.e. Jean-Claude Risset, John Chowning, etc.). I find that sort of music tends to be sometimes brilliant and sometimes ponderously arbitrary (at least from the listener's perspective), so I tried to get a little of each in there.

Due to the bizarre user interface and poor/unavailable documentation, I think very few people have programmed these synths to this extent. At the time I think I only had the German user manual. I have the English manual now, but it omits much of the sound programming stuff.

Most of the interesting territory comes from doing strange things with the pitch and amplitude envelopes. Each stage of the envelope can be assigned a "module" that takes two parameters and does some function like noise modulation, increment, delay, linear or exponential rise or fall, loop, etc. It's even possible to make nested loops. These things don't necessarily behave the way you'd expect (are these undocumented features or bugs?), so it's basically a trial and error process, but the results can be very surprising.

Check the (NiCd) memory backup battery if you own one of these. They can leak and cause damage.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Wersi
• EX20
• MK1
• Ibanez
• SDR-1000

[purejunk71]

You have a manual in English? Wow, any way of getting a pdf copy? I've got a german manual but thats of little use :-)

[acreil]

@purejunk71 I need to get around to scanning it (and the service manual), but I tend to prefer doing stuff with my free time that isn't really tedious and boring. I know a lot of people are looking for it, though. You'll still need the "BEDIENUNGSANLEITUNG" anyway, since the English manual leaves out most of the fun parts.

[kzuse]

From 00:40 on this reminds me very much of Stockhausens "Gesang der Jünglinge im Feuerofen" from 1955 (can be found here on YT) ... nice and inspiring and sort of a tribute!

[acreil]

@kzuse Wow, I didn't have my sights set quite that high. I was thinking more of the lower-tier stuff that's sort of unintentionally goofy.

[calyx93]

Very cool sounds - had a Stage Performer Mk1 and I could NEVER make it sound like this - probably 'cause it was too cryptic to program and I had no patience for it :)

[acreil]

@calyx93 Thanks. You won't be surprised to hear that programming was frustrating and time consuming. But getting a really strange sound isn't really any more difficult than making a really nice, well programmed sound. And it's fun in an "esoteric programming language" kind of way. If you can navigate the increment/decrement keys and figure out how to adjust the filter cutoff (these aren't as trivial as they sound!), you're already halfway there.

[telekinetica]

Brilliant.

[antcarpendale]

Very nice sounds