Hi, I am pretty new to ECHON. I am trying to figure out how to create stereo voice spread in a mono-timbral patch. From the manual I understood that you can setup multiple voice groups and pan each one individually in stereo field. But, as I understand, that way I’d loose the ability to control all the voices at once, as each voice group has to be edited individually (or am I wrong?). So then if I have only one group/timbre in my preset, is there way to create a basic traditional voice spread, where the voices are evenly spread in stereo field or something similar to that? Thanks in advance.
The way I currently do it (and I am by no means an expert on the Echon 6) is do it through the use of multiple Voice Groups, then I will pan each voice group separately and accordingly.
The other way I’ve done it is to send each voice out to a mixer/interface and adjust the voice spread in post. You can then achieve interesting effects like chiastic slide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXaxa5peDVM
Thanks, that’s what I thought how you would do it - separate all the voices into individual voice groups. But then if I need to adjust the envelope or something, you can’t do it for all the groups simultaneously, is that correct. I wish there was a way to create a stereo spread within one voice group. Using individual mixer channels is another way too of course…
I just had a quick read through the manual; I think (this may require @Eli to confirm) you can probably use an LFO within a singular voice group but involves some finessing with the random / smoothing. You then would set the “width” by adjusting the mod parameter. You can then choose to KB reset it to change the voice panning on each key press. Not quite the same as a unison spread, mind you. But depending on what you’re trying to achieve it may just work.
Another option, although this may be more involved is to create a hilbert transform and that will give you something more of a “stereo” width which is a little more mono safe than say something like the haas effect. Although don’t quote me on that as gospel, I’ve barely got my head around it’s utility yet and it’s not something you’d do in the synth but in post.
Hi @StellarDolphin97, thanks @attiph, you’re on the right track!
You can do this within a single voice group. Each voice has its own Quad LFO, and PANNING is a modulation destination, so you can give every voice its own stereo position, one way to do it is:
- Pick a free LFO with SELECT.
- Make sure it is bipolar (red LED) (if not, long-press LFO WAVE to set it to bipolar). This spreads the voices around your PANNING knob position instead of pushing them to one side.
- Turn RANDOM / WAVE MIX fully counterclockwise, so the LFO outputs only random values.
- Turn RANDOM RATE fully counterclockwise. This stops the sample-and-hold clock, so each voice holds its own random value indefinitely: a fixed pan offset per voice. Leave SMOOTH off.
- Hold the QUAD LFO source key and turn PANNING clockwise to set the depth. That’s your stereo width. Leave PANNING itself at 12 o’clock.
After that, you can use the Quad LFO SOURCE MACRO or the LFO’s AMPLITUDE as a single “width” control.
A few variations:
- New position per note: enable KB RESET on that LFO. Each note-on then picks a new random value, so every note lands somewhere different in the stereo field.
- Keyboard spread: route KEY FOLLOW to PANNING instead. Low notes pan left and high notes pan right, like a piano. The spread is predictable rather than random.
- Wide unison: combine any of the above with UNISON enabled in Voice Group Mode. You get all six voices stacked on one note and spread across the stereo field.
Because the spread comes from random values, it isn’t perfectly even. Occasionally two voices can land close together. If you want exact, hand-placed positions, separate voice groups are still the way to go. To reduce the editing work, finish the sound in one group, then copy it to the others (hold the group’s NUMBER key and press WRITE, then hold WRITE and press the target NUMBER key). After that you only need to adjust PANNING per group.
Also useful: the individual outputs are stereo (TRS) and keep the panning and any pan modulation. So @attiph’s per-voice mixer approach works with this setup too.
Enjoy!
Eli
Thanks so much for the explanation. I tried it and it somewhat works, but you don’t always get an even spread, but the same time It’s also interesting to let the voices slowly drift from left to right with a semi random rate for an unusual stereo effect and stuff like that. I guess you can’t just expect a synth do things that you think it should be able to do and just try to be creative with what’s available. And the same time it makes me appreciate more some of the much cheaper synth like Behringer Deepmind, that can do an even voice spread, with modulatable width, and also things like letting the LFO’s for individual voices to be out of phase with each other by an even degree, etc. Maybe something like that could also be implemented on the Echon in future updates. Just a thought.
Glad the random approach gave you some interesting results! You can actually get a precise, even spread on ECHON 6. It just takes one voice per voice group:
- Build your sound in voice group 1 first.
- In Voice Group Edit Mode, assign one voice to each of the six voice groups.
- Copy group 1 to the other five: hold NUMBER 1 and press WRITE, then hold WRITE and press each target NUMBER key.
- Set PANNING per group, for example hard left, ⅔ left, ⅓ left, ⅓ right, ⅔ right, hard right.
- Play from the preset MIDI channel with UNISON off in Preset Mode. ECHON 6 then allocates notes across the groups, so it plays like a normal 6-voice poly with every voice in its own fixed spot. Turn preset UNISON on to stack all six on one note for a wide unison.
For now, edits after the split apply per group, so it’s easiest to finish the sound first. That’s about to change, though: the upcoming firmware adds Voice Group Link, which lets you control all six voice groups together from the front panel. You’ll be able to tweak the envelope, filters and everything else across all voices at once while each group keeps its own panning. That gives you exactly the evenly spread, fully editable setup you’re after.
Because each voice has its own group, you can also give each one slightly different LFO rates or onset delays for extra movement.
Thanks for the suggestion about spread width and LFO phase offsets within a single voice group.