Quadelectra QASIC RZ-i User manual

1. Welcome
Thank you for trying / purchasing Quadelectra ASIC (QASIC) RZ-i rum Module.
RZ-i is a drum module inspired by the legendary RZ-1 rum Machine, by Casio. Used and
loved by many artists like Autechre, Hardfloor, Joey Beltram, Steve Poindexter, Cristian
Vogel and more, the RZ-i is a “cute” little secret weapon for sorts of experimentalists
and technoheads.
Choosing the RZ-1 as our reference, was not an accident. It was the perfect chance to
actually test and finally integrate our new concept, called Audio to String Interchange
Conversion or ASIC.
Lets rewind to the 80s for a moment: Back in the day, Casio RZ-1 was one of the first
devices with sampling capabilities. Of course hardware-wise, there were many
limitations in terms of memory, and consequently sampling durration and quality, but
nevertheless the RZ-1 sound today is distinctive because of exactly these novelties.
Although Rack Extensions S K does not support user samples, we were able to make
QASIC RZ-i emulate the custom samples feature of the reference hardware. This means
that, although you cannot directly sample with the device, you can import your own
samples in the form of a patch using an external application, that does this work:
Creates standard RE patches (*.repatch files) for the device containing your sample
data.
This application is called QASIC RZ-i Sample Importer and its totally free. You can
download it in our website.
For more Information about the Sampling Feature see Chapter 4 on this manual.
We hope you enjoy using your RZ-i, and make lots of cool music with it.
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2. The Front Panel
The RZ-i front panel is very simple:
Fig 2-1: The QASIC RZ-i Front Panel
The QASIC RZ-i is divided in to seven sections:
•MIDI In Led: This is found at the top left of the device. The MI I Led flashes when
ever a MI I Key is pressed or released to provide a visual feedback.
•Drum Level Faders: The rum level faders control the level of one or two drum
sounds simultaneously. In particular there are level faders to control, the
following sounds or groups of sounds:
◦TOM1: Controls the High Tom level of the drum set.
◦TOM2: Controls the level of the Mid Tom of the drum set.
◦TOM3: Controls the level of the Low Tom of the drum set.
◦BD: Controls the level of the Bassdrum.
◦RIM SD: Controls the levels of both the Snaredrum and the Rimshot.
◦OPEN HH CLOSED HH: Controls the level of the two hi-hats of the set.
◦CLAPS RIDE: Controls the levels of the Handclap and the Ride Cymbal.
◦COWBELL CRASH: Controls the levels of the Cowbell and the Crash Cymbal.
◦SAMPLE 1, 2: Controls the levels of the user samples 1 and 2.
◦SAMPLE 3, 4: Controls the levels of the user samples 3 and 4.
•Accent Velocity Sensitivity Level: The fader has two purposes: When the device
is in “Accent Mode”, it controls the amount of excess volume of the accented hit.
However with the “Accent Mode” turned off it controls the velocity sensitivity of
the notes played by the MI I Keyboard.
•Master Volume: This fader controls the entire volume of the device. Note that
this setting affects also the level on drum sounds routed in their individual
outputs.
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•Accent Button & Led: The “Accent” button is located at the lower left section of
the device. This sets or unsets the device in “Accent Mode”.
While in “Accent Mode”, the MI I velocity of the device is quantized in to two
settings. MI I key presses with velocity under 100 will produce non-accented hits,
while hits with velocity ranging from 100 to 127 will produce accented hits.
The difference of amplitude between accented and non-accented hits is set using
the “Accent / Velocity Sensitivity Level”.
With the “Accent Mode” turned off MI I velocity works as expected, but you can
adjust the hit sensitivity using -once again the “Accent / Velocity Sensitivity
Level” fader.
•Drum Pads: The RZ-i has a drumset of 12 sounds total. These sounds have black
colored buttons. Furthermore there are 4 grey buttons which trigger the user
defined samples, which you can load to the device (See Chapter 4: Samples
Feature).
•Sampe Bank (Patch) Loader: Finally at the bottom right of the device you can
find the Sample Memory Loader. The Sample Memory Loader is nothing more than
a standard patch browser which in the case of RZ-i is used to load sounds. No
other information is saved within the patch except that. For more information see
Chapter 4: Samples Feature in this manual.
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3. The Rear Panel
The RZ-i rear panel looks like this:
Fig 3-1: The QASIC RZ-i Rear Panel
Again things here are pretty much straightforward. Starting at the top left of the panel,
we see the following:
•Instrument Outputs: There are 10 monophonic audio outputs, for either
individual sounds or sound groups. The assignments of the sounds on these outputs
match with the ones on the level faders at the front panel. Once you connect a
cable to an instrument output, the sounds to which that output is assigned, will
be muted from the main mix.
Note, that the faders at the front control the amplitude of the drum sounds even
when they are sent through their dedicated outputs.
