Ny Music Releases Free Polyphonic Ensemble User Manual

Ny Music Releases Free Polyphonic Ensemble

Product Information

Specifications

• Close simulation of the original hardware
• 64 voices polyphony
• Percussive and Ensemble sections
• Chorus (Phase) effect
• Many tweakable parameters
• All parameters can be controlled by MIDI controllers
• Plug-in supports Windows and macOS (32-bit and 64-bit)

Product Usage Instructions

• Plugin Handling
  When using the Ny plugin, familiarize yourself with the Control Section and Options Menu for efficient operation.

• Control Section
  The Control Section allows you to adjust various parameters of the Ny plugin for customization.

• Options Menu
  Explore the Options Menu to access additional settings and functionalities such as saving window size.

• MIDI Control Change Messages
  Utilize MIDI Control Change Messages to remotely control parameters of the Ny plugin using external MIDI controllers.

• MIDI Learn
  Learn how to assign MIDI controls to specific parameters within the Ny plugin for personalized control.

• Parameters
  Understand the different parameters available in the Ny plugin to manipulate sound characteristics and effects.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can I resize the Ny plugin interface?
  Yes, you can resize the plugin interface by dragging the yellow triangle at the bottom right of the window.

• How many voices of polyphony does the Ny plugin support?
  The Ny plugin supports 64 voices of polyphony for rich and layered sound production.

• Is there support for both Windows and macOS platforms?
  Yes, the Ny plugin is compatible with both Windows and macOS operating systems, including 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Polyphonic Ensemble
Version 1.0

© 2023 by Björn Arlt @ Full Bucket Music www.fullbucket.de/music.

VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation The Audio Units logo is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.

Introduction

The Ny is a software instrument plug-in for Microsoft Windows (VST2/VST3/CLAP) and Apple macOS (VST2/VST3/AU/CLAP) simulating the classic KORG® Lambda ES-50 Polyphonic Ensemble from 1979. It is written in native C++ code for high performance even on “lighter” systems. The main features are:

• Close simulation of the original hardware
• 64 voices polyphony
• Percussive and Ensemble sections
• Chorus (Phase) effect
• Many tweakable parameters
• All parameters can be controlled by MIDI controllers
• Plug-in supports Windows and macOS (32-bit and 64-bit)

The Ny is based on the iPlug2 framework maintained by Oli Larkin and the iPlug2 team. Big thanks, guys! Without your work, it would not have been possible to create a resizable Ny user interface. To resize the plug-in you just grab the yellow triangle at the bottom right of the window and drag it. You can save the current window size using the menu entry “Save Window Size” in the Options Menu.

If you have trouble with the standard version of the Ny, please grab the (sound-wise identical) “N” version of the plug-in which is based on the original iPlug framework.

Acknowledgments

• Oli Larkin and the iPlug2 team.
• Nathan Ramsden aka SynthNerd (https://synthnerd.wordpress.com) helped me out with some invaluable information about the Lambda – thank you so much!
• kraftraum (https://soundcloud.com/kraftraum) has designed many of the default patches 41 to 62 and did the Beta testing.
• All the folks that nagged me to do a Lambda simulation!

No, I am not affiliated with KORG in what relation ever except that I find myself entangled with their instruments.

The Lambda Lies Down In Software

I couldn’t resist typing this silly headline. I always thought that my PECS plug-in would fully cover the Lambda as well, but of course, I was wrong. So here we are with Ny (in German you would write it “nü” using one of those famous umlauts like “ö”) which is a pretty silly name, I know.

As usual, here is my personal confession that Ny does not sound like the Lambda (how could it be since analog rulez?) but more like a poor knock-off (because it is digital which does not rulez)1. OK, done with that, next paragraph.

It All Sounds Greek To Me
In the beginning was the PE-20002, and it was good – but not perfect. And so the good folks at KORG decided to enhance their polyphonic ensemble and name it Λ (Lambda, a Greek letter) as they also did with its siblings, the Δ (Delta) DL-50 and the Σ (Sigma) KP-30.

