Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    Yamaha Fb01 has 'fingered portamento' that allows discrete tones when
    played staccato, to swooping portamento when played legato.
    
    Almost made the little $%^&* sound palatable.
    
    karl

    All the Oberheim gear that I know of supports portamento, even the
    low-end Matrix-1000.  The Matrix-1000 requires that you set it up on a
    patch-by-patch basis.
    
    The Casio VZ-1 and VZ10M module have a nice portamento implementation.
    
    	Eirikur
    

    
    The Ensoniq ESQ-1 and SQ-80 have it (probably the VFX and SQ-1, too,
    but I'm not sure).  The Casio CZ series also have it.   Hmm, these
    aren't too "modern-day", though, are they?
    
    						Brian

    Add the DX-21 and TX81Z to the list. They include 2 modes. "Fulltime"
    pimento makes the notes slide without respect to when they were played.
    If you play a low C, and then play a high C half an hour later you'll
    get the slide. "Fingered" mode (Is this Ultrix?) allows you to play
    staccato notes by making sure the note on comes after the note off.
    Playing a key before you release the previously played key results
    in a slide. 
    
    Yamaha lets you chose the rate/speed. Both modes are only available in
    MONO mode.
    
    I use lots of pimento on my bass lines for a more "fretless" sound. I
    also use it for step-timing pitch bends.
    
    Edd

    The TX-802 and probably all the other DX-7 based machines have very
    flexible portamento. In addition to responding to the portamento on/off
    controller and the portamento speed controller, it has two modes:
    continuous, or true portamento, and several flavors of step, or
    glissando. The intervals to skip can be set from a semitone to an
    octave, I believe.
    
    I have yet to see a sampler or sample playback unit that does
    portamento. Does anyone know of one that does?
    
    Chris

    It has been alledged that the Mirage does portamento.  (Doens't change
    multisample during the glide.)  Haven't seen it, myself.
    
    	Eirikur
    

    Nyet on the Mirage...
    
    Edd

    Huh?  I thought that Proteus did portamento.  Not that I've ever used
    it, though - with an MKS70 and an Oberheim, I've not tried to get the
    Proteus to to any big sweeps or anything.
    
    This gives me a good excuse to play around tonight.  8-)  Thanks.
    
+b

    
    
       Anyone know the midi controller numbers for the forementioned
    portamento on/off and speed?.
    
    Thanks in advance.
    
    
    
    
    
    RichC
    
    

    IS there a CC for portomento? I think my DX just maps the sustain
    pedal (64?) to porto-on/off, while the speed is a sys-ex param....
    
    Edd

    
    According to the MIDI spec, CC#5 is portamento time and CC#65 is
    portamento on/off.  Whether or not anybody implements it, who knows.
    
    							Brian

    I fired up a MIDIscope pgm on my ST last nite and watched the output of
    my KX5.  Port on/off and rate are definitely CCs.  And if I remember
    right, my MKS70 and TX81z both respond to them.  I don't ever remember
    trying this with my (former) ESQs.
    
    The Proteus does *NOT* do portamento - it seems that the Kurzweil does
    not either (but I didn't look real close).
    
    Not that I know what I'm talking about, but I thought that portamento
    was a voltage-oriented effect (where a control voltage ramps from A to
    B instead of simply doing discrete jumps).  With oscillators that
    aren't voltage controlled, perhaps this effect is not possible?
    
    Do Roland's D-series synths do portamento?  How about the M1 (it
    appears that Korg T-series doesn't)?  Kawai?  Do any non-analogs do it?
    
+b

    Amend .12 to read "do any sample-based" instead of "non-analogs".
    
    As for .10 (Edd), I think you're making the same mistake I did.  DXes
    send/receive *LFO* speed (rate) as SYSEX, not portamento.
    
+b

    Portamento has nothing to do with which technology is used in the
    oscillator.  Yamaha FM synths have all digital "oscillators" and they
    do portamento just fine.  The microprocessor that sets the frequency
    just keeps changing the frequency in tiny steps very quickly.

RE: .13
    
    I reworded my question in .12 ... obviously, FM synths are not
    "analog".
    
    However, if it's not technology-related, I'd like to why this isn't
    implemented in newer synths, then - viz, why not in sample-players? 
    Too much math to calculate all the micro-steps to get from A to B?
    
