AISLINGby CU_STE

controls · AISLING FX-1, an FM-1 as a USB effects box

manual

1.0. What is drawn here is what the firmware does, measured in AISLING's simulator; the manual says which of it has been tried on the FM-1 itself.

MASTERLevel atthe socketSELECTA layer's levelPRESETSPiece: its echo,reverb, tempoALGORITHMA voiceOCT−A layer's octaveOCT+A layer's octaveK1FilterK2EchoK3ReverbK4DryFXSpace,EchoSELPerformENVDroneLFOLeadEDITChordsGLOSetupheld: saveHOMEHome,KeySAVEAtmosphereARPSequenceSEQSequence 2PLAYSTOPRest: thedrift stopsRECHoldheld: effectsRepeatFTimeGTape stopAShimmerBLow-passCHigh-passDSweepEPhaserFReverbGCeoAFreezeBWashCOctaveDReturnEFrasFMacallaGCeoMacallaFrasRepeatShimmerFreezeOctaveReturnRiseCloseTransposeWhite keys: nothing (they play the Lead, and FX-1 has none). Black keys: an effect each while held; the dim ones change nothing here.REC held: sixteen effects on the white keys, as long as each is held:EchoFilterSpaceMovesSEL (PERFORM): 17 of the 27 keys' effects work here. K1–K4 as drawn at HOME; elsewhere, the page's four.

The drawing alone, at full size.

The controls

ControlWhat it does
MASTERThe level at the 3.5 mm socket. The stream back to the computer doesn't follow it
KNOB 1 at HOMEFilter, on the whole sound: Off in the middle. Turned down it shuts, a low-pass, to about 200 Hz at the end; turned up it opens, a high-pass, to about 800 Hz. It drifts a little by itself while the FM-1 plays (see PLAY)
KNOB 2 at HOMEEcho: how much of the sound goes into the echo. The same Echo as the Space page's, and saved with the piece
KNOB 3 at HOMEReverb: how much goes into the plate reverb; 0, none. The Space page's Reverb, saved with the piece
KNOB 4 at HOMEDry: how much of the sound itself goes straight out, 0 to 100. The echo and the plate are fed the same whatever it says, so at 0 only they are heard (for a send and return). Not saved: 100 at every start
PRESETSThe piece underneath: its echo and reverb amounts, its feedback, its plate's size and its tempo, which the echo's time counts in (at the same Echo time, Skellig's repeats come 1.2 s apart, Aran's 0.95 s)
SELECT, ALGORITHMOn the voices' pages, a layer's level and its voice: nothing to hear. On the Setup page, as in AISLING, the journey's stay and the sleep timer (see Saving on sleep)
OCT− / OCT+A layer's octave: nothing to hear. With HOME held, undo and redo
SELA tap: PERFORM, the keys' effects (see The effects); another tap: back
FXThe Space page: Echo, Echo time (six steps, an eighth to a whole bar, in the piece's beats), Feedback (in seconds of tail: 0 is a single repeat; at 100 each repeat is about 13 dB under the last, and it never runs away), Reverb. Again, the Echo page: Blur, Tone (lower is darker), Width (0: the echo in mono), Size (the plate's length)
GLOThe Setup page: Tune and Lights (nothing to hear), MIDI out, Save. Held half a second: save
HOMEThe HOME page; again, the Key page, whose Tempo is the beat the echo's time counts in (Root, Mode and Transpose change nothing here)
PLAYPlay / rest. The sound comes through either way. Playing, the Filter and the echo's Wet drift slowly by themselves, as AISLING's do (a turn of yours holds until the next section); at rest they keep still
RECA tap: hold. The echo and the plate keep what they have and go on repeating it, while the sound still comes through dry. Held: the effects grid on the white keys
White keysNothing (they play the Lead, and FX-1 has none). With REC held, the grid's effects; in PERFORM, effects
Black keysAn effect each, while held: Shimmer, Freeze, Macalla and Fras work here (see The effects)
ENV, ARP, LFO, SEQ, SAVE, EDITThe voices' pages: nothing to hear. SAVE held half a second still saves

The manual has the rest: setting it up with a computer, the screen, and going back to AISLING.