Tubika User manual
Contents
1. The sub oscillator whose pitch is linked to oscillator 1 s is added The click generator generates a short transient click at the beginning of the note Note that the sub oscillator and the click generator cannot be used at the same time It s bassy beefy or clicky not both e The output of the modulator the sub oscillator click generator and a controllable amount of white noise are summed together You can adjust the balance of each ingredient eA controllable amount of fuzzy overdrive is applied to the signal The resulting signal is sample reduced by a controllable amount eThe resulting signal is converted to the analog domain by a 12 bit DAC and fed into an analog VCFand VCA Each of these sound generation and modification modules have parameters which can be controlled by any of the modulation sources listed below However some connections are already hardwired or rather softwired in the firmware The oscillators pitch always tracks the note played on the keyboard However this can be disabled by applying a negative modulation amount 63 from note to oscillator pitch The filter cutoff frequency always tracks the note Again this can be disabled or attenuated by applying a negative modulation from note pitch to cutoff frequency The rationale behind this choice is that most of the time you want 1 1 tracking so this frees up a slot in the modulation matrix for something more interesting Lfo2. 1 octave below osc 1 pl1 25 pulse sub oscillator 1 octave below osc 1 sq2 square sub oscillator 2 octaves below osc 1 etr2 triangle sub oscillator 2 octaves below osc 1 pl2 25 pulse sub oscillator 2 octaves below osc 1 click produces a discrete click which can emphasizes the percussiveness of a note glitch produces a sound similar to that of a skipping CD blow is a burst of noise with a slow attack metal adds a metallic sounding high pitched click pop adds a low pitched discontinuity useful for spicing up a kick drum The crossmod parameter controls how oscillator 1 and oscillator 2 are blended together The different modulation modes are Mode Description What does the xmod parameter controls off Mixing Oscillators 1 and 2 are mixed together nothing sync Mixing and sync Oscillators 1 and 2 are mixed nothing together with oscillator 2 s waveform phase synced to oscillator 1 s ring Ring modulation Oscillators 1 and 2 are mixed balance between the original together and simultaneously sentto a ring modulator mixed signal and the ring modulated signal Xor Aor modulation Oscillators 1 and 2 are mixed balance between the original together and simultaneously sentto a digital XOR mixed signal and the AOR signal cross modulator fold Foldback distortion Oscillators 1 and 2 are mixed Amount of foldback distortion together and sentto a foldback distortion bits Bit reduction Oscillators 1
3. OxOf 15 Argument is equal to the size of the block to transfer The two first bytes of payload indicate the address to write to 16 bit little endian address The following for TuBika to retrieve address here Oxac address here 0x03 Of f7Q bytes of payload contain the data With great power comes great responsibility this feature has the potential to create some damage that would require a factory reset Developers can use the avr nm tool to get a memory map and find out which datastructures are located at which addresses For example avr nm build TuBika_controller TuBika_controller elf C n Addresses in RAM are prefixed by 0080 Mutable Instruments cannot guarantee that these addresses won t be subject to changes from one firmware version to the other Memory card storage Filesystem layout The TuBika firmware supports both SD and SDHC memory cards formatted with FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems Memory cards with long file names are not supported Congrats to ChaN for his amazing FAT library Firmware update filesPatches programs and sequences For programs and sequences the directories are PROGRAM and SEQUENCE and the file extensions are PRO and SEQ Multis Multi 000 Backup v Multi 127 1 Multi 000 in clipboard Of multi clipboard multis 3 it multi File format All files are stored in RIFF format eThe first 4 bytes of the file is the RIFF string The next 4
4. and 2 are mixed together Amount of quantization noise and sentto a bit depth reducer FILTER S2 freq frequency Filter cutoff frequency reso resonance Filter resonance mode mode Filter mode low pass band pass high pass Note that this setting takes effect only if the SVF filter board is installed With the standard SMR 4 filter board the filter is always a low pass no matter the position of this setting env2 env2 gt vcf Modulation amount from envelope 2 to VCF If you want to set a negative modulation amount you can patch env2 to the VCF in the modulations section and ignore this parameter lfo2 Ifo2 gt vcf Modulation amount from LFO 2 to VCF Again if you want to set a negative modulation amount you can patch the LFO 2 to the VCF in the modulations section and ignore this parameter Envelopes and LFOs S3 TuBika has three ADSR envelopes three part LFOs and one voice LFO A part LFO is shared among all voices assigned to a part and is used for creating global sweeps tremolo effects etc A voice LFO is specific to each voice and there will actually be a small amount of detuning dephasing between them for a richer sound Consider the example of a guitarist playing a guitar through a tremolo pedal and applying a vibrato on a particular note If you want to program something similar you will use the voice LFO for the vibrato because it is slightly different and desynchronized for each indiv
5. bytes are the total size of the file in bytes little endian format eThe next 4 bytes is the MBKS string This is followed by one or many chunks Each chunk consists of a 4 chars identifier a 32 bit integer indicating the size N of the payload data and N bytes of payload data Two types of chunk are present in a file The name chunk is always 16 bytes long and contains the name of the object multi patch program stored in the file The 16th byte must be a null character and the name must be padded with spaces The obj chunk contains data that will be copied into one of TuBika s internal data structures It consists of A byte indicating the data structure 1 Patch 2 PartData sequence_ data 4 MultiData 5 PartData eA byte indicating the part number the data must be loaded into 0 current part or global 1 part 1 etc e2 null bytes eThe actual data
