Ensoniq TS-10
Transwave / Hyperwave Digital Synthesizer

written by Don Solaris

About

With TS series, Ensoniq continued their line of transwave synths, this time introducing the sample playback in the synth engine. The first thing user would check when exploring waveform content are the transwaves. And unfortunately all those good transwaves from SD-1 are gone. In fact, this synth has a weakest set of transwaves, of all Ensoniq's transwave series. There is total of just 8 of them. But the worst thing is, they all sound almost the same. So, on the first sight it appears this is no good synth for transwave fun, right? Well.... wrong! We got some good news.

Sample playback in TS series is not just 'basic playback', but it also features transwave synthesis. If you load a transwave into TS-10, you can change its properties from the basic waveform into the transwave. Now all that is left is to route a controller (LFO, env, mod wheel, etc.) on to it and your transwave is ready for fun. And we got some more good news.

Since transwave synthesis requires extreme playback precision the same can be applied for basic samples (non transwaves). You can for example use extreme short loop points, and route sample end position to mod wheel. As you move the mod wheel, new harmonics are being generated. This works best on short, white noise samples. Or instead of mod wheel you can use random LFO for some really unique effects.

Another good feature this synth has, is that you can shift the loop point and 'browse' through various regions of your sample. This works best on complex samples, made from small snippets, vocals for example (connected in series) merged into one large sample. Route LFO or mod wheel and you got some of the craziest vocals at the output. Believe it or not, but even some high-end professional samplers do not have this kind of loop shift feature. Now you might ask - is this all we can do with it? What would happened if we would have one sample made of 64 or 128 small short (pure waveform) samples, connected in series and then we would apply a loop shift feature onto it? Ever heard of synths such as PPG or Waldorf Microwave? Well, that is exactly what they do! Welcome to the...

Wavetable synthesis. Although not from the start available on TS series, it is possible, once you build a wavetable. Technically speaking, TS-10/12 does feature wavetable synthesis, but unfortunately there is no software for creating wavetables so one would need to make it 'manually' with standard waveform editing software. Considering there are total of 128 waveforms, this can be a big work. Also, every cycle must begin and end at zero amplitude. This ensures smooth playback of each individual frame, since any amplitude difference between start and end point at such short loops alters the harmonic content or totally shifts it into wrong pitch. However, once you build it, the result can be quite impressive. In fact it is possible to gain much higher quality (longer cycle waves, more hi-fi sounding) than on a standard wavetable synthesizers. This is because a single wavetable on TS can be as big as RAM size in it. For example 1 MB wavetable contains a frame with a size of 8 kB. In the days of PPG, 8 kB was the size of the whole wavetable!!!



Some might ask how come this synth has Wavetable synthesis, yet its specs or manual don't say anything about it - they only mention transwaves. Well, transwaves are similar to wavetables. Single transwave is made out of 128 individual single cycle waveforms. But what makes it different from wavetable is that one transwave is usually made out of two major waveform frames (first and last cycle in the waveform - beginning and the end). Between lines the morph of these two frames. That’s how transwaves are smooth compared to wavetables. In other words, transwave = wavetable. It's just the content inside which is different. In a wavetable, two neighbor frames can be totally different waveforms, that's the only difference. And just when you though, this synth has so many features, we come to...

Wavesequencing (just like on the famous Wavestation). Although called Hyperwave, it is basically the same thing. Offering the same methods and similar settings it has one additional and quite useful feature called crossfade volume point. As you might know, a volume loss naturally occurs in the center of crossfade point and with this feature you can completely compensate it. That's why TS produces constant volume wavesequences, making them completely undetectable - almost sounding like some kind of morph. Of course, you can always set it to 0 dB to achieve the classic Wavestation-like wavesequence with volume loss.


Custom Transwaves (detailed procedure)

Lets now go back co custom transwaves mentioned at the beginning of the article in case you decide to put them into the TS you might encounter some problems. For example: if you want to add another layer or duplicate existing one. Once you load the sample, you can't - for some reason. So you must do it prior to loading.