Seriously:
A direct competitor of that time, the famous Solina string ensemble, sounded great because of its patented unique Ensemble effect. But if you switch that effect off you will get some basic organ-style stuff with a single oscillator bank and paraphonic articulation. The PE-2000 is much more than that because it features three oscillator banks, and the Lambda even tops it with fully polyphonic articulation (well, up to a specific degree), an additional Percussive section, and a Chorus effect (called Chorus Phase although it is not a Phaser).

So it is no surprise that the Lambda still has its fan base, and one of these guys is Nathan aka SynthNerd who also covers a lot of the technical details in his blog at https://synthnerd.wordpress.com.

What’s In The Box

Compared to the PE-2000, the Lambda extends the number of presets from 8 to 9, and four of those come with the new Percussive section to reproduce instruments like (Electric) Piano and Clavi(net). The result is far from convincing but that is not the point: It extends the sonic capabilities of the Lambda. The other five presets are located in the Ensemble section: Brass, Organ, Chorus (choir) and Strings I+II. The Brass preset features its single VCF (voltage-controlled filter) which is paraphonic i.e. together for all played keys. However, in the context of the instrument, this is no real disadvantage. Note that all presets can be activated in any combination!

Unfortunately, the Lambda does not have the cunningly designed (although hidden under the hood) pre-filters of the PE-2000 which provided IMHO a “better” preset sound-shaping for the played note’s pitch. Instead, the preset filters of the Lambda are static and consequently a bit “limited”.

1. Yes, I know, all my plug-ins sound identical and not analogish at all.
2. Yes, I know, there was also the PE-1000.
3. Yes, I know, the PE-1000 was able to do percussive sounds as well.

Three Banks To Rule Them All
The three oscillator banks of the Lambda are producing 16’, 8’, 4’, and 2’ square wave signals simultaneously. To generate sawtooth signals the four square wave signals are added together – as it is done in many organs, strings ensembles and even synthesizers of that era, too. The resulting “staircase sawtooth” is not perfect but good enough for most applications.

The oscillator banks are of course a resource that has to be used wisely. Thus, they will be shared among the selected presets in the following manner:

• The Percussive presets will always and solely use bank 1.
• The Brass preset will always and solely use banks 1 and 2.
• If any Percussive preset is selected, the Ensemble presets (not Brass) will use banks 2 and 3.
• If no Percussive preset is selected, the Ensemble presets (not Brass) will use all the banks 1, 2 and 3.

Connoisseurs of the Lambda already know about that. But there is more quirky stuff to come:
All three banks feature individual envelopes per key for shaping the amplitude contour. The bank 1 envelopes are of the Attack/Decay (A/D) type while the bank 2 and 3 envelopes are of the Attack/Release (A/R) type. When no Percussive preset is selected, bank 1 is used for the Ensemble section as well – but bank 1 does not sport (variable) A/R envelopes. In this case the individual A/D envelopes of bank 1 are disabled and replaced by a global (i.e. paraphonic) Attack/Release envelope that retriggers for each note played! [Thanks again to Nathan aka SynthNerd for confirming my assumptions here when studying the Lambda’s schematics.] It is quite surprising that you have to try hard to hear this effect.

Funny enough, the Brass presets behave differently: When a Percussive preset is selected, bank 1 keeps its A/D and bank 2 its A/R envelopes (i.e. no global envelope is used for the Brass preset). Of course, there is another global A/D envelope that exclusively modulates the Brass VCF.

Confused?
Who wouldn’t be? But in the end, it all makes some sense. And Ny does simulate all these quirks.

Overview

The Ny consists of two sections: Percussive and Ensemble. There is also a Chorus effect and some options to tweak the sound – some of them not available with the original Lambda hardware. The instrument itself is fully polyphonic… ah, not quite, only 64-voice polyphonic.

The Ensemble Section

It is fair to state that this is the heart of Ny. There are five presets: Brass, Organ, Chorus (which is a choir), Strings I, and Strings II4.

Strings II is very similar to Strings I but one octave higher, while Chorus is technically similar to Strings I but fed through a fixed peaking bandpass filter to give it an “A” vowel-like sound. Brass is a classic synth brass patch, and the Organ sounds more like a pipe organ than a “rock” organ.

