From chris@cybmedia.comMon May 8 09:15:21 1995 Date: Sun, 7 May 1995 20:02:08 -0700 From: Chris Meyer To: analogue@hyperreal.com Subject: Re: VS > Wavestation At 8:03 PM 5/7/95, M Stevens wrote: > >Do you have any info on how the Prophet VS became the Korg Wavestation? >Inquiring minds want to know... I kind of went over this in detail in the manual to Interval Music's excellent VS Wavewrangler program (Scott - still have the file? I don't anymore...). The Prophet VS was primarily the invention of three people - myself, Josh Jeffe, and Tony Dean. I came up with the basic algorithm of crossfading between 4 oscillators (in essence, a 2-dimensional fade between tibres) and running that through the usual VCF/VCA chain. It was an extension of the instruments like the PPG and Fairlight that could scan in one dimension along a table of waveshapes or between two different waveshapes. I also contributed to the envelopes (I insisted there be more stages and loops, ala' the Buchla 400; Josh came up with the great simlification of the 5-step envelope with looping. I think is was some combination of Josh and me bouncing off each other that came up with short cut of having an adjustable initial level for the 1st stage to get pops without eating up stages.) Josh was the overall project manager and made many significant contributions to the design as well (such as letting the four oscillators detune; I was being pendantic and wanted to just change timbre - and save VCOs in the design...). Tony Dean did the custom chip and helped us figure out how to design a wavetable synth (we were all kids with no DSP etc. background - we made many "mistakes", some of which turned out well! And others didn't...). Yeah, we had a lot of ideas how to improve it - sampled attacks, 3D crossfading, arbitrary placement of waves in the 2D mesh, etc. A number of people at Sequential made important contributions as well - Scott Peterson suggested the joystick; Dave Smith did a lot of the analog design and also goaded Josh into putting the random program funciton in it; John Bowen was also an encouraging factor. But, with all honestly due respect, I'd say Josh, Tony and I were the primary core. When Sequential went out of business, Yamaha, and then Korg, bought what was left over and used it (with the addition of a few important Ensoniq people) as a design facility. The SY-22 and Wavestation came out of there (and I think the OASYS did too). Josh, Tony, and I were gone by the time this happened, so I personally think the 22 and WS are not "direct" relations to the VS since none of the "primary core" people worked on it. This does not mean they are not good instruments; just that they are not directly in that line and might have had different emphasises if we were still there. Yeah, I know; I sound grumpy on the subject. Oh well. If Scott Morgan wants to repost my commentary for his manual on the VS, that would be fine. - CM ============================================================================= Chris & Trish Meyer - CyberMedia Motion Graphics & Sound Design email: chris@cybmedia.com or CyberTrish@AOL.com fax: (818) 880-5099 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Sound can act as a painkiller...we now have music sufficiently powerful to act as a practical weapon." - William Burroughs & Material/Ineffect =============================================================================