+b (not a tech-wizard, but somewhat literate)

I don't know the design details of modern synths; they must differ from one
another  in ways that affect this question.  However, I will try to give an
example.
My qualifications?  I once created an accidental portamento when I was
writing a PDP11 music /sound synthesis program for fun in off hours.
Ecamples of it are on a commusic tape.
It happened when I overloaded the 11/23 (not hard to do ;=) )

OK.  Let's say a digital dignal processing system for the audio range
has fixed sample conversion rate of perhaps 44.1kHz (just out of the air).
That means that pitch of a note is not determined by the sample output
rate from a fixed wave table.  Pitch is changed by playing different length
versions of the sample wave (assuming it's a sampled wave).
If you start with a 1024-point waveform, and you just play it out at
44.1k samples/sec., you get a 43Hz wave.  In order to get a 86Hz tone,
you could just skip every other sample.  To get 172Hz, play every fourth
sample.  To get 256 Hz tone, play 10.22'th sample.   Oops.  You have to
calculate what the 10.22'th sample would be if there were one.  You interpolate.
You could just take the 10'th sample (round off the index), but that
creates noise, degrading signal/noise.  If you interpolate linearly
(draw a straight line from the 10th sample height to the 11th sample height
and find the height at 22% of the distance along the line) it works but
is also noisy.  Hyperbolic and other non-linear approaches make quieter
interpolations.  In other words, the interpolation is a pain, it's expensive,
it's a compute-bound task, it's hard.  So do it in advance of sending out the
wave, or set up tables to simplify it before starting the tone.
Portamento is a continuous change of pitch, so you'd have to keep recalculating
the waveform array index steps and the interpolation constants for every
sample.  Some designers must opt out of portamento support
in the requirements documents on cost and time to develop justifications
for lower funcationality.  If you have a complex interpolation scheme,
portamento could just require more computer power than you have.

This goes for FM along the process somewhere, but I'm not sure where along
the process.

Historically, portamento on a violin was the effect created of sliding out
of one pitch on one string and into the next pitch on another string.
It's a broken glissando.  A string (violin) glissando is a slide.  A fast 
scale is just a fast scale, not a glissando.
Tom

    I just think it's a feature which has gone out of style :-(
    As the industry becomes mass-market-driven, features which require
    synth-specific skills of the user are less important than having
    the latest hot sounds in presets. :-(
    
    	Eirikur
    
    The K1 family doesn't do portamento.  I love the sound of my K1R, but
    the feature-paucity is depressing.
    

re .16:  Interesting, but I'm still not sure I understand the difference between
portamento and glissando.  In the world of acoustic instruments (I hate that
term!), are you implying that instruments which can only
do "discrete" sounds (piano, reeds, etc) can only do portamento, and that a
true glissando requires a continuously changable instrument (trombone, string,
etc)?

Burns

glissando has different meanings on different instruments.  On continuous
controllers such as brass instrument slides and exposed strings on string
instruments, glissando is a slide of pitch.
On instruments with keyboards etc. a glissando is just a very fast scale.
On piano it's done with the back of the thumb, the nail I mean, supported
by the other fingers behind the thumb.  Pop players use the back of the
four fingers.
There is no portamento on piano (unless you go to great lengths, like
retuning teh string while it's playing, or using a digital signal processor
to bend the pitch, I've used this).
In the great Notes tradition of accounting for every exception...
Tom

    
    
       Re .11   Thanks, Brian
                (btw, got a thing against square waves?  8^} )
    
       I wasn't sure if it was a CC or a keyboard function.
   I'll be trying it or the D110 tonight.... 
    
    
    
    Is there somewhere in this notesfile that has a complete CC listing?.
    
                                            
    
    
    RichC
    
    

	The dusty ('84/'85/'86?) old Korg DS-8 has portamento with 2 modes
	and time from 0-slooow.  Fun to dynamically change it during a slide.
	In MONO, you can yank the tone up and down at will... a fun but
	perhaps not very practical feature- definitely performance, not
	sequencer, oriented...

    
    re  .17 (Eirikur)
    
    from what I remember, the K1 doesn't have true portamento (sliding from
    one note to the next) but it does have a very nice glide feature where
    the sound glides up/down to each note as it is played, with
    programmable speed and range.  It is good for many effects but, alas,
    no real substitute for the real thing.  Glad I got my DX7!!
    
    Paul

    
    
      The D110 (and probably d10,d20 and possibly d50) 
    *don't* do portamento.
    
      I'm miffed.
    
    
    
    RichC
    

 RE .23   The D50 *does* do portamento, but the D20 doesn't.

Generally speaking, the early digital synths (DX7, D50, etc.) 
were usually equipped with portamento, because the analog era
wasn't really over at that time yet, and leaving off the portamento 
feature would have seemed like a serious omission.

Anyhow, as we entered the sampling-era, keyboard manufacturers 
concentrated mainly on creating imitative (acoustic) sounds, and 
hence portamento was a forgotten feature. Also, as portamento is 
computationally a fairly power-intensive process, it wasn't considered
worthwhile to include. Other features, such as multi-timbrality,
built in sequencer, etc, were much more in demand.

This was also reflected on the modulation features of early samplers
(P2000, S900,...). These instruments had simple modulation sections,
because the sampling-thing was much more interesting than conventional
sythesis methods. Some of the early workstations did have quite 
comprehensive modulation sections, but again, modulation wasn't given
much processor-overhead, with resulting unsmoothness and quantization.

