ZR-3
Users Manual
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This software is free, though you're kindly asked to donate for a globally acting non government organisation like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Medicins Sans Frontieres or likewise. License
If you use this product you're kindly asked to donate for a globally acting non government organisation like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Medicines Sans Frontieres or likewise. You are not allowed to sell the product files. You are not allowed to alter the product files. You are not allowed to use product features for building other products. This includes graphics as well as sound issues.
ZR-3 is an emulation of a drawbar organ providing two keyboards and a pedal section. It's not a close tonewheel emulation, but you can choose between different basic waveforms in addition to the "clean" sound of pure sine waves. ZR-3 features the basic drawbar control, click emulation, sustain, percussion and pitch bend. The effects include vibrato, a versatile distortion / overdrive section ("Mr. Valve") and rotating speakers emulation. ZR-3 can be played through separate midi channels or in keyboard split mode. You will most likely find Rumpelrausch Täips here: http://rumpelrausch.de.vu/ Greet the author, send him your love, adore him or complain about non-availability of the web page: flp@gmx.de Please donate. 
ZR-3 has three independent keyboard emulations. They all share these parameters. Click controls the click amount. Easy. Bender defines the number of halftones to pitch when pitch bend midi controls are received. Sustain is the sustain time (in "ADSR" talk it's actually the release time). Sustain can be enabled separately for each voice. Shape defines the basic waveform. These are the options: 1 - pure sine wave * 2 - sine wave with slight saturation 3 - sine wave with medium saturation 4 - sine wave with heavy saturation 5 - triangle wave 6 - sawtooth *: ZR-3 tries to simulate a "tonewheel" instrument. These early electronic organs had small rotating metal discs with an attached pickup as tone generators. Such a generator did not produce pure sine waves. Neither does ZR-3: The sine wave is a little "dirty". However, ZR-3 does not simulate different tonewheels. It can be seen as a single master tonewheel being used by the whole instrument. Triangle and sawtooth waveforms are probably best for bass sounds. Percussion selects the pitch of the percussion sound. It provides the same registers as the drawbars do. Percussion can be enabled separately for each voice. Percussion-vol controls the percussion volume. Perc Fade defines how fast the percussion sound decays. Mono switches the whole machine into monophonic mode. This is probably best for bass sounds. 
Drawbars are the core concept of this instrument. They can be interpreted as a straight simulation: All electronic organs use them. These instruments used to simulate church organs. That's where the names come from: The number depicts the length of the pipes in feet. And there is another way to understand drawbars: The drawbars represent the ground tone and the first eight natural overtones. There is one exception, though: For musical reasons the first and second overtone have been swapped. Anyway, whoever is into fourier synthesis will look at drawbars as a nice method to practice it. The three emulations can be played using midi channel one, two or three. A split mode is available to play the first emulation and the bass pedal section using midi channel one. The third section emulates a bass pedal and features five drawbars. Perc enables percussion for the current channel. Sust enables Sustain for the current channel. 
The bottom parameter window shows either additional voice parameters (vibrato) or the effects section (distortion and speaker simulation). The display mode can be selected using these buttons. 
Channel one and two can be routed through a vibrato effect. The vibrato effect is a fast mono chorus. It can be turned into a real vibrato effect by moving the Mix value up to 100%. 
Mr. Valve emulates smooth and heavy saturation, distortion, dirty fuzz and simple low pass filtering. Drive sets the amount of saturation. If set to zero not distortion will take place regardless of the Set parameter. Set controls additional dirty distortion and fuzz. With Set at zero only saturation will take place. Tone sets the built in low pass filter. The displayed number is the center frequency measured in Hz. Mix is a cross fader between the distorted and the original sound. Here are some hints upon how to set parameters: A. Smooth saturation and warmth Keep Set at zero. Turn up Drive and Tone. Move Mix above 50% and compare with the original sound. Add warmth by turning down Tone. Add dirt by slightly tunrning up Set. B. Heavy fuzz With Set up to 100%, turn Mix over to 100% and first check the pure distorted sound. Twiggle Drive to find the dirt. Keep the agressiveness under control with Tone. Move Mix back to a reasonable amount. Example: FLPs fiese Forfiesa C. Low pass filter Set Drive to zero. No distortion will take place. Turn Mix up and set Tone. 
A double rotating speaker cabinet with a bass rotor and a mid/high rotor is emulated. Speed turns the speed up and down. It responds to the modulation wheel midi control. Midi Pedal Speed enables another interpretation of midi controls: The midi pedal controller switches the rotation speed instead of triggering the hold mode. The modulation controller is routed to the sweller gain. Slow and Fast set the actual speeds of the two speed modes. Belt emulates the tightness of the rubber belt connecting the motor with the rotating horn plate. The tighter the belt is the faster the speed changes. Spread sets the microphone position. The more the microphones are spread the heavier the stereo effects becomes. You will also experience a difference in the way the sound "passes" the microphones: If you listen from only one position you will mainly hear one speaker rotating from one side to the other. If you position your microphones at opposite sides of the cabinet you will experience a more complex mixture of both horn speakers moving forth and back. Complex enables more complexity for the lower speaker rotor. The sound can get thicker, but is costs some processor power. Midi Pedal Split changes the midi layout: If activated the hold pedal controls the rotor speed, whereas the modulation control is routed to the master volume.
The panel can be used to select a preset by clicking on the panel, holding the mouse button and moving the mouse up and down. This can be valuable when using a VST host incapable of selecting programs (e.g. Orion Pro ®). It shows the plugin version number, the currently selected program number and the program name. If a value of a program has been changed the string "* modified *" is displayed in the third line of the panel. Whenever a parameter gets selected (mouse click and hold) the display shows the actual parameter name and its value. The value is displayed as number and as a horizontal bar. Save stores a modified program. Compare temporarily loads the parameters of the original, unchanged program. All parameters appear "frozen" and can't be changed when Compare is active. Modified Programs can be stored into other locations: After making the desired parameter changes press the Compare button and select the program you want to store to. Finally press Save and the program will be stored at the new position. Bass Pedal Midi Split allows the definition of a splitpoint for simultaneous play of the first emulation and the bass pedal section through midi channel one. The definition work like this:
ZR-3 responds to: Note on / Note off Main Volume Controller: Controls sweller value, not visible Modulation wheel:
B: Controls master volume. Pedal:
B: Toggles rotation speed.
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