Oberheim Matrix 12
Contents
1. i Kopien TN EARN Snel shay a PIANE Aa aati Eee aapa Rene f i Oberheim Matrix 12 Programmable 1 2 Voice Multi timbral Polysynth Oberheim s pricey but successful Xpander gets a velocity sensing keyboard and a doubling of voices Suddenly words are not enough hen most manufacturers were W producing expanders as key boardless versions of already existing synths Oberheim surprised everybody by bringing out an expander with an entirely new spec When the six voice Xpander was unveiled at the 1984 Frankfurt show a 12 voice version with keyboard was already taking shape at Oberheim s R amp D labs It took a while coming but now that it s here it looks set to affirm the Californian company s pos ition as the premier makers of upmarket analogue polysynths The instrument in question is the Matrix 12 a 12 voice touch sensitive poly phonic synthesiser that employs the same hardware and software sound generating elements as the Xpander module and also shares most important design principles So much so in fact that current Matrix documentation com prises an Xpander user manual and a brief Matrix 12 introductory guide A quick comparison between the Xpander and Matrix 12 front panels reveals that Oberheim have retained the 10 Simon Trask former s highly successful design layout with just a few modifications necessi tated by the difference in number of voices The block di2. mixed in It s possible to sync VCO2 to VCO1 ie give it the same pitch in which case changing the frequency of VCO2 produces a change of timbre In fact the frequency of both VCOs is adjustable in semitone steps over a five octave range a Detune function is also available and each VCO has its own VCA JUNE 1985 E amp MM on we ce eRe wm een ee res et ae ge Pd Moving on to the filter section isn t it wonderful getting back to familiar anal ogue systems the Oberheim s multi mode filter allows selection of any one of 15 filter modes covering one two three and four pole versions of all filter types plus selected combinations of these In other words a uniquely com prehensive filter section that only adds to the Matrix 12 s programming desirability Frequency and resonance of the filter are of course programmable while the final stage of the hardware link is provided by two master VCAs Additionally it s possible to configure the two VCQs in a carrier modulator relationship for simple FM effects though don t fool yourself into thinking you re going to get DX7 sound potential as a bonus feature you aren t with desti nation routable to either VCO2 or the VCF Other software implemented elements of each voice include five Envelope Generators each with their own initial output level These are five stage envel opes adding an initial Delay max 2 5 seconds to
3. the Matrix 12 has no fewer than six zones to be exploited by the lucky user Each zone can be defined as encom passing any area of the keyboard from as little as one note up to the entire MIDI allowable range which effectively allows the physical range of the keyboard to be much larger than it is Each of the Matrix 12 s voices may be assigned to any single zone and as each voice can be assigned its own patch and the zones may be overlapped in any fashion it s _possible to build up a bewildering array of multi timbral palettes the sheer scope of which defies description Once you ve assembled a specific configuration to your satisfaction the Matrix 12 has capacity for storing 100 of them it s these palettes that become Multi Patches in OberheimSpeak Further refinements all multi patch specific in clude volume stereo panning and trans position settings for each voice while each zone can be assigned its own voice mode allowing monophonic or poly phonic playing with various sorts of note priority The icing on the cake is that both single and multi patches can be combined in a 100 link chain which has got to be good news for anyone contemplating live use of a Matrix Sounds And so we come to the stock factory patches The 100 Single patches are organised into 10 groups of 10 allied sounds and these are titled Brass Strings Pianos Rhythm Comps Sym phonic Ensemble Pitched Percussion
4. the familiar ADSR configur ation Longest attack time is around 16 seconds while the longest release runs to about 90 which should be enough for almost everybody eccentric remix engineers included And as if that wasn t enough Oberheim claim that setting all the Envelope times to 63 their maximum value modulating each of them with a Tracking Generator set to 63 and switch ing on Freerun and DADR triggering modes results in an envelope cycle that runs about half an hour in length Sad to say though didn t actually check this to be accurate pressure of deadlines and all that But we still haven t finished The remaining items are five LFOs with programmable speed waveform and amplitude three Tracking Generators which enable various parameters such as filter frequency or amplitude to be tracked according to keyboard position four Ramp Generators for setting an overall rate of increase for VCO1 or VCF frequency say and a Lag Generator for portamento effects Lastly a number of triggering options eg single multiple and external are assignable to both the Envelope Generators and Ramp Gener ators Modulation Routing This is it Computer technology s ans wer to the spaghetti heap wiring night mare beloved of Tangerine Dream in days of yore Its name The Oberheim Matrix Modulation system For every parameter that can be modulated on the Matrix 12 there exists a Modulation Page Each Page
