Coral has 8 voices. This chapter shows how to group them into parts. You can then play a mono bassline, a mono lead and a block of polyphonic chords at the same time.
3.1 The Parts Concept
Voices set to the same MIDI channel belong to one part. By default all 8 voices are on MIDI channel 1, so there is a single part. As soon as you assign a voice to a different MIDI channel, a new part is created. Each part can be addressed by its MIDI channel or with the Part CV jack.
Flexibility has a price. We recommend starting with one part. Once comfortable, create two parts and practise switching between them, then build up from there.
How do you know which voice plays a note? Coral assigns a free voice to every MIDI note it receives. If all voices are busy, it steals the least recently used one. The trigger (Gate) input triggers all voices of the selected part.
3.2 Part and Voice Selection
To navigate voices and parts, push, hold and turn the encoder. From the default state, holding the encoder for half a second lights the ring to show all voices selected. Any change then applies to all voices.
Figure 3.1. Selection sequence: All VOICES selected, PART 1 selected, then VOICE 1, VOICE 2 and on to VOICE 8. Voices occupy LEDs 1 to 8.
- Hold the encoder and turn one tick clockwise to move from All Voices to Part selection.
- Turn another tick to step to voice 1, then voice 2, and so on to voice 8.
- Past voice 8 the selection wraps back to All Voices, then Part selection.
- When more than one part exists, Part selection steps through each part in turn.
- Turning counter-clockwise navigates the other way.
3.3 Creating Parts
This example builds three parts. Voice 1 is a mono bassline on MIDI channel 1. Voice 2 is a mono lead on MIDI channel 2. Voices 3 to 8 are 6-voice polyphonic chords on MIDI channel 3.
- Set all voices to channel 3 first, so you do not change each voice one by one. Hold the encoder until all voices are selected. Hold the encoder and turn HARM until the ring shows MIDI channel 3. The secondary function of HARM is the MIDI channel. Release the encoder. All voices are now on channel 3, and they form the chords part.
- Hold the encoder and turn it to voice 1. Hold the encoder and turn HARM until the ring shows MIDI channel 1. Release the encoder. Voice 1 is now its own part.
- Repeat for voice 2, assigning MIDI channel 2.
During Part selection the three parts now appear. Part 1 is the bassline, Part 2 the lead, and Part 3 the chords and pads.
Figure 3.2. The three parts during PART selection: PART 1 Bassline (voice 1), PART 2 Lead (voice 2), PART 3 Chords/Pads (voices 3 to 8).
3.4 Voices and Part Reset
Hold the encoder from the main view for at least 5 seconds. Wait for the red LED animation. This returns all voices to MIDI channel 1 and all parameters to their init values.