6. current part Patch 112 bytes 2 Fat number 0 for current part ParntData sequence data 72 bytes 4 Part number 0 for current part PartData o4 bytes 5 Always 0 MultiD ata 56 bytes Data structure request Use this command to request one or several data blocks from TuBika Command Argument ir Part number 0 for current Patch bytes for selected part part 16 Fart number 0 for current Sequencer bytes for selected part part 19 Fart number 0 for current Patch bytes PartData bytes for selected part part 20 Part number 0 for current PartData bytes for selected part part 21 Always 0 MultiData bytes Patch Bytes and ParnData bytes for the 6 parts Random memory read PEEK Use this command to request the contents of an arbitrary block of RAM up to 32 bytes long Command is equal to 0x1f 81 Argument is equal to the size of the requested block The two bytes of payload indicate the address to read 16 bit little endian address For example to retrieve the 4 bytes at addresses OxSac Ox3b0 the sysex string would be Oxt0 SV3EX 0x00 0x00 OXIE 0x04 Ox0a 0x00 Ox0a Uzi OLLE 0x21 0x02 Mutable Instruments Manufacturer ID 0x04 Product ID PEEK command Number of bytes OxO0c LSB of the 0x03 MSB of the Ox0f Checksum End of SysEx 04 Oa Oc 00 03 Oa Random memory write POKE Use this command to transfer arbitrary data into TuBika s RAM Command is equal to
7. data structure so its NRPN number is 114 In 2 s complement the value 13 is represented by 128 13 115 Thus the NPRN that needs to be sent is 176 99 0 NRPN MSB set to 0 176 98 114 NRPN LSB set to 114 176 6 1 Data Entry MSB set to 1 value above 127 or negative 176 38 115 Data Entry LSB set to 115 because 115 128 13 TuBika can receive and transmit settings in system exclusive format The messages all share the same format Oxf0 SysEx 0x00 0x21 0x02 Mutable Instruments Manufaturer ID 0x00 0x04 Product ID for TuBika Command Argument Payload Checksum Ox 7 End of SysEx Command indicates what the receiver should do with the data in the payload block and argumentis a byte that might contain an additional piece of information about what to do with the data Payload is a sequence of bytes in nibblized form For example the sequence 0x80 0x56 0x13 is transmitted as 0x08 0x00 0x05 0x06 0x01 0x03 Checksum is equal to the nibblized sum modulo 256 of the bytes In the example above the checksum is equal to 0x80 0x56 0x13 0xe9 and is transmitted as 0x0e 0x09 Data structure dump When transfering patch sequence program multi data to TuBika command indicates the data structure being sent and argument indicates the part number the data must be loaded into The following table summarizes the different payload types Command Argument Affected data structure Payload size 1 Part number 0 for
8. mix Oscillator balance 6 xmod Oscillators cross modulation amount This has no effect when the off or sync mixing modes are selected 7 nois Noise amount 8 sub Sub oscillator amount 9 fuzz Fuzz amount 10 crsh Sample rate reduction amount 11 freq Filter cutoff 12 reso Filter resonance 13 attk Envelopes attack time 14 deca Envelopes decay time 15 rele Envelopes release time 16 lfo4 Voice LFO rate 17 vca VCA gain One thing that requires a bit of clarification is the notion of bipolar modulation source Let s take an example We have a triangle LFO mapped to the filter cutoff with a modulation amount of 30 If the cutoff is set to 80 the actual value of the cutoff will oscillate between 50 80 30 and 110 80 30 On the other hand if we have an envelope mapped to the cutoff with a modulation amount of 20 the cutoff will go from 80 to 120 80 2 20 then down to 80 after the release This is something to remember if you want to do PWM for example If you set the PWM modulation amount to 40 you also have to set the oscillator parameter value to 40 so it will oscillates between 40 40 0 and 40 40 80 Otherwise it will spend half of the time stuck at 0 But this makes things nicer for vibrato tremolo wah wah or growl effects 40 Ld H Pulse width AN 4 OSC 1 Parameter 1 Parameter J or OSC 1 Parameter N Pulse width good LFOs pitch bend and MIDI note number modulations are bipol
9. 1 block with synthesis settings and 1 block with part settings and multi are sent as 13 messages so you need to set your SysEx Librarian program to receive many messages Saving programs multis sequences patches After having selected with S1 which object type you want to save multi program etc press S4 save command Before saving a program multi sequence patch its bank letter number and name must be set Use the encoder to increment decrement the value or letter at the cursor To move the cursor click the encoder turn it to move the cursor and click it again When you are done press S7 save command If you want to cancel the operation press S8 cancel command A warning will be displayed in case the memory card is damaged full incorrectly formatted or just needs a little blow on its connectors Note that when a patch is overwritten a backup copy of the previous version is kept You can use a SD card reader on your personal computer to remove the latest version of the patch and restore the backup copy Sorry TuBika does not come with its own version of Norton Commander Clipboard and version manager Press S5 versions command to bring the version manager The following commands are available for the select object part 1 program in the example given above copy S1 copies the current item to a clipboard You can use it to temporarily hold in memory a version of a patch or to cop
10. 2 and Envelope 2 are always connected to the filter their modulation amount being controlled by dedicated parameters on the filter page Besides this it is up to you to route modulations to parameters By default the following routings are wired Source Destination Amount Env 1 Oscillator 1 parameter 0 Env 1 Oscillator 2 parameter 0 Lfo 1 Oscillator 1 pitch 0 Lfo 1 Oscillator 2 pitch 0 Lio 2 Oscillator 1 parameter 0 Lio 2 Oscillator 2 parameter 0 Lfo 3 Mixer balance 0 Lfo 4 Filter cutoff 0 seg 1 Filter cutoff 0 peg Mixer balance 0 Envelope 3 VCA gain 100 Velocity VCA gain 25 Pitch bend Oscillator 1 2 pitch 2 semitones Lfo 4 Oscillator 1 2 fine pitch 2 semitones Let us now review the different synthesis parameters Digital oscillators S1 Each row displays the settings of an oscillator The parameters are the following wave waveform Oscillator waveform family Contrary to most synthesizers in which waveforms are static the TuBika waveforms are dynamic and can be continously morphed this is why it is more correct to refer to waveform families instead of waveforms para parameter Morphing parameter This morphs the selected waveform into many variations rang range Oscillator pitch from 36 semitones to 36 semitones relative the pitch of the MIDInote played on the keyboard tune tune Oscillator fine tune from 0 5 semitone 64 to 0 5 semitone 64 The foll
11. 7 wave waveform LFO waveform Modulation matrix and modifiers 84 The upper part of this page allows the routing of up to 14 modulation sources to synthesis parameters The first Knob is used to select one of the 14 virtual modulation patchcords while the other knobs on the first row are respectively used to edit its source srce destination dest and the attenuation amount amnt For example this line Indicates that the third envelope is routed to the VCA gain The modulation sources are the following 1 Ifo1 Ifo2 Ifo3 Part LFOs bipolar 2 env1 env2 env3 ADSR envelopes 3 Ifo4 Voice LFO 4 mod1 mod2 mod3 mod4 Modifiers see next section 5 seqi seq2 Step sequences 1 amp 2 6 arp Arpeggiator gate pattern 7 velo Note velocity 8 aftr Note aftertouch 9 bend Pitch pend wheel bipolar 10 mwhl Modulation wheel 1 1 whl2 Modulation wheel 2 Joystick negative Y axis or Breath controller 12 pdal Expression pedal 13 note MIDI note number bipolar 14 gate Keyboard gate null when the key is released 15 nois White noise sampled at 1kHz 16 random Random value updated every time a note is retriggered 17 256 to 4 Boring constant values The modulation destinations are the following l prm1 prm2 Oscillator 1 amp 2 parameters 2 osc1 osc2 Oscillator 1 amp 2 pitch 3 14 2 Oscillator 1 amp 2 coarse pitch 4 vibr Oscillator 1 amp 2 fine pitch 5