The “VIB. OFF” switch deactivates the Vibrato effect applied to the Chorus and Strings presets. Note that the Vibrato speed is the same for all three oscillator banks but the frequency shift is out of phase. This means that when bank 1 is shifted positively, bank 2 is not shifted at all while bank 3 is shifted negatively and so on. This allows for a rich Ensemble effect without actually using an Ensemble effect.

“ATT. REL. VAR” (“Variable Attack/Release”) activates the two knobs on the right to set custom Attack and Release times. In theory, these should apply for the Chorus and Strings presets only, but due to the nature of the oscillator banks and their envelopes (see section Three Banks To Rule Them All) they will also affect the Brass and Organ presets when at least one preset of both of these groups is activated simultaneously (for example Brass+Strings I or Organ+Chorus). The same is true for the Vibrato effect!

The five knobs below the preset switches control the individual level of each preset. The Lambda originally did not have such an option and used fixed levels. I think this tweak is quite useful.

The Percussive Section

The four presets of the Percussive section are Electric Piano, Clavi, Piano, and Harmonics. The Decay time of the presets can be adjusted using the knob on the lower right while the “SUST.” (Sustain) switch sets the Release time equal to the Decay time (I remember some other keyboards from the good old days where this function was described as “applying a reverb effect” – which is of course nonsense…).

• The Percussive section also features a Tremolo effect that can be (de)activated using the “TREM.” switch. The speed of the effect can be set as well.
• As in the Ensemble section, the four knobs below the preset switches (which are not available on the Lambda) control the individual level of each preset.

Modifier Sections

To some degree, the sound of the Ny can be tweaked further using the (what I call) regular modifier sections – “regular” in the sense that they are available on the original hardware, too.

The Tune section controls the overall tuning (“Total Tune”) and the individual tuning of oscillator bank 2 (here called “Tune A”) and oscillator bank 3 (“Tune B”). The LEDs on top of the A/B Tune knobs visualize the amount of “beating” of the detuning. The Accent section sports two knobs: One for adjusting the cutoff frequency of the Brass VCF (see section More Tweak Sections) and one for controlling the level of “key-click” of (and only of) the Electric Piano preset. To my taste the latter sounds pretty awkward, but who am I to judge?

The Tone section consists of two simple lowpass filters – one for the Percussive and one for the Ensemble section. The frequency of these filters can be controlled individually. As the name suggest you can set the volume in the Volume section. Here you find a minor difference to the original hardware: It is possible to set the panorama position of the Percussive and the Ensemble section, too. The Lambda has three outputs: Mix Out (a simple mono mix) and Stereo L + R. The latter two (L and R) are the dry Ensemble section output plus the Chorus Phase output of the Percussive section and the dry Percussive section output plus the Chorus Phase output of the Ensemble section. I think it is useful to have dedicated panorama knobs here (especially given the tweak parameter X-Stereo of the Chorus Phase section).

Finally, you can pitch up the whole instrument by one octave using the “OCT. UP” switch in the Octave section.

Chorus Phase

Well, this is “just” a Chorus effect (not sure where the term “Phase” comes from). On the Lambda you can only switch it off per preset section and control its speed using the classic KORG joystick control. The Ny offers some more tweaks: You can set the minimum Chorus speed and its modulation depth (the maximum speed is controlled via the Modulation Wheel – see section More Tweak Sections). Finally, you can select if the individual Chorus signals of the preset sections should be put to the opposite panorama position of the dry signals (X-Stereo is on) or not (X-Stereo is off).

More Tweak Sections

Modulation features the amount of Pitch Bend (± notes) and the Modulation Wheel controlling the (maximum) speed of the Chorus Phase. In contrast to the Lambda, the Ny also accepts Velocity information. While the parameters of Lambda’s Brass VCF cannot be modified (except the Brass fc control in the Tone section), Ny offers some more control here: Peak (the resonance of the VCF), envelope intensity and Attack/Release times. The speed of the Vibrato effect can be set in the Vibrato section. It is also possible to set the depth of the effect for the Chorus and the Strings separately. However, since the three oscillator banks are used for all presets together, the final Vibrato depth depends on the preset selection: If Chorus is selected, the Chorus Vibrato depth is used – else the Strings depth applies.

The tweak parameter for the Chorus Phase has already been discussed above.