5. Basses amp Leads Percussion Effects and First Impression Presumably the last group is intended for shop demo pur poses Most impressive are the Strings and symphonic Ensemble sections The string sounds don t have the attack or the clarity of Yamaha FM strings but then that s not what Oberheim s programmers have set out to achieve Generally weakest are the Percussion sounds a bit of careful tweaking on the user s part would no doubt make them a mite more presentable but by contrast the Pitched Percussion sounds are a delight Ringing FM sonorities put in an appearance on such sounds as Bello and Carrilon while one of the E amp MM staff favourites St Happi where do they get these names from sounds like a room full of striking clocks out of sync with one another and plays itself end lessly as soon as you press a key always wanted an easy life What s really daft is the way the preset multi patches don t quite cut it the way the single patches do Daft because as we ve seen multi patches give you a lot more in the way of programming scope than their single brethren But it seems Oberheim s programming staff haven t really come to grips with the system s inherent potential and as a result many of the combinations are decidedly un impressive There are a few gems though like Jazztrio Ode 2joy and Lead Wah which applies multiple modulations to Lever 2
6. age 2 of the VCO and VCF sections allows further modulations of pitch and cutoff frequency That should keep you quiet for a month or two But no matter how many words you use to describe the Oberheim s range of modulation options they simply aren t sufficient to do justice to what is in essence an open ended system As a result it s unlikely to meet its match in terms of a programmer that can exhaust its potential even if some of its more obscure possibilities aren t necessarily going to be of much musical value mentioned levers earlier on and these black plastic contraptions are what Ober heim consider preferable to the now almost universal pitch and mod wheels And the choice is ahappy one The levers are a lot easier to operate in tandem and as a player more than used to wheel configurations a situation an awful lot of players now find themselves in I d guess found getting acclimatised to Oberheim s system a surprisingly pain less process The only thing they could HARDWARE do with is some sort of serated top to make them easier to grab hold of but that s a small point really Voice Orchestration One of the strongest features of the Matrix 12 potentially at least is its ability to map out voices on the keyboard by means of what Oberheim call zones because Oberheim s approach goes well beyond the split keyboard and dual voicing implementations of so many other instruments and
7. agrams at the right of the panel tend to be a bit off putting at first glance but they do in fact provide a wealth of information about the structure of each voice how that structure is accessed via the LED displays and which elements of each voice can be subjected to modulation Sound Generation Basically each voice comprises two VCOs a multimode VCF two VCAs five Envelope Generators one FM VCA five LFOs three Tracking Generators and four Ramp Generators Of these only the two VCOs VCF and two output VCAs are hardware with the remaining features being implemented in software to control the hardware Now while the hardware elements are arranged in a fixed configur ation the software bits and pieces can be arranged in any order you might wish to contrive If you like you can set them to control each other or even themselves The source of this flexibility is Oberheim s Matrix Modulation system of which more anon which is probably best explained as a modern day software equivalent of the vast sprawling synth patchbays of yesteryear 7 Anyway for those of you who missed Paul White s review of the Xpander E amp MM September 84 PIL quickly run through Oberheim s version of what a top end analogue synth system should contain Each VCO is capable of generating triangle sawtooth and pulse waves indi vidually or in combination Pulse width is adjustable and VCO2 has an additional Noise input which may be