12. Casio CZ 101 pad swarm of 4 buzzing detuned sawtooth waves s the name implies this waveform made of four stacked sawtooth waves is useful for pads when a copious amount of filtering is applied or for buzzing trance leads The parameter controls the amount of detuning between the four waves Note that no bandlimiting is happening here so this thing doesn t sound quite good above C5 but it s doing a perfect job in the bass range fm minimal 2 operators FM The parameter controls the modulation strength This oscillator provides the base material for metallic sounds bells metallophones or the next 386 DX hit When the fm oscillator is selected the range parameter plays a slightly different role than usual instead of controlling the main pitch of the note it controls the modulator frequency and has a drastic impact on the timbre 8bits bitwise anarchy A palette of 8 bits sounding waveforms obtained by applying bitwise operations to a basic sawtooth wave something now known as biscuiting pwm my first Arduino synth This waveform is a shamelessly naive square wave The parameter controls the pulse width Contrary to square this waveform stinks aliasing but for notes below C2 it is not a real problem it becomes much more aggressive and in your face than square noise filtered noise generator The parameter controls the frequency of a simple 1 pole low pass high pass filter in which is sent white
13. D card storage allows the storing of a life long of patches programs and multis along with the history of editing operations for undo redo Connections The following connectors are available on the rear panel 1 SD card slot Insert here a SD card SDHC supported FAT16 or FAT32 formatted At the exception of system settings everything TuBika needs to store goes on the SD card Acapacity of at least 256 MB is recommended e2 MIDI in connector This input should be connected to the MIDI output of a computer MIDI interface master keyboard sequencer e3 MIDI out connector This output is by default used as a MIDI thru but you can also use it to transmit the notes generated by the TuBika sequencer arpeggiator or to do SysEx dumps of patches 4 Mix line output This audio output contains a mix of all voices 5 6 7 8 9 10 Individual outputs 11 AC power jack Use a 9V AC 1A power source Higher voltage will cause more heating of the voltage regulators and shorten the lifespan of the module Some terminology A voice is a physical monophonic sound production device consisting of digital oscillators CV sources an analog VCF and a VCA A voice is only capable of producing a single note sound TuBika contains 6 voices each of them being a physically different circuit board A part is one or many voices sharing the same synthesis settings TuBika can manage up to 6 parts Each part stores its own synthe
14. LEDs L1 L8 indicate which page is active The 8 switches S1 S8 are used to display synthesis pages For example S1 shows the oscillators and mixer page S2 shows the filter page etc The part and voice LEDs LP1 LP6 indicate which part is active green lights and which voicecards are currently playing notes yellow lights eThe status LED LS is used to visualize the rate of a LFO or the beats in a sequence depending on which module you are editing Editing parameters The TuBika parameters are organized in pages To jump to a page press one of the 7 switchesS1 S7 Some pages share the same switch and you will need to repeatedly press a switch to cycle between those pages The active page is indicated by the LEDs L1 L7 next to the navigation switches The following table lists which page is associated with each switch Switch Pages 1 Oscillators Mixer 2 Filter 3 Envelopes and LFOs voice LFO 4 Modulation matrix 45 Keyboard amp tuning sequencer amp arpeggiator sequence editor 56 Voice and pats mappings Tempoa clock ST Performance knob assignments Each page displays up to eight related synthesis parameters Each parameter can be edited by turning the knob sitting at its top for the first row of the display or at its bottom for the second row of the display Here is an example After having powered up the unit press S1 to bring the oscillators page L1 lights up in green and the LCD di
15. MIDI output mode The following output modes are available thru the MlDloutput forwards all incoming messages and only those sequencer the MIDI output sends the note generated by the arpeggiator and sequencer controllr the MIDI output sends NRPNmessages reproducing all editing operations performed on TuBika full the MIDI output sends all incoming messages along with NRPN reproducing all editing operations help Whether the long name of the edited parameter should be displayed Once you are familiar with TuBika you might find it more convenient to have the help text never shown snap Enables potentiometers snap mode This mode makes it less likely to accidentally change a parameter value when switching pages Suppose you are tweaking the filter resonance with P2 you rotate it all the way down to 0 Then you switch to the oscillators page to adjust the oscillator 1 parameter If the current value of the parameter is set to 64 you ll hear a discontinuity since the value of the parameter will instantly jump to O or 1 when you start touching the pot When snap is on things will happen differently rotating the pot will have no effect until the position of the pot actually reflects the current value of the parameter After that the parameter value will track the potentiometer s position Another way to explain it when snap is on you have to move the pot to grab the current parameter value before the parameter is modifi
16. Tubika User manual Getting started Overview You have successfully built Tubika CC by SA Olivier Gillet formally known as AMBIKA Congratulations Tubika is a multi voice hybrid synthesizer You can play it as a 6 voice polysynth an ensemble of 6 monosynths or anything inbetween due to its easily configurable voicing architecture The sound generation is hybrid combining the warmth and sonic character of a true 4 pole analog filter with the large array of waveforms offered by digital wavetables fm and phase modulation The digital control of the analogue filter and VCA also means a very large palette of modulation possibilities Some of the key features of Tubika include e6 voices with individual outputs e2 digital oscillators per voice with 36 oscillator algorithms wavetables 1 sub oscillator also configurable as a transient generator Pre filter overdrive and bit crushing effect eAnalog 4 pole filter or 2 pole multimode filter depending on the type of voicecard used and VCA e3 ADSR envelopes 3 patch level LFOs 1 voice level LFO Modulation matrix with 14 slots and 4 modulation modifiers 1 arpeggiator 1 note sequencer and 2 step sequencers per part Flexible mapping of the 6 voices A single patch with 6 voice polyphony 6 independent mono parts 2 layered patches with 3 voices polyphony a 3 voice unison bass line on the lower half of the keyboard with a 3 voice unison lead on the upper half all are possible S
