 Hello, Oslo to sync here and welcome back to another video in our series where we're exploring the sound design potential of the KorgVolk FM So this video is all about envelopes So let's start by talking about what an envelope really means in sound design So an envelope is a way of describing how certain characteristics of a sound change over time From the point where we press a key till when we release it and along with aliphos, which we'll get to in another video They're one of the two ways that we can govern how a sound changes over time so just thinking about envelopes in our familiar world of Of analog subtractive synthesis if I just reach over to my monologue typically in analog since there are Three main types of envelopes that we have we have an envelope which might govern the volume of a sound We might govern how the filter is affected And we might govern how the pitch is affected So there we had ways of controlling the volume of the sound over time The harmonic content of the sound over time and also the pitch of the sound over time and those three Ideas are all present and correct in the Volcker FM as well But instead of the filter and the vca like we have in an analog synth in Volcker FM We're going to be controlling the level of the various operators if an operator is acting as a carrier That's going to be controlling the volume of the sound if an operator is acting as a modulator That's going to be controlling the harmonic content of the sound and then there's also a global pitch envelope as well Now the most common type of envelope Particularly in analog since is the ad sr envelope So that's a attack That's the amount of time that it takes for you to get to the full level of the envelope whether that's the filter or the pitch or the Volume of the sound We then have d decay That's the amount of time that it takes for you to drop down to the s sustain level Which is where you stay until you let go of the key at which point you release are Over the amount of time they're back to zero ad sr now The Volcker FM and the dx7 that it's inspired by laugh in the face of your puny ad sr because the Envelopes that are on offer on the Volcker FM are supremely powerful and flexible So i've got a basic patch set up here Sounds like that what we have here are two operators operator one is acting as the carrier The thing that we hear and operator two is acting as the modulator thing which is changing the sound of operator one So let's dive into our edit menu and let's take a look at the various different parameters that govern our envelope So the first thing to note is that these parameters are identical Whether or not we're talking about a carrier or a modulator So at the moment we're going to look at operator two which is our modulator So we're going to be changing the harmonic content of our sound but um These envelopes operate in exactly the same way if we're talking about the carrier in terms of governing its loudness So let's talk about these parameters. Um, they can operate if you wish Exactly the same way as an ADSR if that's what you are after We can definitely do that here, but they can also offer us a lot of other things as well So, uh, there are eight parameters that we need to talk about and they kind of they're kind of paired up to work together So the first parameter that I want to talk about is egr one Now egr one is how fast after you've pressed a key The level of the operator is going to jump up to egl one now I chose my words carefully there when I said how fast um, and I use that those words, um, because When we're looking at egr one As we turn it up That jump is going to be faster Now that's backwards when compared to When you turn up an attack knob on a traditional adsr envelope on an analog synth Usually as you turn up the attack knob Things get slower, but here we're talking about a rate e.g envelope generator rate one So the higher it is the faster it is so at the moment we're at 99, which is the maximum which means that We're not even hearing the fact that um, this envelope is jumping up because it's happening All but instantaneously But as we make it slower We should be able to hear the start of that note have a bit of a slope up With our harmonic content. So as we turn it down Can you hear that there? It's really subtle, but there's a whoop at the start of our notes And that's this envelope Turning up the level of the operator the modulator Quickly but no longer instantly as we turn it down further Getting that wow kind of thing happening And as we turn it down You can get Really quite slow And as we get down towards single digits these envelopes move Really really slowly So we can create really Long language sweeps Isn't that cool? So if we want to make big long evolving pads Man can FM do it Still going. I mean, we're not even at the slowest rate either. We can really really Draw out sounds I love building these sort of big evolving sounds on the on the vulgar FM. Okay, so EGR one how fast when you press the key we jump up to What is defined in EGL one? That's so for the moment. I'm going to make that instant We'll play about with it a little bit in a moment. So moving along We have EGR two Now EGR two is how fast After EGR one has finished its jump We are going to move on to EGL two So if we wanted to Do that traditional ADSR thing we would set EGL two