These parameters affect the overall behavior of the EXS24 mkII. You can find the global parameters at the top left of the interface.
A polyphonic instrument allows several notes to be played simultaneously—for example, an organ or piano. Brass or reed instruments are monophonic, which means that only one note can be played at a time. The EXS24 mkII allows you to choose an appropriate keyboard mode for the type of instrument that is loaded. You are free to use a monophonic mode for polyphonic instruments, which allows playing styles that are not possible with polyphonic instruments.
If you choose Mono mode, staccato playing will retrigger the envelope generators every time a new note is played. If you play in a legato style (play a new key while holding another), the envelope generators are triggered only for the first note you play legato and then continue their curve until you release the last legato played key.
The Legato mode is also monophonic, but with one difference—the envelope generators are only retriggered if you play staccato (release each key before playing a new key).
In Unison mode, multiple EXS24 mkII voices are played when a key is struck. This enables a richer sound, achieved by slightly detuning each voice. This is ideal when emulating classic analog synthesizers.
Activate either Mono or Legato mode and also turn on the Unison button:
The intensity of the unison effect depends on the number chosen in the Voices parameter field. Increase the Voices value for a fatter sound.
The intensity of detuning (voice deviation) is set with the Random parameter (see Using the EXS24 mkII Pitch Parameters).
Activate the Poly and Unison buttons.
In Poly/Unison mode, each played note is effectively doubled—or, more correctly, the polyphony value of the Voices parameter is halved. These two voices are then heard when you trigger the note. Activating Poly/Unison has the same effect as setting the EXS24 mkII to Mono/Unison (Voices = 2), but you can play polyphonically.
Voices are equally distributed in the panorama field and are evenly detuned. The Random knob value determines the amount of tuning deviation between voices.
Note: The number of voices actually used per note increases with the number of layered sample zones.
This parameter determines the maximum number of voices (polyphony) that the EXS24 mkII can play. The “used” field is a real-time monitor that indicates the number of voices that are actually used when you play the keyboard. If both fields tend to show the same value most of the time (probably causing a noticeable number of voices to drop out), you should set a higher voices value.
The Xfade parameters allow you to crossfade between layered samples—known as zones in the EXS24 mkII—with adjacent velocity ranges. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of layering samples, see Layering EXS24 mkII Zones.
Note: You can also set other modulation sources, such as the modulation wheel of your MIDI keyboard, to modulate the Amount parameter. If you do this, the Amount parameter still functions in the same way, but the crossfade will be triggered by the modulation wheel rather than by velocity.