17. ar If you are used to electronics Modular speak it is equivalent to say that the LFOs are always AC coupled instead of DC coupled Another thing worth noting is that the modulation amount of the last patch in the modulation matrix is always attenuated by the modulation wheel Let us say that you have connected patch 14 fromLFO 4 to the oscillators fine pitch actually this is done by default in the init patch This modulation will be applied with an amount proportional to the mod wheel position by default it will not be active until you start moving the modulation wheel and to get it at full strength you will have to push the modulation wheel to the max In the modular synth world you would have obtained the same effect by patching the LFO at the signal input of a VCA the joystick at the control input of the VCA and routed the resulting signal to the exponential FM input of the VCO Pheww The lower page of the modulation modifiers page allows the combination of up to 4 pairs of modulation sources to create new modulation signals The first knob on the bottom row is used to select one of the 4 modulation modifiers while the other knobs on the lower row are respectively used to edit the two inputs of the modulation modifier in1 and in2 and the operation oper to apply In the example above the modulation source mod 1 is defined as the product of Ifo1 and Ilfo2 The following operations are available off no o
18. ave style wavetable drone 2 Abstract PPG wave style wavetable metallic single cycle waveforms from classic D50 patches bell Depeche mode classic wavguence Individually addresses each single cycle waveform The last wavetable contains all the single cycle waveforms in memory It is not recommended to scan the parameter with LFOs or envelopes but rather to control this from the step sequencer or a random modulation for the infamous a new sound at each note effect Mixer S1 mix osc mix Balance between oscillator 1 and 2 enois noise Noise level sub sub osc Sub oscillator transient generator level wave waveform Sub oscillator transient generator waveform see below xmod crossmod Cross modulation method used to combine the sound of oscillators 1 and 2 amnt amount Cross modulation amount fuzz Amount of overdrive fuzz applied to the signal crsh crush Amount of sample rate reduction sometimes known as bitcrushing applied to the signal Here is a list of sub oscillator transient generator waveforms The first 6 settings correspond to the sub oscillator which is an oscillator of its own playing always one or two octave lower than the oscillator 1 The next settings disable the sub oscillator and enable various flavors of transient generators which will produce a short clicky sound at the beginning of the note esq1 square sub oscillator 1 octave below osc 1 etr1 triangle sub oscillator
19. ayed on the screen use the encoder to fine tune the value Shortcut Hold the S8 switch while turning the encoder to increment decrement values by 8 instead of 1 Reference This section describes in details each page and parameter of TuBika Voice allocation This page accessible by the S6 switch serves two purposes Selecting the current part eAssigning voices to a part Synthesis The first knob on the upper row is used to select a part Notice how the LP1 LP6 LEDs indicate by a green light which part is active All settings on all the other pages apply to the part indicated by this green light chan channel sets the MIDI channel the active part responds to Use omni if you want a part to respond to notes from all MIDI channels Several parts can share the same MIDI channel This is useful for controlling two patches from the same MIDI controller in split or dual mode low and high set the range of MIDI notes the active part responds to This can be used to create keyboard splits set the range of part 1 to C B3 and the range of part 2 to C4 G9 and set both part 1 and part 2 to listen to the same MIDI channel The result is that part 1 is played on the lower half of the keyboard and part 2 on the upper half The lower part of the screen displays which voices are assigned to the active part For example in the display capture shown above voices 1 2 and 3 are assigned to part 1 Use the second knob on the lowe
20. d save all the sound synthesis settings but not the sequencer arpeggiator parameters of the Nth part ept N sequence will load save all the sequencer arpeggiator settings of the Nth part ept N program will load save all the settings of the Nth part synthesis arpeggiator and sequencer multi will load save all the settings of all parts Remember that you can hold S1 while turning the encoder to change the active part TuBika can store 3328 26 banks of 128 patches sequences programs multis Loading programs multis sequences patches Turn the encoder to move to the previous next program Remember that you can hold S8 while turning the encoder to scroll faster in the list To change the current bank eClick the encoder The bank letter starts blinking Turn the encoder to select a bank Click the encoder when you are done Reinitializing programs multis sequences patches Press S2 init command to reinitialize or randomize the select object This brings the following confirmation page Turn the encoder to select an action randomize will replace all settings by random values while initialize will replace all settings by the values they had at startup Press S7 to confirm or S8 to cancel the initialization Dumping programs multis sequences patches as SysEx Press S3 send command on the library page to send the selected object on the MIDI output encoded in SysEx messages Note that programs are sent as 2 messages
21. data held by TuBika is stored on the SD card with one exception the boot configuration which is stored on the main processor s non volatile memory The boot configuration is the set of settings loaded when the unit is powered on To restore the default factory boot configuration keep the S1 key while powering the unit The unit will freeze for a few seconds to retrieve and write the factory defaults Dirty technical details MIDI implementation Basics A MIDI implementation chart is available here Program changes Program change messages are used to load either ea program that is to say sound synthesis settings keyboard mapping sequencer parameters All parts set to listen to the channel on which the program change message is sent will load the program ea multi In this case all parts are affected The MIDI banks 0 25 are used to load program banks A to Z The MIDI banks 26 51 are used to load multi banks A to Z For example to load the multi 002 in the B bank send a control change 0 bank select with a value of 27 to select multi bank B anda program change 2 To load the program 120 in the D bank send a control change 0 bank select with a value of 3 and a program change 120 External clock reception Keep in mind that the tempo must be set to ext to receive an external MIDI clock Otherwise TuBika continues running with its own internal clock Control changes The Modulation Wheel Breath Controller and Foot Peda
