Quadelectra Audioworx L1mDrum User manual

version 1.5

1. Introduction
We would like to welcome you and thank you for your trial / purchase of Quadelectra
Jackbox L1 Drum odule.
The Quadelectra Jackbox L1 Drum odule is an 8-bit drum sample module inspired by
the legendary LinnDrum, which made its mark in the early 80s, and it's still praised for
its distinctive gritty sound. The LinnDrum used 8-bit μLaw encoded samples which where
stored in one or more EPRO chips, depending on the length of that sound. Its this
process of decoding and playing back that gave LinnDrum its raw unique sound.
We've managed to recreate these results by following the same process, in order to
deliver the most possible authentic experience. Which means that your L1 actually
uses 8-bit μLaw samples which are also decoded and played in real time! Just like the
reference hardware device.
But that's not all!
You see, one of the things you could do in an original LinnDrum was to alter the device
drum set! To do that, musicians back in the day would open the unit itself and swap the
actual sound chips on the board! By using our ASIC (Audio to String Interchange
Conversion) and taking it one step further, you now can too change your L1 's drum
set!!! Yes! We mean you can change individual samples or even the whole drum set.
Since L1 stores and uses μLaw samples, just like its hardware counter part, you can
even dump your own EPRO S or download others that are freely available in the
internet and import them to your L1 ! Of course you can also use WAV and AIF files if
you wish; These files will be transcoded to match the format used by the L1 Drum.
The alterations you make to the stock drum sounds are saved in the form of a regular
Rack Extension Patch File. Since the RE SDK does not provide a mechanism to import
samples to RE's you must use our L1 Virtual EPRO Tool application to create these
patches. The L1 Virtual EPRO Tool is absolutely free, and you can download it from
our website.
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2. The Front Panel
L1 's front panel is divided in 8 sections:
Fig.2-1: The L1MDrum Front Panel
A. Main Volume: Simply -as you'd expect- sets the device global volume.
B. MIDI In: Lits up indicating a IDI Note On message.
C. Drum Pads: These are the 16 drum pads which you can use to preview the sounds
of the current drum set. Note that the pads “obey” the accent setting and they
will trigger a sound at full velocity (127) instead of the default 100.
D. Accent: The accent section of the device. Enabling the accent mode will cause
the device to use only three velocity stages (weak, mid and strong hits) mimicking
the behavior of the reference hardware device. See more about accent on
chapter 4.1. The Accent ode.
E. Level Mixer: The level mixer allows you to set the volume for each drum sound
individually. The level setting will also affect those drum sounds that have been
routed from their dedicated outputs.
F. Panning: For all sounds which share the main output stereo pair, there's also an
option to pan them left or right.
G. Tuning Pots: This section enables you to tune specific sounds from the drum set.
See more about this functionality on chapter 4.2. Tuning Your Sounds
H. Patch rowser: The Patch Browser in L1 's case is solely used to change the
default drum samples of the device. You can load patches from our collection
that's shipped with the device, or from other users, or even create your own.
ore on loading custom drum sets on chapter 4.3. Loading Custom Drum Sets.
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3. The Rear Panel
The rear panel of L1 Drum looks like this:
Fig. 3-1: The L1MDrum Rear Panel.
The panel is divided into 8 different sections:
A. Main Output: The ain stereo output of the unit. All drum sounds are sent to this
output after they are leveled and panned at the front panel. That is unless a
specific sound is sent through its dedicated output (see B).
B. Separate Outputs: Each drum sound has its own separate output. Separate
outputs are monophonic, and once you connect one to another input, the sound
to which is dedicated is muted from the main output (see A).
C. Level CV Mod Inputs: You can connect CV signals from other devices to these CV
inputs, to control the amplitude of each level.
D. Pan CV Mod Inputs: You can also connect CV signals from other devices to the Pan
CV od Inputs to control the pan position for each
E. Gate Outs: You can use L1 to trigger external devices, such as other drum
machines, by connecting the Gate Out of a specific drum sound to the gate in of
that device.
F. Gate Ins: Subsequently you can use other external devices to trigger the drum
sounds from the L1 Drum by connecting their Gate / Trigger CV outputs to the
Gate Ins of the L1 .
G. Tuning CV Mod Inputs: Finally the Tuning CV inputs provide a way to control the
tuning pots of your L1 using the CV output signals from other external devices.
Note: Open and Closed Hi-hat share the same audio output, level and pan cv inputs.
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4. Features
In this section we further discuss some of the features of the device.
4.1. The Accent ode
The accent mode for L1 works a bit different than the other Jackbox devices, in
respect to the reference hardware device.
Original LinnDrum had 3 different types of hits for each drum (a weak, a mid, and a
strong). When enabling the “Accent” function, the pads on the device will trigger the
sounds at full velocity. Yet when playing sounds on your IDI keyboard the Note On
velocity is quantized between the three hits, just like in the original.
When disabling the “Accent” function, drum pads will return to the normal state (ie
triggering sounds at the mid velocity setting), and the sounds you play from the IDI will
use the entire velocity range and resolution.
However in both modes you can change the velocity sensitivity using the “Accent” knob.
Turning the knob fully left will flatten the velocity range to the upper / strongest value,
while turning the knob fully right will return the velocity to it's full range.
