Thanks for trying out Yazz. This project is still in development, so not everything works as expected, or at all. I'm happy about any feedback.
Yazz has a fixed signal flow with the following components:
- 32 voices
- 3 wavetable-based oscillators per voice
- 2 filters (parallel or serial routing) with LP-/ HP- and BP-Modes per voice
- 3 ADSR envelopes per voice
- 2 LFOs per voice
- 2 global LFOs
- Delay
At any time, press F1 to show a help page. Press any key to exit the help page.
Press F12 to exit Yazz.
This functionality is still under construction.
Currently the sound filename is hardwired to "Yazz_FactoryBank.ysn". It is loaded automatically on startup. To load the file manually, press F3.
You can change the current program by sending MIDI program change commands. In Play mode, you can additionally use the '+', '-' keys for program changing.
WARNING: All changes made to a sound will be lost when changing the current program without saving.
To save a sound, press F2. Currently, only saving the complete sound bank is supported. There is also no safety dialog yet to prevent accidentally overwriting sounds. Making manual backups might be a good idea if you made a cool sound and want to keep it.
Press <Ctrl-C> to copy the current sound to the internal clipboard.
Press <Ctrl-V> to paste the contents of the internal clipboard to the
current sound patch.
Press <Ctrl-N> to rename the current sound.
Yazz has two distinct operating modes: Edit mode and Play mode. The mode is switched with the TAB key. The main difference is that Edit mode captures one dedicated MIDI controller (modulation wheel per default) as data input to change parameter values, while play mode allows easy switching between MIDI controller sets.
Yazz is controlled entirely with the (computer-)keyboard and/ or MIDI controllers. The top line of the UI is the command line that is used for changing parameters.
Every parameter consists of four parts:
- A function: The function group, e.g. Oscillator, Envelope etc,
- A function ID, in case there is more than one instance of the current function, e.g. Oscillator 3, Envelope 1,
- A parameter: A parameter of the selected function (e.g. Oscillator Level, Envelope Attack),
- A value: The actual value of the selected parameter. This can itself be another parameter, e.g. for modulation source and target.
To make entering values easier, a MIDI controller can be assigned as value input control. Currently this is hardwired to the modulation wheel.
When starting to edit a parameter, the function must be selected. The UI shows a drop-down list of available functions. Every function has a shortcut associated with it, e.g. 'o' for oscillator, 'l' for LFO. The function can be selected by:
- Entering the shortcut key,
- Using the CursorUp/ CursorDown keys and pressing Enter or CursorRight.
The function ID can be selected by entering the number, using the cursor keys or using +/ -. If only a single instance of the function is available (e.g. Delay), the input will immediately progress to the parameter selection.
The parameter selection uses the same mechanism as the function selection
The value can be changed by:
- Typing in the target value and pressing Enter, e.g. "3.14" for a float value,
- Using '+'/ '-' to increment/ decrement the value by a fixed amount,
- Using the input controller (currently the modulation wheel) to set the value.
- Using a MIDI controller assigned to this parameter to set the value.
After adjusting the value, pressing Enter will return to the Parameter selection, pressing Escape will return to the function selection.
While setting the value in the command line, there are a number of additional keyboard shortcuts for faster navigation:
- PageUp/ PageDown will change the function ID of the current parameter. That way it is easy to adjust the same parameter for all 3 oscillators, or to search for the modulation slot that is assigned to a particular target.
- [/ ] will step through the parameter list of the selected function.
- </ > will move backwards/ forwards through the history of selected parameters.
- "<MarkerId> adds a marker at the selected parameter. MarkerId can be any valid ASCII character. Markers are saved between sessions.
- '<MarkerId> goes to the selected marker if it has been defined.
- / creates a new modulator with the current parameter as target, activates it and sets the command line to the modulation source selection.
Yazz supports assigning MIDI controllers to most sound parameters. To assign a controller:
- Select the target parameter in the command line (e.g. "o1l" to select oscillator 1 level.
- Enter MIDI learn mode by pressing
<Ctrl-L>. The command line will show the text MIDI learn: Send controller data. - Send values with the MIDI controller. Yazz needs at least two distinct values to be able to distinguish between absolute and relative controller types.
After having detected the controller, the command line switches back to value input mode.
To cancel MIDI learn mode without assigning a controller, press Escape.
To clear a previous controller assignment of a parameter, select MIDI learn mode for that parameter and press Backspace.
Controller assignments are global settings, not sound specific. They are saved automatically after every controller assignment change.
Yazz has a flexible modulation matrix, which allows using most signal outputs as modulation values for sound parameters. There are two different types of modulation sources and targets: Global and Local. Global parameters are note- and voice-independent and only represent a single value at any time. Local parameters are note- or voice-specific, with individual values per note or voice.
Global modulation sources can modulate both global and local modulation targets. Local modulation sources can modulate only local modulation targets.
- Global modulation sources:
- Channel aftertouch
- Pitch wheel
- Modulation wheel
- Global LFOs
- Local modulation sources:
- Note on velocity
- Oscillator output
- Envelope output
- LFO output
- Global modulation targets:
- Patch volume
- Delay parameters
- Modulation amount and status
- Local modulation targets:
- All voice parameters
To assign a modulator, select one the 16 available Modulation function slots. Both the source and the target parameters can be entered the same way as selecting a synth parameter. Modulation source requires only Function and Function ID, while Modulation Target also requires the Parameter to modulate.
Any modulator can be adjusted in intensity and can be turned on/ off. Both intensity and on/ off status can themselves be modulated by other modulators.
It's possible to use external wavetables as sound source. On startup, Yazz looks for a "data" folder in its runtime directory. If the folder exists, it is scanned for Wave files. Any files found that are in the right format are added to the list of available wavetables.
Currently the only supported format for wavetable files is single-channel files with 32-bit float values, with a length of 2048 samples. Support for other formats is in the works.
Sounds only store a reference to the wavetable, not the actual wavetable data itself, so if an external table was used for a sound, the corresponding file needs to remain in the data folder. If a wavetable file is not found, the sound will use the internal default wavetable instead.
Yazz groups MIDI controller assignments into 36 controller sets. That means that even with just a single controller available, it is possible to control 36 different parameters by switching the active set.
In play mode, pressing any valid controller set identifier ('0' - '9', 'a' - 'z') will activate the controller set with that ID. The default set active on startup is '0'.
A typical setup would be to group the controllers according to the controller set ID, so that the assignment is easy to remember. If for example the used MIDI controller has 8 knobs or faders, one could use controller set '1' for controlling level, tune, spread and wave index of oscillator 1, and attack, decay, sustain, release of envelope 1. Set '2' could control the same parameters for oscillator and envelope 2 and so on. Set 'd' can be used for delay values, while 'p' controlls the patch parameters like patch level.
By default, the level of the mix of all oscillators is modulated by envelope 1. This can be disabled by setting the patch parameter "EnvDepth" to 0. Then you can assign the envelopes to the oscillators individually by using them as modulation source and modulating the oscillator level. The oscillator level parameter itself should be set to 0 in this case.
There are two independent filters. You can choose which filter an oscillator should be routed to with the "Routing" option in the oscillator parameters. You can also choose to route the output of filter one through filter two by setting the patch parameter "filter_routing" to Serial instead of Parallel.