to be lower We'd go over to our EGR two and we'd set it Fast maybe but not not super fast We can hear we have that Drop down and then we're kind of sustaining Afterwards if we want to make that drop slower We can do so And again, if we want to make it really really slow, we can do this kind of sounds as well Okay, so That's using it as a traditional kind of D section of our ADSR But what's really cool is that as we move on would you believe we have an EGR three? Which tells us how fast we move to EGL three after We've done the second part of our envelope. So you can do things Like having a That initial sort of attack Set EGL two a little bit higher So we've got that initial twang there But then we can have EGR three Be a lot slower and set EGL three below EGL two Maybe a little bit higher on EGL two a bit slower on EGR three Now we can create sounds we have that which have that initial twang And then as we hold on to a note a much slower decay down to a Less rich sound which is a lot more Like our acoustic instruments do anyway You can't do this with an ADSR Can't get this sort of longer evolving sound okay, um As I say, we're kind of emulating an ADSR at the moment, but we'll Discuss other things that we can do in a moment. So finally we've got EGR four which is how Quickly after we release a key. So this is our release section. If you like Uh, we drop down to EGL four. So if we're talking about a, um Traditional ADSR type setup EGL four will be the end of our release cycle. So that'll be at zero um Now at the moment my carrier is also Shutting down very very quickly when I release. So I'm going to go over to the carrier here and I'm going to Make this release a lot longer Or rather a lot slower by turning EGR four down on the carrier. I'll do the same on my modulator as well and now when I release a note We get that kind of ringing out there and if we want, um If we want the harmonic content to drop off faster than the volume we could Make our modulator faster, but leave our carry where it is You can hear there that We're moving back towards the fundamental much faster, but then we're still having the sustaining sort of Rumbly resonance happening Which is quite cool Okay, so that's all presuming that what we're trying to emulate here is an ADSR, but we can actually do All sorts of other things. Um because We have these four separate levels here So for example If we wanted to have a bit more of a Wub on the way up Let me just move back to my EGR four on my carrier make it faster for the moment Okay, there we go there's our brass sound. Um So we can have EGR one a bit slower But then we don't even have to have EGR one Going all the way up to its fullest point So here we've got it only jumping up to um 44 which means that we can actually have EGL two Go all the way up afterwards. So if we Made EGR two even slow, we'll have a quite quick jump up and then a much slower rise Or we can do things uh like have a traditional ADSR kind of setup. So a fast um Attack which goes all the way up To the full value there Then we can have a fairly slow Drop to a lower value here on EGL two maybe 70 something You know that drop off there We can then set EGR three to be quite slow as well. 32 is pretty much perfect, but have it higher then EGL two So we're going to press a key Decay off and then rise back up Now you can't do this On an ADSR and then we could of course if we fancied it Have our release This is where things get very very strange indeed We can have our release jump back up Make sure that we're actually jumping back up on our carrier as well Uh, and we can have these things which sort of Linger in the sound and have drones Which you really can't do with an ADSR Let's make this drone louder Be darker So we're going to click there because we're probably jumping too fast back up So let's slow that down on both of our rates here So these envelopes allow you so much additional control That you couldn't possibly achieve With a conventional ADSR And when you start to combine these With more than just these two operators and you start to factor in your LFOs Some of the other worldly sounds that you can create are just Just fantastic So just to recap on our envelopes There are eight parameters that we are interested in There's EGR one which is how fast after a key is pressed We jump to EGL one There's EGR two which is how fast After the first part of the envelope has finished We jump to EGL two There's EGR three which is the same but jumping to EGL three And finally there's EGR four Which is how long sorry how fast Uh after releasing the key we jump to EGL four We can emulate our classic ADSRs but we can do so much more Tremendously powerful envelopes We'll probably revisit the envelopes a little bit later on in the In the series when we start to introduce the other operators into our sounds as well Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that guys. I hope that was useful for you I hope you learned something about the envelopes on the Volcker FM Tremendously powerful if you did enjoy the video, please make sure Big thumbs give it the old thumbs up to give the video a like And make sure that you subscribe to the channel so that you don't miss out on any upcoming videos On the Volcker FM and other synthesis related stuff as well Thank you so much for watching and I will see you again soon