22. e keyboard When this setting is set to O and the arpeggiator is on every time you release the keys to play a new chord the internal clock stops and the arpeggiator sequencer is restarted You might like this effect many vintage synths work this way but it might sound a bit strange to have the flow of the sequence broken at each chord change When the clock latch is set to 1 beat the flow of the clock and arpeggiator are preserved as long as your chord changes are spaced by less than 1 beat Performance page S7 This page allows 8 parameters from different pages and for different parts to be displayed together on the same page Observe that when a parameter is edited the part number part is shown on screen A particular quirk of this page is the specific function assigned to the encoder Press it to simultaneously send a C4 note to all parts Press it again to send a note off message to all parts This allows TuBika to be used without a MIDI keyboard While a note is being played through this mean you can turn the encoder to transpose all parts up and down To select the parameters parts shown on the performance page press S7 again to bring the customization page Use the first knob to select the index of the knob you want to customize Use the second knob to select a part number Use the third and fourth knobs or the encoder to scroll through the list of parameters The library Everything related to load
23. ed leds Disables the voicecard LEDs in case you consider that synths should not be used as Diwali decorations Note that you need to reboot the unit for this setting to take effect auto auto backup Enables or disables the backup copy created on the memory card whenever an item is overwritten Disabling it will make saving faster It is also possible to save the current multi so that it is reloaded every time TuBika Starts up This is very useful for saving your MIDI settings and favorite split voice allocation parameters On this library page press S2 to select the ini command Press S7 to confirm The unit will freeze for a few seconds to write the current multi to its non volatile memory Firmware update Firmware update through the SD card From the library page Press S7 to display more commands Press S3 to bring the about page The first half of the screen displays the version of the OS running on the motherboard If a firmware update file named TuBika BIN is present on the memory card pressing S1 upgrade command will load it to upgrade the main processor TuBika contains seven ports to which devices are attached The first 6 ports port 1 to port 6 are used for connecting the voicecards the last port port 7 is used for connecting additional controllers or I O connectors The second half of the screen on the about page shows the device type and OS version number for a selected port Use the e
24. eyboard mappings are Description egual Equal temperament just Just intonation frequency ratios to C are rational numbers pythagorean Pythagorean scale 4 eb E and B are 1 4 tone lower 1 4e Eis 1 4 tone lower 1 4 ea E and Aare 1 4 tone lower bhairay A bunch of ragas of the Maihar gharana Note that itis not possible to play notes rasia outside ofthe raga if you attemptto do so the previously played note will be retriggered The suggested mode of operation is to find out which keys are active in the raga and improvise with them Sequencer and arpeggiator settings S5 Each part of TuBika has a sequencer arpeggiator The sequencer consists of e2 step sequences up to 32 step long which can be freely routed to any modulation source in the modulation matrix 1 note pattern up to 32 step long All parts follow the same global clock which can be set to a fixed BPM or synchronized to an external MIDI clock However since polyrythmy can be fun each part can be synchronized to a different subdivision of the MIDI clock and use a different step sequence pattern length 3 sequencing modes are available they define how notes played on the keyboard are translated into the notes played by the voices step seq Only the step sequencers modulation sources are running The arpeggiator and note pattern are disabled thus only notes actually played on the keyboard are heard arpeggio The notes played on
25. idual note and you will use a part LFO for the tremolo since it uniformly affects all the notes Another example you have found the perfect combination of LFOs to create a trancey gated strings sound The last thing you want is to have each note of the chord triggered at a slightly different instant due to difference in timings when the chord is played You need a part LFO for the gating effect A voice LFO is good for richness and randomness a part LFO is good for syncing things up As aresult only the voice LFO can be controlled in the modulation matrix because it can be controlled by velocity aftertouch etc all kind of things that might be different for each played note and only the part LFOs can be synchronized to tempo This part LFO vs voice LFO distinction sounds confusing and there is actually little documentation about it Most classic analog synthesizers do not have one LFO circuit per voice so their behaviour is accurately simulated by the use of part LFOs Some VAs like the access Virus use voice LFOs On the Waldorf Blofeld each LFO is a voice LFO by default and can be turned into a part LFOthrough the use of the sync setting lfo eg Selects the LFO envelope generator to edit The settings shown on the page are relative to the selected LFO EG If you are wondering if there is such thing as a filter envelope and VCAenvelope Yes by default env2 is mapped to cutoff and env3 to the VCA but this ca
26. ing saving patches multi etc is done on this page The data is stored on a SD card SDHC cards are supported formatted in FAT16 or FAT32 format inserted at the back of TuBika In case the SD card is incorrectly formatted incorrectly inserted or damaged the following text will be displayed every time you try to display the library page Press S8 to continue and try blowing on the SD card connectors If the card is correctly inserted and formatted the main library page will be displayed The first row displays the following information ept 1 program is the current object that is to say the kind of thing you want to load save from to the memory card In this case you will be browsing the list of programs and they will be loaded into part 1 e A000 indicates the bank and object number Banks are identified by a letter from A to Z objects are identified by a number from 000 to 127 The dot before A000 indicates that the version in memory is different from the version stored on the card junon is the object here a program name The second row is a list of commands Each command is associated with a switch For example S2 performs the init command S3 the send command and S8 the exit command To quit the library page you thus have to press S8 exit command Selecting an object Press S1 to repeatedly cycle through the different types of items that can be loaded written from to the memory card ept N patch will loa
