Anyone familiar with the (hardware) MS-20?

Hi folks, I'm looking at the MS-20 emu from Roman Belavkin (Solar-X). It seems I'm having a hard time with the envelope of EG2 - when setting a hold time other than zero, playing a note and releasing the key everything's fine unless one plays the next note before the first one stops to sound: this next note is cut off by the hold time, which seems rather odd. Looking at the structure this is expected behaviour, however I would like the 'next' note to overrule such a cutoff (like retriggering the envelope) - any ideas?

And while I'm at it - EG2 features a 'negative' envelope output. I'm not sure I'm understanding the concept of the structure here - is that the way the original MS-20 worked?

Thanks for any info!

 

this might be of interest:-

http://www.korganalogue.net/korgms/manuals/ms20/20ff.html

including

see picture

both envelopes can be negative. if applied to pitch modulation, the pitch will rise up
instead of falling down. i am thinking a synth drum patch.

sowari

 

Ah, funnily I was browsing through those pages right after posting. However most of what I found on the net just sort of repeats the MS-20 manual (which I d/led earlier), which ignores the special (?) case I described in part 1 of my original post. Part two of that post didn't make too much sense without the pic I forgot to attach... it is there now. So looking at that screenshot - does that structure correspond to the original negative EG2? Thing is I can't find any graphics of the negative*curve.

Er, not sure if I get you - was that a secret message (insert smiley here with raised eyebrows, a hint of an amused facial expression plus three day's growth)? Pitch usually rises first (and eventually falls back to original) with standard envelopes... so is that quote referring to the MS-20 you once had or am I missing something here? Thanks for your time!

 

i am doing this from memory... but it is the reverse of what you describe above, which is the standard envelope. it applies to any synth that has a choice of a negative envelope. it is also nice with a filter.

i think the graphic of the negative curve is actually on the MS-20, where the patchbay is.

sowari

 

Unfortunately not on the panel... from what I picked up so far, the MS-20's envelopes are a 'bit' different. And looking at the screenshot in my first post, Roman's coding actually supports that. Thing is, the manual is so darn vague as if they didn't understand what they had built themselves. Either way, I'm in the process of reworking the MS-20 from the UL and have found a few quirks and oddities, so I need some help from someone that either currently owns that synth or has profound knowledge of it. It's not that I have difficulties programming it, it's the lack of knowledge about the MS-20 to either confirm or rebut parts of the code that seems (and sounds) odd. Any volunteers? Links perhaps? Note that I have the pdf manual (in rather bad quality, with - it seems - japanese comments along with the graphics). Any help appreciated!

Edit: I just noticed that EG2 rev isn't even part of the patch matrix in Roman's model. Did he just forget that or is the hardware the same? All those questions...

 

?

which version are you looking at?

Edit... see next post for a clarification

see picture

btw, i used to own an MS-20 and i think Roman's version is pretty much perfect - including the awful presets from the manual i actually sold my MS-20 because the upload was so good.

sowari

 

whoops sorry

i see what you mean

however, it seems that it is the Reverse EG2 that is patched in whilst the normal version is only patched into off of the 2 Cutoff switch macros.

to clarify, if you select say EG2 to modulate the Frequency, (see picture), you are actually getting the reverse version!

sowari

 

Awrite - that makes much more sense now! One of the reasons I'm going to substitute the switches witch IC modules. That should make the code much more 'readable'... thanks again, mate!