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Guide BKS Harmonic
BKS Harmonic Ch. 15 — Output
Chapter 15

Output

The Output section is the last thing the sound passes through before it leaves the synth — level, stereo, and a few finishing touches.

The Output module — Transpose, Width, Drive, Output, Pan, Vel, and Sum / Auto buttons
  • Transpose — shifts pitch in semitones, with −8va / +8va buttons for exact octave jumps. It applies to new notes; notes you’re already holding keep their pitch.
  • Width — stereo spread. As you widen it, the synth places odd and even partials to the left and right, so the spread comes from the harmonic content itself rather than a generic stereo effect. Narrow for a focused mono-ish center, wide for a big stereo image.
  • Drive — saturation. From clean to hot, it adds warmth and grit, rounding off the purity of the additive engine when you want some analog dirt.
  • Output — the master level of the patch.
  • Pan — left/right placement.
  • Vel — how much velocity affects volume. At fixed, every note plays at the same level regardless of how hard you hit it (organ-style); toward full, dynamics come through. Note this is about volume — velocity can be routed to other destinations in the mod matrix independently.

Sum and Auto

Two buttons handle housekeeping:

  • Sum — collapses the output to mono, for checking mono compatibility or when you want a centered sound.
  • Auto — auto-gain. It normalizes the patch’s loudness so sounds sit at a consistent level instead of jumping in volume as you browse presets or rebuild a patch. Handy when you’re sound-designing and the level keeps changing under you.

What to Practice

  • Widen Width on a rich, many-partial patch and listen to the stereo image open up as the harmonics spread.
  • Add Drive to a clean tone until it has some warmth, then push it hot for grit.
  • Set Vel to fixed for an organ feel, then to full and play with dynamics — same patch, very different response.

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