27. l CCs along with aftertouch messages might not affect the sound unless they are patched to a modulation destination in the modulation matrix If you want these sources to control the intensity of a LFO it is recommended to do it through a modifier Here is an example of patching Mod1 is defined as LFO2 attenuated by the modulation wheel 2 and this modulation is applied to the oscillators balance Please refer to the CC page of the MIDI implementation chart given above to see the list of synthesis parameters controllable by CC Editing a synthesis parameter by CC is fool proof values between 0 and 127 are translated into the full range of the parameter so that 0 always means the minimum value taken by the parameter and 127 its maximum value This might cause a resolution loss for parameters with a wide range above 127 NRPN patch editing SysEx NRPN messages can be used to directly write into the Patch and PartData data structures The NRPN number indicates the address at which a value must be written and the data entry data increment messages are used to set the value Observe that you need to send both a Data Entry MSB and a Data Entry LSB message to send a signed value or a value above 127 Signed values are represented in 2 s complement NRPN range Mapped to Data structure declaration 0 111 Patch data structure offsets 0 111 struct Patch 112 192 Part data structure offsets 0 80 struct PartData Part
28. n be changed in the modulation matrix by patching pranksters erate LFO rate The first values 1 1 to 1 96 are note values relative to the global tempo or to an external MIDI clock For example if set to 1 4 the LFO will play one cycle every quarter note The other values are increasing frequencies from 0 06 Hz 0 to 100 Hz 127 ewave waveform LFO waveform A list of LFO waveforms is given below trig trigger LFO envelope synchronization mode free leaves the LFO free running env gt lforesets the phase of the LFO everytime a new note is played Ifo gt env retriggers the corresponding envelope generator everytime the LFO completes a cycle eattk attack Envelope attack time from 1ms to 66s edeca decay Envelope decay time same times as for attack sust sustain Envelope sustain level erele release Envelope release time Same times as for attack Here is a list of LFO waveforms etri Triangle sqr Square es amp h Sample amp hold random value ramp Ascending ramp use a negative modulation amount in the modulation matrix to get a descending ramp modulation esine to stp2 Wavetable LFOs These LFOs are read from a wavetable containing many interesting waveshapes sine hrm hrm3 hroS ggl gg2 pat pat SPKL spk isaw Sor rsaw rsqr spl stp NIWA eh Voice LFO S3 rate LFO rate The voice Ifo cannot be synchronized to the tempo The frequency ranges from 0 06 Hz 0 to 100 Hz 12
29. nce 1 length to 18 the last 2 steps of step sequence 1 and the first 2 steps of step sequence 2 will store the same value If you set the step sequence 1 and 2 length to 32 the last 16 steps of step sequence 1 will be the first 2 steps of step sequence 2 and reciprocally When you set the notes sequence length to 18 the first 4 steps of step sequence 1 will be scrambled with apparently random data from the note sequence So remember as soon as one of Sequence 1 or sequence 2 exceeds 16 steps they will scramble each other and as soon as the note sequence exceeds 16 steps it will scramble the step sequences Whether you will prudently avoid using the scrambled sequence or take creative advantage of this scrambling is up to you Sequence editor S5 This page shows the note pattern and the step sequences 1 amp 2 The first column displays the step number Use the encoder to scroll through the sequence The second column displays the note number editable by the first knob of the upper and lower rows The third column displays the note velocity editable by the second knob of the upper and lower rows Turn the knob completely counter clockwise to mute a step and completely clockwise to enter a note at full velocity Turn the knob to a middle position to enter a tie slide The fourth and fifth columns display the value of the step sequence 1 and 2 editable by the third and fourth knobs of the upper and lower rows What about
30. ncoder to scroll through the ports When no device is attached to a port or when the device firmware has been corrupted a is shown in place of the device type If a firmware update file named VOICE BIN where is the port number is present on the memory card pressing S4 upgrade command will load it to upgrade the voicecard processor Emergency firmware update If for some reason TuBika is bricked this can happen if the SD card is damaged if the firmware update file has been incorrectly copied to the card or if the power has been disconnected during the firmware upgrade procedure there is still a way of initiating a firmware update Press S8 while powering up TuBika to force the firmware to be reloaded from the SD card During loading the unit displays the number of bytes loaded the firmware takes up to 60kbytes Press S7 while powering up TuBika to put the unit in MIDI firmware upgrade mode In this mode the unit is waiting for the firmware to be sent as SysEx blocks over MIDI A syx or mid file with the latest data is available on the Mutable Instruments website While receiving blocks of MIDI data the unit displays the number of bytes loaded the firmware takes up to 6O0kbytes If you want to use a dedicated SysEx transfer tool we recommend Elektron s C6 tool available for both Windows and OS X configured with a 250ms delay between blocks Resetting the unit to factory settings Most of the
31. nd limited and will still sound fine above C5 sine sine wave A pure and chaste sine wave lost her virginity At some point she started listening to Nine Inch Nails zsaw phase distortion sawtooth with filter sweep This waveform uses phase distortion to recreate a low pass filtered sawtooth by progressively pinching the phase of a sine wave The parameter controls the brightness of the sound from a sine wave to a sawtooth then from a sawtooth to a sawtooth gone through an ugly transistor amp Good for dirty bass guitar sounds or clavinets Lpzsaw pkzsaw bpzsaw hpzsaw resonant filter sweeps on a sawtooth wave This waveform family directly simulates the sound of a sawtooth wave processed by a low pass peaking band pass or high pass resonant filter The parameter controls the cutoff frequency of the filter Lpzpulse pkzpulse bpzpulse hpzpulse resonant filter sweeps on a trapezoidal wave This waveform family simulates the sound of a trapezoidal pulse wave processed by a low pass peaking band pass or high pass resonant filter The parameter controls the cutoff frequency of the filter pkzpulse is particularly good at recreating the dirty saturated sound of a sawtooth filtered by the least academic of the 2 pole analog filters ztriangle mystery This waveform vaguely evokes two hardsync ed oscillators the parameter controlling their frequency ratio It may or may not have been used in the