•Main Audio Outputs: At the right of the device, you can find the Main Audio
Outputs, where all sounds that do not pass through their dedicated outputs, are
mixed and sent. Right under the Main Output audio jacks, there is a CV input for
modulating the entire amplitude of the device level.
•Level CV Modulation Inputs: Instrument Outputs have their own modulation CV
inputs for controlling their output amplitude too.
•Gate Outs: RZ-i can be used to trigger other sequencers and / or drum machines.
Gate outputs will do this job. By connecting a CV cable from the Gate Out of a
sound in RZ-i to the Gate In of an another device, you can trigger that device's
sound whenever you play the sound of the Gate Out on RZ-i.
•Gate Ins: Consequently you can hav other devices triggering the sounds of th RZ-i.
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4. “Sampling” Feature
While the Rack Extensions S K does not support sampling or sample loading directly,
your RZ-i can playback your own custom samples at the rate and bit depth of the original
RZ-1 drum machine: 20KHz / 8bit mono. Behind this feature is the Quadelectra Audio to
String Interchange Conversion technology from the acronym of which (QASIC) this device
takes half of its name, being the first to employ it.
Quadelectra ASIC packs one or more sounds to a plain Rack Extension patch file, which
can be saved or loaded from the device itself, much like any other patch. However since
as we've said before there is no direct way to record, add or remove samples in Rack
Extensions, a third party application must be used to collect and pack all the needed
samples.
Quadelectra provides you this application, called QASIC RZ-i Sample Importer, free of
charge, and you can download it from our website. In this manual we won't examine the
importer application – it has its own manual too, but we'll examine how the sampling
memory is used.
Following its hardware counterpart, the RZ-i supports four banks, each 4096 bytes. At
8bit mono and 20KHz sampling frequency each bank translates roughly to 205ms of
audio. They are called -as you'd expect- SAMPLE1, SAMPLE2, SAMPLE3 and SAMPLE4.
Another original feature that the original device had and its passed to QASIC RZ-i is the
ability to change the bank configuraton, and merge banks in order to increase the
available sample length, in the cost of the number of available samples. The bank
configuration cannot be done directly from the device, but rather from the Sample
Importer application.
There are 5 different bank configurations:
•All Split: All banks split. You get 4 samples, 4096 bytes / 205ms each.
•1-2 Joined: Banks 1 & 2 are merged: You get 3 samples. Samples 1 & 2 are
merged thus you get one sample with 8192 bytes / 410ms each, and samples 3 &
4 are split with properties same as in “All Split”.
•3-4 Joined: The same as “1-2 Joined” but in this configuration Samples 3 & 4 are
merged.
•Pairs Joined: Both sample pairs are merged: Samples 1 with 2, and 3 with 4. This
gives you 2 samples, 8192 bytes / 410ms each.
•All Joined: All banks are joined. This gives you 1 sample with a total of 16384
bytes / 820ms.
Note that joined samples play the same sound from start. So for example one big sample
from an “All Joined” configuration will cause SAMPLE1, 2, 3 & 4 to play the same 820ms
long sample.
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APPENDIX I: MIDI & Remote Implementation Chart
The following is the MI I Control Implementation Chart and Remote Names
CC Internal Name Short Name Tiny Name
4 Accent Level AccLevel Accn
5 Velocity Sens VeloSens VSns
7 Main Volume MainVol Vol
67 Accent On AccentOn AcOn
128 TOM1 Level TOM1Lvl TM1L
129 TOM2 Level TOM2Lvl TM2L
130 TOM3 Level TOM3Lvl TM3L
131 B Level B Lvl B L
132 RIM / S Level S Lvl RS L
133 OPEN HH / CLOSE HH Level HHLvl HHL
134 CLAPS / RI E Level CPR Lvl CRL
135 COWBELL / CRASH Level CBCRLvl CCL
136 SAMPLE 1-2 Level Smp12Lvl S12L
137 SAMPLE 3-4 Level Smp34Lvl S34L
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APPENDIX 2: MIDI Drum Mapping
The following is the RZ-i drum map and name reverse look up.
Reverse Lookup
Name MIDI
B 36
CLAP 39
CLOSE HH 42, 44
COWBELL 56
CRASH 49
OPEN HH 46
RI E 51
RIM 37
SAMPLE1 52, 53
SAMPLE2 55, 57
SAMPLE3 59, 60
SAMPLE4 61, 63
S 38
TOM1 48, 50
TOM2 45, 47
TOM3 41, 43
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Welcome.............................................................................................3
2. The Front Panel.....................................................................................4
3. The Rear Panel......................................................................................6
4. “Sampling” Feature................................................................................7
APPEN IX I: MI I & Remote Implementation Chart...............................................8
APPEN IX 2: MI I rum Mapping....................................................................9
Reverse Lookup..................................................................................9
TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................10
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