New Sequential Take 5 Owner

[IceTre]

Hi everybody.  I bought a Take 5 about a month ago.  This is my second synth, my first was the Moog Sub-Phatty monophonic synth that I got 4 years ago.  I'm a guitar player and a songwriter, not a keyboard player. My piano skills are beginner level, as is my analog synth knowledge. I bought the Moog to learn the basics of synthesis, which I did (sort of).  I bought the Take 5 because I wanted a polyphonic synth so I could play chords and learn how to create analog string and other pad sounds to use for writing new material.

Any tips from real analog synth players here would be greatly appreciated!

[kpatz]

Congratulations on your recent Take 5 acquisition.  It really is a great little synth for the money.

If you're learning, a good way to figure out how a patch works is to select a factory preset you like, then go through the program menu to see what's set up, and scroll through the mod matrix as well.  To see how the knobs are set, slowly turn each knob and you'll see a dot (decimal point) in the LED display light up when you pass/hit the saved position.

Here's some tips I've compiled as I've been playing and programming mine.  I have more, but these are good for someone starting out.

1.  There's a sweet spot around 10 o'clock on the osc mixer levels.  When turned higher it gets more compressed, and it drowns out the filter resonance.
2.  The filter drive knob has a subtle effect, most noticeable with resonance turned up.  Experiment with it.
3.  Filter keytracking is in the program menu, item #12.  Just putting this here so you can get to it quickly when needed.
4.  In the basic program, LFO1 is routed to Osc1 Fine initially.  If you want vibrato with both oscs, change this to OscAll Fine.  A quick way to do this is to hold LFO1 Dest, then Osc2 Pitch to select Osc2 Fine, then turn the Value knob clockwise one click to reach OscAll Fine.
5.  The Osc1 and 2 Pitch knobs have a +/- 7 semitone (700 cent) range.  If you want to dial in an interval precisely, these parameters are available in the program menu as well, with the value displayed, so you can dial it in precisely.
6.  To find a slot to save your patch in, hit Write to enter write mode, then hit Compare.  From here you can select preset slots and hear the presets that are saved in them.  When you find the one you want to overwrite, hit Compare again to return to your patch, (optionally change the name) and hit Write again to save.

[IceTre]

To see how the knobs are set, slowly turn each knob and you'll see a dot (decimal point) in the LED display light up when you pass/hit the saved position.

I tried this, but I don't see a dot anywhere on the LED display.  I just have the name of the patch up.  Do I need to go into a different screen to see it?  Or press a button?  I'd love to be able to do this, so I can see how they created the various sounds.

Thanks for the tips! 

[kpatz]

I tried this, but I don't see a dot anywhere on the LED display.  I just have the name of the patch up.  Do I need to go into a different screen to see it?  Or press a button?  I'd love to be able to do this, so I can see how they created the various sounds.

Thanks for the tips!

It's not on the OLED display, it's on the red 7-segment patch number display between the bank and patch buttons.  A decimal point will appear in this display when you edit a parameter and it matches the preset.  An easy way to see it is to toggle a button like unison or glide and then toggle it back so it matches the preset value again, the decimal will appear.  Once you know where to see it, try turning a knob slowly to see where it blips on when you pass the saved value.  Hitting it exact can be tricky, but it's presently the only way to see what the saved value is.

Hopefully a future firmware update will let you see parameter values (current & saved) on the display when turning knobs.

[IceTre]

Thanks Kpatz, I see the dot now in the patch number display.  Thanks for that tip.  I'm going to start exploring how the factory patches were made.