4.2. Tuning Your Sounds
L1 Drum has the same tuning pots like its hardware counterpart. The tuning span is
approximately one octave (+/- 6 semitones).
Snare tuning also affects the Side Stick (Rim shot) pitch too...
The sixth tuning pot changes the decay of the closed hi-hat. At it's highest value the
knob will fully enable the decay slope, causing the closed hi-hat to sound like the open.
4.3. ASIC Drum Sets
L1 Drum uses the standard Rack Extension patch format to change some or all of its
available drum sounds. This feature is not available directly through the Rack Extension
SDK, and exists prior to its 3.0 iteration which enabled the loading of user samples. The
creation of the patch files that use ASIC, requires an external application.
This application is called L1 Drum Virtual EPRO Tool and its available from our website
free of charge!
In versions prior to 1.5, device settings such as Pan, Volume and Tuning were not saved
with the patch. Since 1.5 this is not the case anymore.
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4.4. Custom Samples
Version 3.0 of the Rack Extension SDK introduced the ability to load external samples.
We’ve made it possible to integrate this feature to the L1 as an extension over the
existing ASIC option from the previous version, so that both methods of adding custom
samples may co-exist. That being said, user samples are loaded on-top of existing stock
or ASIC packed ones, and not in replacement of.
The loaded samples are subject to the same “rules” as their ASIC counter parts. eaning
that they are truncated to each sound’s designated memory length, and resampled to 8-
bit μLaw encoding at 24Khz.
When a user sample is deleted, it then reverts to either the “stock EPRO ” or the “user
EPRO ” sample stored within the patch. Thus trying to delete an empty user sample will
not have any effect to either the underlying stock or packed sample.
To load a custom sample. Click the red mini USB jack on the upper left corner of the
device:
This will reveal the “EPRO burner” tool (okay, so e may have taken it a bit too far,
but e just couldn’t stop :))
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You select the sound you wish to substitute by clicking the drum pads. The selected
drum pad is highlighted with a soft red tint, and a downwards facing arrow. If the
selected drum pad shares the same sound with others, (f.e. in the case of hi-hats, or
toms), they will also be highlighted.
Regarded information such as the sound name is displayed at the “EPRO chip” on the
top right of the “EPRO burner”.
At the bottom you can see the currently loaded user sample (if any) for that sound, and
on the bottom-right, the buttons to edit, delete, select, load and sample, respectively.
At the top left there are 3 LEDs that reflect the status of that sound:
1. V1 PATCH DATA OK: When lit, indicates that there is an ASIC packed sound present
in the patch for the selected sound.
2. SA PLE OK: Indicates that there’s a user sample present and loaded correctly to
the memory.
3. OUT OF E ORY: When lit, it indicates that the loaded sample is larger than the
available memory, and therefore its truncated.
Beware that, by design, custom samples follow Reason’s storage rules. eaning that they
can be either embedded or referenced inside a song, yet only referenced within a patch.
In contrast to ASIC packaging keeps the actual sound data inside the patch.
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APPENDIX I – MIDI / Remote Implementation Chart
The following is a full list of the available automation parameters, their IDI Control
Codes and their Remote Names
CC Name Short Name Tiny Name
4 Velocity / Accent Sensitivity VASens VASn
7 ain Volume Volume Vol
67 Accent ode Acc ode Ac d
128 BASS: Level LevelBA LvBA
129 SNARE: Level LevelSD LvSD
130 SIDESTICK: Level LevelST LvST
131 HI HAT: Level LevelHH LvHH
132 HI TO : Level LevelHT LvHT
133 ID TO : Level Level T Lv T
134 LOW TO : Level LevelLT LvLT
135 RIDE: Level LevelRD LvRD
136 CRASH: Level LevelCR LvCR
137 CABASA: Level LevelCB LvCB
138 TA BURINE: Level LevelTB LvTB
139 HI CONGA: Level LevelHC LvHC
140 LOW CONGA: Level LevelLC LvLC
141 COWBELL: Level LevelCB LvCB
142 CLAP: Level LevelCP LvCP
143 BASS: Pan PanBA PnBA
144 SNARE: Pan PanSD PnSD
145 SIDESTICK: Pan PanST PnST
146 HI HAT: Pan PanHH PnHH
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147 HI TO : Pan PanHT PnHT
148 ID TO : Pan Pan T Pn T
149 LOW TO : Pan PanLT PnLT
150 RIDE: Pan PanRD PnRD
151 CRASH: Pan PanCR PnCR
152 CABASA: Pan PanCB PnCB
153 TA BURINE: Pan PanTB PnTB
154 HI CONGA: Pan PanHC PnHC
155 LOW CONGA: Pan PanLC PnLC
156 COWBELL: Pan PanCB PnCB
157 CLAP: Pan PanCP PnCP
158 SNARE: Tuning SNARTune SDTn
159 HI TO : Tuning T HITune HTTn
160 ID TO : Tuning T DTune TTn
161 LOW TO : Tuning T LOTune LTTn
162 HI CONGA: Tuning CGHITune HCTn
163 LOW CONGA: Tuning CGLOTune LCTn
164 HI HAT: Decay HHATDcay HDcy
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