8. allows up to six modulation sources each with their own modulation amount to be assigned to any one destination parameter And you can select any one of 27 different destinations simply by pressing the appropriate button in the Modulation Source X Select section on the front panel A maximum of 20 modulation E amp MM JUNE 1985 sources is permissible for each voice Possible modulation sources include two levers two pedals attack and release velocities and any of the Envel ope Generators LFOs Tracking Gener ators and Ramp Generators A particularly handy feature and one new to the Matrix is the inclusion of a Modulation List for each single patch This enables all currently assigned modulations to be viewed as one sequence and quick alterations and deletions to be made in real time But there are two problems here First the modulation source can t be changed from this Page and second if you exit and then return you don t re enter at the point you left Damn silly if you ask me Any modulation can be quantised into semitone steps and modulation sources can either add or subtract from the initial value for a rise or fall in amplitude pitch or filter cutoff frequency for example For something a little more dramatic modulation sources can be directed to a destination more than once an envelope Delay stage could be given greater duration in this way And as if 20 modulations per voice wasn t enough P
9. beast of an instrument to do anything with Fortu nately this isn t the case The aforementioned block diagram of voice organisation which takes up about a third of the front panel display gives a wg and tells you at a glance exactly what you can and can t modulate These com ponents are conceived as Pages and are given stunning names like VCO1 FM LAG and LFO X Each Page has a Page Select button adjacent to it which is used to call the associated parameters into the LED windows The diagrams are a great help make no mistake but having said that reckon Oberheim could have chosen better colours than the dull greys greens and _ simultaneously altered by twiddling a set blues that currently grace the instru ment s front panel they aren t exactly an aid to visibility As they did with the Xpander Ober heim have provided three 40 character 14 segment fluorescent green LED dis plays on which at last a sensible amount of information can be displayed Two of these windows are located on the centre panel in the Page Modifier section one being used to display the selected parameters or functions and the other to display their associated values An array of buttons under each window is used to select a function or a parameter and a set of infinite rotary knobs selects a new value sad to say things get more complex when you come to Multi Patch mode because it s here that a
10. f the new interface and perhaps they still are but there s no denying they ve subsequently implemented it with a welcome thoroughness Specifi cally the Matrix 12 s MIDI implemen tation can be split into three areas multi patches global control and data transfer Each zone within a multi patch can be assigned its own MIDI channel or be set to Omni mode Choice of MIDI transmis sion and or reception is also zone specific If MIDI In is selected the zone responds to note and controller infor mation while if MIDI Out is selected the zone transmits notes received from the keyboard and from MID In controller information is only transmitted if you select the appropriate option A final provision very necessary if zones are overlapped and one of them is only meant to be playing incoming MIDI data can be brought into play to shut off keyboard input for any given zone In case you hadn t already guessed what all these options add up to is a tremendously versatile system for con figuring a MIDI setup though guess the system will make even more people happy when the CV Gate inputs even tually materialise As for the MIDI global control and data transfer options these are accessed via the Master Page Global control consists of Basic Channel selection controller code allocation scaled response to incoming velocity information patch m her THD MY gett change transmission on off echo on off when this i
11. remendous help in dealing with that side of things Interconnections Sad to say it s in this department that the Matrix 12 is somewhat lacking by comparison with the Xpander For the moment at least But first the good news Carried over from the Xpander are a memory protect switch recessed thankfully and the merry trio of MIDI In Out and Thru sockets plus cassette in and out connec tors two pedal sockets capable of handling footswitches and footpedals an advance chain socket a trigger in socket with switchable polarity and stereo and mono outputs However gone are the individual CV Gate inputs and audio outs that graced the Xpander Their omission wouldn t be SO serious if the Matrix were a budget poly of limited studio applications But it aspires to be a good deal more than that and seeing as Oberheim managed to give the Xpander both CV Gate connectors and individual audio outs can t for the life of me think why they ve left them off Sa BS z aae a 3 na ene ew eaters ep aa f OOOO AS Post Ay eect y tI Mei MRM CASI RANE RARER ISI S SAI aat BLAA darie Aniban OREN E Wirin aed i Ae An A NAN E eb AA EAE S A AAA E amp MM JUNE 1985 the Matrix The nice people at Turnkey assure me they re doing all they can to get the Californians to change their minds on this one and hope they succeed And so to MIDI Historically Oberheim were initially fairly sceptical about the virtues o