Recently i found a way to transfer multi layer samples to the synth. Lets say you build few transwaves in the PC and you want to put them in TS-10 via EPS disk software. No problem, you save the sample, load it to TS and start to program it. But there is a problem. You want to add another Layer (to place the same sample there, but with different parameters for thicker sound) - TS-10 wont let you do that. So i found some really old prehistoric program called Ensoniq MIDI Disk Tools. This program requires Win98 OS, but can run on Virtual PC (Microsoft's PC emulator for WinXP).

It is a Demo version, but for some reason it will do exactly what you need (in fact, this program is for something completely different). With it, you can make a copy of existing layer and create another one (this is just a copy, so total size won't increase!), or you can put another transwave in another layer (useful for Ensoniq Fizmo type of sounds). The trick is that this program operates directly on file. So it doesn't matter if this is demo version, for what you need this program, will be already done even before you click exit.

Here is a procedure on how to create custom transwaves (works on ASR-10 too). This requires commercial program called Awave Studio, but if you are musician you probably already have this program as it can do 1000 other things when it comes to sample conversion:
  • First, to create a transwave use Tranzilon - nice and simple prog.
  • Then convert .wav to ensoniq .efe file via Awave Studio program.
  • Then create ASR-10 floppy with EPSDisk.exe and save this .efe file it to disk. Done!
  • In case you want multi layer, then before you use EPSDisk start that Ensoniq MIDI Disk Tools program (described above) and add 3-4 layers (or just use copy if you want the same wave, so the waveform stays in layer 1 and you don't get unnecessary large file size). Remember, this program operates directly on file, there is no undo. So make a copy of whatever you do.


Modulation

We need something to modulate all those transwaves, wavetables, etc. right? When it comes to modulations, TS offers one good feature called: modulation mixer. This is very similar to Kurzweil equation FUN's where you can combine two controllers, apply scale and shape to one of them and get new controller at the output. With modulation mixer you can create really incredible modulators, some of them possible only on complex modular systems. Here is more info about it (from the manual):




Here are the available shapes:




Some examples (but possibilities are endless):







Ethereal sound examples using Wavesequences (Hyperwaves)

When programming these sounds (patches) i was more focused into building an atmosphere rather than just a musical patch preset. That's why most of these sounds turned as ''Ethereal sounding''. If you are looking for rock sounds examples - you should look somewhere else. As previously stated, Hyperwave is nothing more than Ensoniq's term for a wavesequence (as used on the famous Korg Wavestation).

There's no better thing for atmospheric sounds than a wavesequence based synth. Although many film producers use Korg Wavestation, the TS-10 and TS-12 can do the same thing yet its waveforms are more Hi-Fi sounding thanks to 44.1kHz @ 16bit. Second thing, the effects processor on TS series is based on the DP-2 engine and is far superior to the one used in the Wavestation series.

Update note: Ok, thanks to hard disk crash i lost audio examples of some transwave and standard patches. They might be added in the future though. At the moment you can only hear wavesequence (hyperwave) examples.

 TS-10 Don Solaris: Atmosphere.mp3 - 01:05 Complex atmosphere sound built using a wavesequence.
TS-10 Don Solaris: Planet.mp3 - 00:50 A distant planet rising over the horizon.
 TS-10 Don Solaris: Space.mp3 - 00:41 Abandoned spacecraft floating somewhere in deep space.
 TS-10 Don Solaris: AlienWorld.mp3 - 00:20 Approaching an alien world.
 TS-10 Don Solaris: EndTheme.mp3 - 00:31 End theme (Strings).
 TS-10 Don Solaris: AncientFlutes.mp3 - 00:21 Single chord. Morphing done using wavesequencing.
 TS-10 Don Solaris: Voices.mp3 - 00:49 Another morph example using 0dB point crossfade inside a wavesequence. (Wavestation can't do that)
 TS-10 Don Solaris: GiantChord.mp3 - 01:20 Big... huge... endless ethereal chord. Have a nice flight.



Deep Synthesis: Home

06. 30. 2007.
Don Solaris