This guide is intended for general day-to-day use, giving the most important information so that you can get the most out of Yoshimi. There is also a highly detailed Advanced Reference Manual in Portable Document format, complete with external links to references for those wanting an in-depth understanding. This can be found on-line Here. You might also like to take a look at Yoshimi's own Website.
Yoshimi is a fully polyphonic, multi-timbral, multi-channel software synthesiser.
Sound is built up from combinations of three quite different synthesis Engines which, apart from using different methods to create a basic waveform, independently have control of amplitude, panning, filters, and frequency adjustments.
You can have a Kit of up to 16 of these triple engine synthesisers with various overlapping key ranges. These enable you to create complex multi-layered sounds or small drum kits.
This complete Instrument patch is then optionally passed through up to three effects such as Reverb, Phaser and Equalisation. From here output of this Part is given a number and assigned to an individual MIDI input channel, overall key range, Continuous Controller (CC) sensitivities and degree of polyphony.
Parts, can have further Insertion effects applied to them before being directed to either the main audio output, an individual output (if such is available), or both! The main output can have System effects combined from all active parts.
Yoshimi is a highly complex synth with very extensive control options. Therefore, it is split up into a number of context sensitive windows to make this manageable. All of these windows are resizable, and the size and position are stored. With the exception of the Console window, they also maintain their geometry and the contents are scaled accordingly. Some of the more important windows also remember whether they were open when Yoshimi was last closed, and will re-open on the next startup.
You will probably only use a fraction of the options available, but the more obscure ones are there for the occasions when you do need them.
If in doubt, experiment ... but if you produce something special, save it immediately!
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