3
PREPARATIONS
4
I. PREPARATIONS
UNPACKING 5
ADJUSTING THE FRONTPANEL 5
CONNECTIONS 6
FIRST ENCOUNTER 8
II. FUNCTION OVERVIEW
FRONTPANEL LAYOUT 11
SIGNAL PATH 12
III. PROGRAMMING SOUNDS
OSCILLATOR SECTION 15
GROUP INPUT MODULES 36
FILTER SECTION 38
GROUP OUTPUT MODULES 51
GROUP 1/2 LEVEL MODULATION 52
MASTER ENVELOPE / VCA 55
GLIDE BEND 57
REALTIME CONTROLS 59
PRESET EDIT MENU 64
IV: GLOBAL FUNCTIONS
UTILITY MENU 67
SYSTEM MENU 69
SINGLE PRESET HANDLING 74
V. MULTIMODE
LOAD / SAVE MULTI PRESETS 78
SET UP MULTI PRESETS 79
MULTI UTILITY MENU 85
MULTI SYSTEM MENU 86
VI. APPENDIX
MIDI IMPLEMENTATION 89
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS 98
WARRANTY 100
IMPRESSUM 102
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION
WHO IS SCHMIDT? (”SH-MITT“)
In an ideal world, Schmidt is the synthesizer you have always been dreaming of. Well, anyway, this is the synthesizer
Mr. Stefan Smith, err, Schmidt – the creator of Schmidt – has always dreamed of. And – again in an ideal world –
you and Mr. Schmidt are sharing the same dream (in terms of synthesizers, of course). However, your new Schmidt
synthesizer is a very personal and very special affair. It is the vision of an engineer dedicated to sound, conceived and
perfected in close collaboration with musicians and music producers alike, brought to live in the most uncompromising
way imaginable. Now this dream has nally come true and is right here in front of you within an arm‘s reach –
congratulations if this arm is yours! Of course, Mr Schmidt and everybody else who has had the pleasure of having
been involved in turning this dream into reality, would like to say a big „Thank you!“ to you. We all hope that your new
Schmidt synthesizer will serve you as a creative, inspirational musical instrument for many years to come.
SCHMIDT‘S SKILLS
Schmidt‘s sound generation engine features virtually everything that subtractive synthesis is endowed with – and even
more so: The Oscillator section offers functions to shape very complex sounds with that probably have never been
available in the analog domain thus far. The powerful lter section Schmidt offers is like a fully programmable modular
synthesizer system. You have plenty of modulation routings that excel even your wildest dreams – and rest assured,
we know that synthesizer players like you tend to have really wild dreams. Sometimes, you even get up late at night to
tweak some controls, don‘t you? See, this is how well we know you!
USER MANUAL CONVENTIONS
In this manual we use some format conventions, hoping to make things a lot clearer. You will nd the following
formats:
• Cutoff represents a physical control on Schmidt‘s panel you are asked to work on.
• Space represents a parameter name.
• ON represents a parameter value/state that is indicated either by a lit LED or as data readout on
Schmidt‘s LCD. We take it you know that „LED“ stands for „light-emitting diode“ whereas „LCD“ means „liquid
crystal display“. We thought we should point this out though as these terms keep popping up throughout the
text.
Represents some important note. It is so important we do not even know as yet what it is. Further
reading seems thus recommended!
Sometimes you will be asked to perform a certain sequence of steps. Such a sequence looks e.g. like this:
1 - Select Ramp = ”CLK” on both LFOs.
2 - Select any waveshape (”LFO MODE”) on LFO VCF 1. This setting, in combination with the
LFO 1 Rate setting, determines the waveshape that modulates VCF 1.
3 - Select desired waveshape of LFO VCF 2. This setting, in combination with the LFO 2 Rate setting,
determines the waveshape that modulates VCF 2.
4 - Hit Ramp in LFO VCF 2 again. The „Special“ LED lights up and indicates that both LFOs are now
running in sync.
5 - Alter Mode (waveshape), Rate and Time settings of both LFOs as you please.
We tried to keep this user manual as compact as possible. That‘s why we deliberately avoided descriptions of
synthesizer basics. If you are new to synthesizer technology and sound generation in general, we advise you to go
on a quest for some secondary literature that you can nd on the web or in specialist magazines, like e.g. Keyboard
Magazin or Sound On Sound. Always a good read are classic books like those written by Allen Strange, Devarahi,
Beaver & Krause, or others.