12. s on Matrix data and MIDI In data are both sent to MIDI Out Reset turns off all notes and returns the instrument to a default MIDI condition and Mute turns off all notes Incidentally controller code allocation can be seen as a software patchbay used to connect MIDI controllers to the local controllers of the Matrix 12 Levers pedals and pressure may all be assigned any MIDI controller number between zero and 121 or the dedicated Bender and after touch pressure codes This is the sort of flexibility you d expect to find ona dedicated controller keyboard though Yamaha s KX88 is the only example that springs to mind at the moment Maybe Oberheim s own forthcoming XK control ler will offer something similar Whatever combining the flexibility of the Matrix 12 s internal modulation routings with its own f comprehensive keyboard arrangement makes for a highly versatile MIDI system The third area of MIDI control concerns data exchange SystemxX must be en abled before anything can happen on this front You can send either a single or multi patch individually or all internal patches in one go which takes about 20 seconds Any Xpander owners out there might like to know that Matrix 12 and Xpander data are fully compatible with each other andj may be transferred in either direction but you ll need something in the way of modification Downloading from Matrix 12 to Xpander for instance will require Xpander Soft
13. second set of Pages comes into play These Pages are assigned appropriate names like Vol ume Pan and Zone X and can be summoned forth into the central display at the touch of a button But what s so nice about this way of doing things is that whole sections consisting of up to six allied parameters can be called into the central display at any one time From there they can be of six infinite rotary knobs As PW pointed out last September this is a much more helpful arrangement than the digital para meter access system now almost univer sally employed by the rest of the synth industry The reason for that is simple Whereas most modern synths don t allow you to discover how altering more than one parameter value simultaneously affects the sound the Oberheims do And that s going to save a lot of people a lot of programming time JUNE 1985 E amp MM J HARDWARES All editing can be accomplished as you re playing with any changes being registered immediately ie in real time New settings are remembered no matter which Page you subsequently go to and even through power down until a new patch is selected prior to storing So Oberheim have come up with an access system that strikes a neat balance between the economy of centralised displays and the immediacy of dedicated controllers found was able to access and alter any parameter very quickly and the new Modulation Page proved a t
14. to give a pretty realistic Hendrix guitar sound complete with wah wah and feedback kid you not Keyboard Sensitivity You might have a whole load of truly wonderful multi timbral textures at your disposal but will the Matrix keyboard allow you to use them to their best effect Well thankfully this particular Oberheim keyboard is touch sensitive on all three counts ie attack velocity pressure also known as after touch and release velo city though pressure sensing is currently readable only via MIDI which is a pity Keyboard based pressure sensing will according to the Operation Guide be available as a retrofit at no charge in the near future so that s some consolation guess Five keyboard velocity scales are assignable for both attack and release velocities so you can adjust things finely to suit your own touch And as if that wasn t enough individual scales can even be set to act upon MIDI input data Thanks to the Matrix Modulation sys 12 HARDWARE tem velocity and pressure values can be used to modulate almost any parameter of a Matrix 12 voice So for instance as well as the more usual amplitude and filter frequency assignments you can choose to modulate FM amplitude lag rate LFO speed and VCF resonance Hearing is believing Page Editing Given the complexity of all these modulation options and possible zonal configurations you d be forgiven for thinking that the Matrix 12 is a
15. ware Revision 1 3 available from your nearest chemist Compatibility is also present on the tape storage front which can t be bad Conclusions Powerful enough to kick the rest of the band into the ionosphere in a live situation yet sufficiently flexible to take pride of place in an above average studio setup the Matrix 12 is everything a top notch analogue poly should be and a fair bit more besides Because apart from the odd case of Retrofit Blues Oberheim seem to have got everything right UK distributors Turnkey already have takers for the entire first batch of Matrix 12s and the review model only gained a temporary reprieve so that E amp MNM s readership could learn of the instru ment s many and varied synthetic delights By combining the best that analogue synthesis has to offer with one of the smartest examples of microprocessor based control of a musical instrument I ve yet seen Oberheim have come up with a keyboard that deserves to set not just one standard but a whole slew of them If you can afford the Matrix 12 go for it If you can t you re in for a long wait before any secondhand bargains come along ai RAP of the Matrix 12 is 5200 plus VAT Further details from Turnkey Brent View Road London NW9 7EL 01 202 4366 13
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