32. nd you cannot play chords only the most recently played note is heard When this is set to poly the notes you play are dispatched to the voicecards Obviously the polyphony is limited by the number of voices assigned to the edited part Finally 2x unison works like the polyphony mode except that every time you play a note it is played by 2 voices this effectively divides the polyphony by two lega legato Legato mode on off This setting has an effect only in mono mode This option specifies how the part will interpret overlapping notes When legato is off the envelope retriggers everytime a new note is played and the portamento is always applied When legato is on the envelope retriggers only when the new note does not overlap with the previous one and the portamento triggers only on overlapping notes port portamento Portamento time This setting has an effect only in mono mode octv octave Octave shift Use this to transpose a part by a given number of octaves Note that if a note is playing when while this setting is changed it won t be affected tune Part tuning Changes the tuning of the part by 1 semitones sprd spread Voice detune Use this setting to introduce an artificial detuning between all the voices allocated to this part This can be used to create very thick leads or basses in mono mode or to add more depth to strings pads sounds in poly mode eraga Scale keyboard mapping The different scales k
33. noise From 0 to 63 high frequency content is progressively added From 63 to 127 low frequency content is progressively removed Perfect as a raw material for percussions or sound effects vowel low tech formant synthesis Changing the parameter will sweep between different vocal like sounds 14 vowels and 2 consonants Wavetables The remaining waveform families are wavetables collection of single cycle waveforms synthetic or sampled from real instruments The parameter is used to smoothly scan the wavetable For example if a wavetable has 2 waveforms parameter 0 plays the first waveform parameter 127 plays the second and parameter 64 plays a mix of both Wavetables can contain up to 16 waves Wavetable name Description male Vocal formants best played in the lowest octaves female Vocal formants best played in the medium octaves choir Depeche mode like vocal sound tampura single cycle waveforms from an indian tampura note bowed Transwave extracted fram a cello sample cello Transwave extracted from a less dramatic cello sample vibes Transwave extracted from a vibraphone sample Slap Transwave extracted fram a slap bass sample eplano Various single cycle waveforms extracted from electric piano samples organ Various combinations of sine waves as produced by drawbars organs waves 16 basic waveforms ready to be morphed into one another digital Abstract PPG wave style wavetable drone 1 Abstract PPG w
34. owing is a list of all the available waveform families with some applications and a description of what adjusting the parameter setting actually does none silence saw sawtooth This waveform is perfect for basses and brass sounds The parameter controls the waveshapping when its value is increased an increasingly large section of the waveform is shifted up This waveform is band limited Thus only a limited amount of aliasing artifacts will be heard when playing high pitched notes square square wave The parameter controls the pulse width This waveform is perfect for simulating a clarinet for basses hollow sounds or Depeche Mode like leads This waveform is band limited and only a limited amount of aliasing will be heard when playing high pitched notes You will observe that there is a slight difference in sound when moving the parameter from 0 to 1 To offer the best sound quality the pulse width 50 flavor is read straight from a wavetable at full sample rate while the pulse width gt 50 flavor is obtained from two dephased sawtooth waves evaluated at half the sample rate For bass sounds for which aliasing is not going to be a problem it is recommended to use pwm instead of square to get a beefier sound triang triangle wave A pure waveform which serves as a good basis for flute or soundchip like leads The parameter controls a kind of waveshapping clipping the bottom of the waveform This waveform is ba
35. peration eadd adds the values of the two modulation sources ord computes the product of the two modulation sources attn computes the product of a bipolar version of the first source and the second source max takes the maximum of the two sources emin takes the minimum of the two sources xor computes the bitwise XOR of the two sources greater or equal outputs a large value if source 1 is above soure 2 0 otherwise less or equal outputs a large value if source 1 is below soure 2 0 otherwise qtz outputs the value of in1 quantized into a number of levels defined by in2 For example if you set a constant value say 4 as in2 the modulation source in1 will be quantized into 4 discrete steps as if it was processed through a bit reducer This is useful for creating pseudo S amp H effects lag outputs the value of in1 filtered by a lowpass filter whose cutoff frequency is set by in2 For example if you use a constant value say 4 as in2 the modulation source in1 will be strongly low pass filtered This is very useful for smoothing a square or S amp H Ifo Keyboard and sequencing Keyboard and tuning S5 volu volume Part volume Note that the volume attenuation is done by scaling the value of theVCA control signal causing a potential loss of resolution in the shape of the VCA envelope emode Polyphony handling When this is set to mono all voices assigned to this part are simultaneously played in unison a
36. r row to assign deassign voice 1 and 2 to the active part Use the third and fourth knobs to assign deassign voices 3 4 and voices 5 6 Note that you can assign to a part only voices which are not currently in use by another part For example when TuBika boots voices 1 3 and 5 are assigned to part 1 and voices 2 4 6 are assigned to part 2 You will notice that it is not possible to assign voices 2 4 6 to part 1 before having de assigned them from part 2 It might not be convenient but a voice can only be used by one part so this constraint has to be enforced Assigning de assigning a voice causes quite a bit of data shuffling between the processors running each voicecard and this causes interruptions reset notes Don t do that during a live performance Shortcut Hold the S1 switch while turning the encoder to change the active part This works on any page Finally let s get to the real thing Each voice of TuBika is built according to the diagram drawn below Obviously it would be tedious to edit the settings of each individual voice Instead you edit parts and all the voices assigned to a part automatically inherit its settings Here is a day or rather a millisecond in the life of a voice s signal The oscillators 1 and 2 generate digital waveforms which are digitally combined together using one of the following operations mix sync and mix multiply ring modulation xor mix and fold mix and bit reduce
