ALESIS QS8.1 - Manual (Page 25)

Part 2: Overview
24 QS7.1/QS8.1 Reference Manual
P
ROGRAMS
, M
IXES
, A
ND
B
ANKS
Your QS comes with 1,140 built-in Programs and Mixes. At any time you can also
add hundreds more just by putting QCards or RAMcards into the [PCMCIA
EXPANSION CARD] slots.
That’s a lot of different sounds!
In order to easily find the ones you need, you will need to know how they are
arranged. Starting with…
WHAT’S A PROGRAM?
A QS Program is a set of parameters which (A) create a specific sound and (B) can
be recalled instantly at the touch of a button. There are lots of parameters, which is
why many thousands of cool Programs are currently available from Alesis and
third-party sources. And, of course, you can always edit these parameters yourself
to create Programs that are uniquely your own.
There are 640 internal Programs, divided into 5 Banks of 128 Programs each (more
about Banks in a moment). To get instant access to more Banks, simply insert an
Alesis QCard into one or both of the [PCMCIA EXPANSION CARD] slots. You can
also add Banks using RAMcards, assuming Program data is stored on them.
Each Program consists of from 1 to 4 different Sounds which can be combined and
processed in many different ways: layered on top of one another, for example, or
split up to cover different sections of the keyboard, or set to play (or not play)
depending on how hard you strike a key.
The number of Sounds being used by a Program has a direct effect on your QS’s
polyphony, because each Sound takes one Voice to play. If your current Program uses
only one Sound, you’ll be able to play 64 simultaneous notes. By contrast, a Program
using two Sounds will run out of Voices twice as fast, limiting you to 32 simultaneous
notes. And a Program that uses four Sounds will limit you to 16 notes of polyphony.
WHAT’S A MIX?
A Mix is a combination of Programs selected from the available Banks. Most Mixes
have only two or three Programs in them, but you can put together as many as 16 if
you want. You can also arrange them in a number of useful ways, creating layered
combinations, split combinations, and more.
There are 500 internal Mixes, arranged 100 per Bank. More can be accessed at any
time using expansion cards, as mentioned above for Programs.
For those of you who do MIDI sequencing, one of the most useful Mixes will be #00 in
the User Bank. This is the multi-timbral Mix. It lets you assign different Programs