The portamento and modulation features are coming back, though, which
is very nice to see. For instance the D70, SY77, and Wavestation all
have very comprehensive modulation sections. Personally, I never
liked the workstation concept anyway.

Joachim

    Re: .24
    
    It's a shame that portamento has disappeared on many machines, because
    now that we have good sampled wind and string instruments, portamento,
    particularly *fingered* portamneto ala Yamaha, would be more useful
    than ever.
    
    Anyone who has ever played a wind or string instrument knows about
    slurs.  Without portamento, the only way to get slurs is via pitch
    bend, messy at best.  Without slurring, the illusion of a real
    instrument is easily lost.
    
    I've found that when using sampled winds I work the mod wheel almost
    constantly to give it a natural vibrato.  Since my sample player
    supports neither pitch bend or portamento, the mod wheel becomes the
    only way to add expression to the sound.
    
    Since a keyboard is such a poor controller for many instrument
    simulations, it's puzzling why buyers have let the manufacturers off
    the hook with reducing the number of control options available on a
    machine.
    
    						Brian

    There are ways to cheat, if you have any mod routings at all and can
    program.
    
    One example that comes to mind is to map velocity to control a pitch
    envelope; introduce a slight "slide-up" with a very hard strike - do a
    similar thing with aftertouch, but do a pitch-bend down (probably
    having to use a envelope->pitch thing again).
    
    I've heard a couple "samples" where the pitch bend is built in.  Sounds
    cute for a demo, but is very annoying when used for any length of time
    (too much consistency).
    
+b

    My Casio SK-1 has polyphonic portamento with preset speed...
    ;^)
    Paul

    Re: 25, .26
    
    I hear you, Brad, but imagine you're playing a flute part and you want
    to phrase stacatto here and legato there.   
    
    The kicker to me, as I stated earlier, is that I can have portamento on
    my synths which do only a fair replication of a flute or have none on my
    sample player which gives a *great* replication of a flute.
    
    							Brian

    Believe it or not, I like my JX flute better than the Proteus, so it's
    a moot point with me.  And I hear you, too.  I'd never snooped around
    for port. options before, but it would sure liven up the feel of
    samplers.
    
    Another thing I wish more mfgrs would do is make pitch-bend range
    bi-range programmable (viz, 2 steps up, 12 steps down).  I know the U20
    does it, but that's about all.  8-(
    
+b

    Another thing that got thrown on the floor is a programmable choice
    between constant rate and constant time portamento.  Constant rate
    means the time between two adjacent notes is the same, hence the time
    between the starting and ending notes varies witih how far apart they
    are;  constant time means the time between the starting and ending notes
    is the same. Both are useful in certain circumstances.  And of course,
    nobody ever makes the time/rate a function of the MIDI clock rate (i.e.,
    tempo sensitive).
    
    A neat effect possible with constant time polyphonic portamento is to
    set the portamento time fairly long, "preload" the keyboard with a
    centrally placed tone cluster, and then play a widely voice chord.  The
    chord emerges from the polyphonically slewing dissonance.
    
    len.
    

    Re: .30
    
    The Casio VZ lets you program portamento to be either constant rate or
    constant time, mono or poly, on a patch-by-patch (rather than global)
    basis.  

    Hmmmm. one would think after spending 5 years with a synth there would
    be no surprises, right? 
    
    I found out my DX does porto in poly mode. All the notes slide around
    until the chord finally comes into "focus"...
    
    Edd

    The sad thing is that those who implement portamento these days often
    blow other parts of the architecture to make it useless.
    
    For example, on the Matrix 6 (and presumably the 1000) there is no way
    to get a truely monophonic patch (you can use ``Unison'' mode, but this
    means that ALL VOICES are playing in unison, which can be overbearing
    if your sound is supposed to be light and delicate), so you can't
    easily porta from one note to the next, unless you release each note
    before depressing the next one, which kills your phrasing.
    
    The K5 has, roughly, the same problem.  There is no way to guarantee
    that you will get the same voice for each note in a monophonic line.
    
    Surprisingly, the DX7's porta is way cool.

    DX7 an analog synth?  Tongue in cheek I trust?  My Super Jupiters and
    JX-10 do portamento nice, but only monophonically - ironically, it was
    my lowly Juno-106 that did polyphonic portamento.
    
    len.
    

    Yes, tongue in cheek.
    
    Of course the fact that the first really rad digital synth has more
    usable portamento features than my analog synth (Matrix 6) is cause for
    some irritation.
    
    Actually, as noted earlier, it's not really the portamento features
    that hamper the Matrix 6 (and the K5), but rather, the voice assignment
    features.  Think before you design, I suppose.
         
    Steph