The sound of ME80 will remind you of an acoustic instument. It sounds synthetic, but has the expression of a real instrument. You can shape the tone with aftertouch like you would do on a brass instrument. The velocity feels very alive with a seperate velocity-envelope that took 1 year to develop. Different velocities will have totally different envelope shape. If you want arpeggiators on this synth you do not deserve to play it. The instrument takes practice to master, like a real instrument. Polyphonic aftertouch is supported, but you can select "last played" mode for the aftertouch, and you will have fake polyphonic response from your mono aftertouch keyboard.
Sustain2 is a special mode that has release only for last played note(s). It feels like a mono mode.
There are 2 synthlines with saw/square/sine waveforms. The sine is inserted after filter. Each synthline has its own filter and envelopes. A HPF and LPF filter combined produces a bandpass filter in each synthline.
The effect section has tremolo/chorus, delay and reverb. Wah is a filter with high resonance that can be controlled from a foot controller.
Each synthline has 11 factory presets programmed by Max Fazio. In addition there are 2 user memory slots and 1 panel slot. The instrument is in panel position by default. The memory slots has variations, or completely different sounds. So every fxp patch actually has 11 presets, 2 user memories and 1 panel sound. A ME80 fxb bank is very big........
CPU warning: There is an invisible CPU hit at the attack of every note because of the advanced voice assignment in ME80.
The instrument was developed by Gunnar Ekornås, Max Fazio and Georges Poropat over a period of 2 years. Max Fazio has done much research in available data and expired patents. He has programmed the ring-modulator and the tremolo effect. I have discussed every detail of the synth with Max, and he has been the driving force in this project. In many parts of the synth I have just followed his instructions. Georges Poropat is a CS80 owner. He has supplied all the soundfiles I have been asking for and like Max given response about all parts of the synth. Max and Georges did all this work for free because it was their dream to see it realized: To preserve it in digital form, and to make the special playing experience available to more people.
