Performance Controls
This section houses the Mercury-8’s expressive controls.Reach for these when you want to bring your playing to life. These are direct descendants of the Jupiter-8’s left-hand performance panel, faithfully recreated with a few modern refinements. To display these controls, select the Keyboard tab at the bottom left of the Mercury-8 UI.
Bender
The Bender lever is your primary pitch-bend control. Push it to the right to bend the pitch upward (sharp), and to the left to bend downward (flat). Its range and routing depend on the settings of the VCO-1 Bend, VCO-2 Bend, and VCF Bend switches and sliders. The nearby switch determines which layer(s) the Bender affects.
Upper - affects the Upper layer only
Both - affects both layers
Lower - affects the Lower layer only
Each destination can be independently enabled using its ON/OFF switch, then adjusted with the corresponding Bend slider beneath it to control how strongly the Bender affects that parameter.
VCO-1 Bend / VCO-2 Bend: Determines how much pitch bend is applied to each oscillator individually.
VCF Bend: Controls the amount of filter cutoff change when bending — great for wah-like sweeps or expressive tonal shifts.
LFO Modulation
To add real-time modulation while playing, use the LFO Modulation pad. This applies modulation from the low-frequency oscillator to the destinations specified by the VCO Mod and VCF Mod switches and sliders.
VCO Mod: Adds vibrato-style pitch modulation from the LFO.
VCF Mod: Adds filter cutoff modulation (tremolo or wah-like effects).
Use the LFO Mod sliders to set modulation depth for each parameter.
Link Lower to Upper
When Link Lower to Upper is enabled, the Lower panel’s LFO Mod settings are linked to those of the Upper panel, ensuring unified expressive behavior when playing Dual or Split patches.
LFO Mod Rise Time
This knob controls how quickly the LFO modulation fades in when using the LFO Mod pad. Lower settings introduce modulation immediately. Higher settings cause it to fade in gradually. Use it to introduce natural-sounding vibrato.
Portamento
The Portamento knob sets the glide time between notes (range: 0–10). Lower settings yield near-instant transitions, while higher values produce longer glides between pitches. The adjacent switch determines which layer(s) Portamento affects. By default it affects both layers. Alternatively, choose:
Upper Only - affects the Upper layer only (and not the Lower layer)
Off - turns portamento off
On - turns portamento on