Plugin Handling

Control Section
The Lambda is a preset machine, but it is not possible to store the selected presets along with all the tweaked parameters. Being a software plug-in, the Ny can do this, and you even can give a name to such a Program.

Options Menu
When clicking the Menu button in the Control section, a context menu opens with the following options:

program
Save Program| Save Ny’s current program to a program file
Load Bank| Load a bank file containing 64 patches into Ny
Save Bank| Save Ny’s 64 patches to a bank file
Select Startup Bank| Select the bank file that should always be loaded when Ny

is started

Load Startup Bank| Load the Startup bank file; can also be used to check what the current Startup bank is
Unselect Startup Bank| Unselect the current Startup bank
Default Path for Program Files| Sets the default path for program and bank files
MIDI Thru| Set globally if MIDI data sent to Ny should be sent through to its MIDI output (stored in the configuration file)
Ignore Program Change| Set globally if MIDI Program Change data sent to Ny should be ignored (stored in the configuration file)
Reload Configuration| Reload Ny’s configuration file
Save Configuration| Save Ny’s configuration file
Check Online for Update| When connected to the Internet, this function will check if a newer version of Ny is available at fullbucket.de
Visit fullbucket.de| Open fullbucket.de in your standard browser

The ny.ini Configuration File
The Ny can read some settings from a configuration file (ny.ini). The exact location of this file depends on your operating system and will be displayed when you click on “Reload” or “Save Configuration”.

MIDI Control Change Messages
All parameters of the Ny can be controlled by MIDI controllers, or more precisely: Each MIDI controller (except Modulation Wheel and Sustain Pedal) can control one of Ny’s parameters. The mapping is defined in the ny.ini for example like this:

The syntax is straightforward:

Given the above example, controller 7 directly controls the Volume Ensemble parameter, controller 70 the Brass fc etc. As you can see, comments are introduced by the Pound sign (#); they are here just for description purposes and are completely optional. Note that the controller number can run from 0 to 110, except for 1 (Modulation Wheel) and 64 (Sustain Pedal); the latter two are simply ignored.

MIDI Learn
The easiest way to assign MIDI controllers to Ny parameters is to use the MIDI Learn function. To activate MIDI Learn, click on the LEARN button and wiggle both the MIDI controller and the Ny’s parameter that you want to link. If you want to unlearn the assignment, right-click the LEARN button (the label now reads “UNLEARN”) and activate it. Now wiggle the MIDI controller or the parameter that you want to unlearn.

Parameters

Modifier Sections

Percussive Section

Ensemble Section

Chorus Phase Section

Tweak Sections

Frequently Asked Questions

• How do I install the Ny (Windows VST2 32 bit version)?
  Just copy the files ny.dll from the ZIP archive you have downloaded to your system’s or favourite DAW’s VST2 plug-in folder. Your DAW should automatically register the Ny VST2 plug-in the next time you start it.

• How do I install the Ny (Windows VST2 64-bit version)?
  Just copy the file ny64.dll from the ZIP archive you have downloaded to your system’s or favourite DAW’s VST2 plug-in folder. Your DAW should automatically register the Ny VST2 plug-in the next time you start it.
  Note: You may have to remove any existing (32-bit) ny.dll from your VST2 plug- in folder or else your DAW may screw the versions up…

• How do I install the Ny (Windows VST3 64-bit version)?
  Just copy the files ny.vst3 from the ZIP archive you have downloaded to your system’s or favourite DAW’s VST3 plug-in folder. Your DAW should automatically register the Ny VST3 plug-in the next time you start it.

• How do I install the Ny (Mac VST2/VST3/AU 64 bit)?
  Locate the downloaded PKG package file ny_1_0_0_mac.pkg in Finder (!) and do a right- or control-click on it. In the context menu, click on “Open”. You will be asked if you really want to install the package because it comes from an “unidentified developer” (me J). Click “OK” and follow the installation instructions.

• What is the plug-in ID of the Ny?
  The ID is ny50.…?
  [intentionally left blank to answer your own questions]

References

• full bucket music
• Stream Kraftraum music | Listen to songs, albums, playlists for free on SoundCloud
• synthnerd | A blog about synths – making them, using them, and fixing them.
• synthnerd | A blog about synths – making them, using them, and fixing them.
• full bucket music

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