fusion

Ryo Kawasaki with Guitar Synthesizer

Description:

Ryo Kawasaki plays his guitar synthesizer, accompanied by Lincoln, Buddy & Ilana. A huge rack of guitar synth modules can be seen behind him. 1980 in Tokyo. 

The group is called Ryo Kawasaki & the Golden Dragon.

via Satellite Records

NAMM 2006 Winter Show: Alesis introduced a free Version 1.20 firmware upgrade for the company’s Fusion 6HD and 8HD keyboard workstations. With a combination of new sounds, exciting new features, and software that facilitates greater compatibility with commercially available sample data, this new update is a must have for Fusion owners.

The V1.20 upgrade provides a broad range of new sounds that can be downloaded to the Fusion’s hard drive. With a wide assortment of pianos, strings, brass, woodwind, percussion, and synthesized timbres, Preset 5 is a hard drive-based bank of sounds that takes advantage of the Fusion’s new synthesis features and add more sonic variety and richness—enabling keyboard players to use the Fusion in more musical applications.

With four types of synthesis, the Fusion’s sound capabilities have always been stellar, and now V1.20 up’s the ante once again with the addition of several new synthesis features. The Fusion’s filter capabilities get a boost with the addition of the RP low pass filter derived from Alesis’ popular Ion synthesizer and three formant filters. The update adds up to four sample oscillator layers per Program as well as up to four insert effects per Program. There is also a new parameter that has been added to the oscillator to have it reset its sample in monophonic legato mode. Read more…

An updated OS, version 1.2, has been released for the Alesis Fusion synthesizer/workstation. The new OS update comes with a combination of new sound data, a number of significant new functions, and additional software that facilitates greater compatibility with commercially available sample data.

“All of us at Alesis are very excited about this new update, as it represents a significant increase in capabilities for Fusion workstation owners,” said Alesis’ Mark Frederick. “Of equal importance, this update is just one in an ongoing series of updates planned for this versatile keyboard. We intend to enhance the Fusion’s sounds and functionality on an ongoing basis, enabling the instrument to continually provide new capabilities to its owners.” Read more…

2005 NAMM Show: The Fusion 6HD/8HD Workstations from Alesis contain four synthesizers, an eight-channel hard disk recorder, built-in sampler, effects processor and expandable RAM possibilities, all in one package.

Powered by a Coldfire processor surrounded by seven high-performance DSPs, the Fusion is the only synth workstation with integrated 8-channel 24-bit recording capability. Available in two models — the 61 note semi-weighted 6HD and the full sized 88-note fully-weighted 8HD — this production center is ideal for the professional project studio or live performance applications.

The Fusion series is the only workstation of its kind that can save and load programs off of a hard disk (or the removable Compact Flash memory), so users can store sounds on the internal disk and always have their programs available. Users never have to load samples off a slow CD-ROM or floppy disk again.

Additional features include; direct CD-R burning, fully assignable buttons and 360- degree knobs for total control of synth parameters, 32 track MIDI sequencer, fully programmable arpeggiator and internal memory expandable from 64MB to 192MB.

More information is available at the Alesis site.

NAMM 2005: Alesis debuts Fusion Synth keyboard workstation. The Fusion has a newly developed synthesizer engine that employs a Coldfire processor surrounded by seven high-performance DSPs. This powerful processing core provides four synthesis types: Sample Playback, Analog Modeling, FM and Physical Modeling.

Specifications:

Tone Generator – Fusion Engine Synthesis – Sample Playback, Virtual Analog, FM, Physical Modeling

• Polyphony – Dynamic processor allocation. Up to 180 voices of sampleplayback.
• Multitimbral Capacity – Mix: 8 internal/16 external, Song: 16 internal/16 external
• Waveforms- tones – 120 MB (when converted to 16-bit linear format)
• Sounds – Preset Instruments: 800 Programs; Preset Drumkits : 64 Drumkits; GM: 128 Programs, plus 8 Drum Kits; User: 40GB of whatever you want
• Mixes – 200 Mixes
• Filters – 13 types
• Effects – 20 Reverbs, 10 Chorus, 50 Insert Effects, 4 Band EQ (low shelf, low, mid, high mid, Hi shelve

Sampler

• Multi-samples (waveform capacity) – 128 samples per Multisample
• Sampling sources – Analog Input L/R, Stereo Output (resampling)
• A/D Conversion – 24 -bit, 64 X oversampling
• D/A Conversion – 24 -bit, 128 X oversampling
• Sampling Frequencies – 44.1 kHz
• Memory – 64MB installed, optional expansion to 192MB
• Sampling Time – 11 Min, 53 Sec (with onboard memory), 37 Min, 15 Sec (with full expansion memory)
• Sample Formats – Alesis format, wav

Sequencer

• Note Capacity – Unlimited / based on HD limitations
• Note Resolution – 480 ppq
• Tracks – 32 Tracks
• Songs – 40GB of whatever you want
• Arpeggio – Preset: 1000; User: Unlimited
• Sequence Format – SMF

Controllers

• Pitch Bend Wheel, Modulation Wheel, Aftertouch, Assignable Control Knobs (4), Assignable Trigger Buttons (4), Assignable Switches (2)

Display

• 240 x 128 backlit LCD

External Storage

• Compact Flash Type I and Type II (Flash and Microdrives), SATA HD and (by Fall 2005) CD-RW

Connectors

• Stereo Input L-Mono/R (Standard 1/4 Jack)
• Stereo Headphone Output (Standard 1/4 Jack)
• Stereo Main Output L/R (Standard 1/4 Jack)
• Stereo Aux Output L/R (Standard 1/4 Jack)
• S/PDIF Output (Coax/Optical), ADAT Output (Optical)
• MIDI In/Out/Thru
• Sustain Pedal
• Footswitch
• Expression Pedal
• USB (to Host)
• HD Recording Inputs 1-8 (Standard 1/4 Jack)
• External Drive (SATA)
• AC Inlet

Power Consumption

• 50 W

Dimensions

• Fusion 8HD: 51.5×14x5 in, 130.8×35.6×12.7cm
• Fusion 6HD: 35.5×14x4 in, 90.2×35.6×10.2 cm

Weight

• Fusion 8HD: 58.4 lb, 25.6 kg
• Fusion 6HD: 30.4 lb, 13.8 kg

More information is available at the Fusion Synth site.