Getting Started
Elka-X Voice Architecture
Top Toolbar, Sound Presets, and Focus Control
Oscillators
Noise Generator
Multimode Filter and Filter Envelope
Amplifier Envelope
Keyboard
Low Frequency Oscillators
Glide/Portamento
Arpeggio
Effects
Panel Control and Lower and Upper Layers
Master
Step Sequencer
MIDI Controllers Setup and The MIDI Tab
QWERTY Musical Typing Keyboard (MTK)
Settings
This innocuous little section is super important. As discussed in the Keyboard section, Elka-X can operate in three modes: Single, where one sound plays across the entire keyboard range, Double, where two separate sounds (layers) are stacked across the entire keyboard range, or Split, where two individual sounds are played above and below a user-specified split point (say that five times fast).
With this in mind, the Panel Control section allows selection of which control parameters are currently displayed when in Double or Split mode. These two sounds are referred to as the lower or upper layers.
Lower/Upper- Selects whether the onscreen controls show current settings for the lower or upper layer. Note that the LEDs for all pushbuttons turn green when showing lower layer settings, and red when showing upper layer settings, and that the Lower and Upper buttons correspondingly have green and red LEDs.
Utility- This handy popup menu allows upper and lower layer sounds to be copied from the upper layer to the lower layer or vice-versa, in case you'd like to create similar sounds for both layers. It also allows both sounds to be swapped to the opposite layers.
The "Read This Carefully" Section
A couple of details that will make this lower and upper business easier to understand, complete with bold text, so you know we mean business. (Don't push us, or we'll mash the CAPS key too and sound like one of those unhinged grammatically impaired weirdos online.)
Switching between Lower and Upper parameter display has no effect whatsoever on sound, it just alternates which layer's knob and button settings are currently displayed.
Panel Control Upper and Lower selection only works in Double and Split Keyboard Modes. When in Single mode, Upper is automatically selected and the Lower button won't do anything.
Single Keyboard Mode always uses the upper layer only.
Lower and Upper layer sounds always save as one single sound patch.
In case you didn't spend hours studying the tediously created Elka-X Voice Architecture diagram at the beginning of this manual, here's the Cliffs notes version, vis-à-vis lower and upper layers parameters:
Almost all of Elka-X's parameters are duplicated and independently settable for the lower and upper layers. This includes Low Frequency Oscillator 1, the bottom frame of the Tuning/Keyboard section (the part with the Poly/Mono mode controls), Oscillator 1 and 2, Multimode Filter, Filter and Amplifier Envelopes, Arpeggio, the Chorus, Echo, and Reverb effects, and the Layer Volume and Layer Pan controls in the Volume section.
Low Frequency Oscillator 2 (the one with the sliders), the top section of Keyboard, the sequencer, and the Limiter and Master Volume controls are global, that is, they affect both the lower and upper layers.