37. sis arpeggiator and sequencer settings Each part listens to a MIDI channel and is assigned a range of keys on the keyboard Each of the 6 voices in TuBika needs to be linked to assigned to a part This is a bit like showing each musician voice in an orchestra which staff they must play on a musical score If you assign the 6 voices to the same part TuBika will behave like a classic monotimbral polysynth If you assign each voice to a different part TuBika will behave like 6 independent monophonic synths If you want to play a bassline on the lower part of the keyboard and a brass riff on the upper part of the keyboard you need to use two parts one part with 1 voice for the bass and a second part with 5 voices for the brass sound A patch is a specific combination of synthesis settings stored into a part A program consists of a patch and additional sequencer arpeggiator settings A multi stores 6 programs one for each part of TuBika along with the mappings between voices parts midi channels and keyboard range This is a complete snapshot of the TuBika configuration Controls and navigation The 2x40 characters LCD display D displays most of the time the name and values Controls of the 8 synthesis parameters accessible by the 8 potentiometers P The parameters are organized as two rows of 4 parameters The clickable encoder E is used to scroll between parameters pages or to fine tune the value of a parameter eThe 8
38. splay shows the following parameters You can use the first row of knobs to edit the shape parameter range and detune of the first oscillator and the second row of knobs to edit the shape parameter range and detune of the second oscillator Observe that when you are turning a knob the explicit name of the parameter is temporarily shown on the screen After a short delay the four names and values are shown again Press S1 again to bring the mixer page L2 lights up in yellow and the LCD display shows the following parameters Press S1 again to get back to the oscillators page Using the encoder When TuBika displays a parameters page the rotary encoder can be used to scroll through the parameters The name of the active parameter is capitalized For example oscillator 1 range is here the active parameter Rotate the encoder clockwise to make tune the active parameter rotate the encoder counter clockwise to make para the active parameter If you continue rotating the encoder clockwise the next page will become active Once a parameter is selected capitalized click the encoder to edit it The full name of the parameter is displayed on the screen The encoder can now be used to increment decrement the parameter value Once the value has been set click the encoder again Knob and encoder editing can be combined Use a knob to rapidly adjust the value of a parameter and then while the parameter name is still displ
39. the dots shown in some columns They indicate the start of the sequence For example if the note sequence is 16 steps long but the step sequence 1 is only 5 steps long you will see a dot on step 6 11 and 15 to remind you that the step sequence 1 cycles over 5 steps only Trivia the longest non repeating pattern you can build with TuBika is 20677 steps long set sequence 1 to 23 steps sequence 2 to 29 steps and the note sequence to 31 steps With a clock speed of 1 16 and a BPM of 86 the sequence would last for 1 hour Multi settings These settings are not related to a specific part They are saved along with each part s individual settings in a multi Clock settings S6 bpm is the master tempo in beats per minute Use ext to sync to an external MIDI clock source groo groove groove template The options are swing uneven distribution of pairs of 1 8th notes shuffle uneven distribution of pairs of 1 16th notes push push the beat lag sloppy drummer human humanization and monkey humanization shuffle This setting only has an effect whenamnt is set to a non zero value amnt amount amount of groove to apply ltch latch clock latch release time This parameter controls the number of beats during which the internal clock continues running after you have released all keys This allows the internal arpeggiator or sequencer to keep counting for a while after you have released all keys from th
40. the keyboard are not directly heard instead they are arpeggiated pattern Holding a key triggers the note pattern programmed in the sequencer The pattern is played at its original pitch if the held key is C4 midi note 60 Otherwise the pattern is transposed alseq arp seq Arpeggiator sequencer mode dire direction Arpeggiator direction The available options are up down up and down random played which follows the order in which the notes have been played on the keyboard and chord which retriggers the whole chord at each step erang range Arpeggiator direction patt pattern Aroeggiator rythmic pattern grid Step duration The default setting 1 16 one sixteenth note or one semiquaver per step corresponds to the default setting of Roland s x0x boxes For programming a pattern in triplets use 1 12 and set the pattern duration to 12 steps You can also use this for programming SID style rapid fire arpeggios len1 seq1 len Length in steps of the first step sequence len2 seq2 len Length in steps of the second step sequence lenp patt len Length in steps of the note pattern Let us now discuss the most devilish confusing thing about TuBika sequencer sequencer memory sharing TuBika only has memory for 16 steps long patterns Yet the len1 len2 lenplengths can go up to 32 How is it possible Simply by reusing steps from one pattern into the other For example if you set the step seque
41. y a patch from one part to another swap S2 exchanges the content of the clipboard with the current item This allows you to quickly go back and forth between two versions of a patch paste S3 replaces the current item by the content of the clipboard Note that there are actually 4 clipboards one for patches one for multis one for programs and one for sequences e lt S5 reverts the current item to its previous content This works like the undo function available on most computer software For example if you create an amazing patch and then load by mistake a preset on top of it you can use this function to go back in time and retrieve your creation e gt S6 works like a redo command You can use it to cancel an undo command and move forwards in the versions list keep S7 saves the state of the current item on the undo stack so that you can get back to it at a later point in time eexit S8 exits the version manager System preferences From the library page Press S7 to display more commands Press S1 to bring the system preferences page The following system preferences can be edited inpt inpt filtr Input filter By default all MIDI messages are accepted by TuBika Any combination of SysEx s Program changes p NRPN n or Patch editing control changes c can be disabled With all filters active cnps TuBika only responds to basic MIDI messages outp outp mode
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