N [nyː]

Polyphonic Ensemble
Version 1.0

© 2023 by Björn Arlt @ Full Bucket Music

www.fullbucket.de/music

VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation
The Audio Units logo is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
Ny Manual Page 2

Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................3
Acknowledgments.....................................3
The Lambda Lies Down In Software..............4
It All Sounds Greek To Me..........................4
What’s In The Box?...................................4
Three Banks To Rule Them All....................5
The Ny – An Overview................................6
The Ensemble Section...............................6
The Percussive Section..............................7
Modifier Sections......................................7
Chorus Phase...........................................8
More Tweak Sections.................................8
Plugin Handling.........................................9
Control Section........................................9
Options Menu...........................................9
The ny.ini Configuration File.....................10
MIDI Control Change Messages................10
MIDI Learn............................................10
Parameters.............................................11
Modifier Sections....................................11
Percussive Section..................................11
Ensemble Section...................................12
Chorus Phase Section..............................12
Tweak Sections.......................................13
Frequently Asked Questions.......................14
Ny Manual Page 3

Introduction
The Ny is a software instrument plug-in for Microsoft Windows (VST2/VST3/CLAP) and
Apple macOS (VST2/VST3/AU/CLAP) simulating the classic KORG® Lambda ES-50
Polyphonic Ensemble from 1979. It is written in native C++ code for high performance
even on “lighter” systems. The main features are:

● Close simulation of the original hardware

● 64 voices polyphony
● Percussive and Ensemble sections
● Chorus (Phase) effect
● Many tweakable parameters
● All parameters can be controlled by MIDI controllers
● Plug-in supports Windows and macOS (32 bit and 64 bit)

The Ny is based on the iPlug2 framework maintained by Oli Larkin and the iPlug2
team. Big thanks, guys!!! Without your work it would not have been possible to
create a resizable Ny user interface.
To resize the plug-in you just grab the yellow triangle at the bottom right of the
window and drag it. You can save the current window size using the menu entry
“Save Window Size” in the Options Menu.
If you have trouble with the standard version of the Ny, please grab the (sound-wise
identical) “N” version of the plug-in which is based on the original iPlug framework.

Acknowledgments
 Oli Larkin and the iPlug2 team.
 Nathan Ramsden aka SynthNerd (https://synthnerd.wordpress.com) helped me
out with some invaluable information about the Lambda – thank you so much!
 kraftraum (https://soundcloud.com/kraftraum) has designed many the default
patches 41 to 62 and did the Beta testing.
 All the folks that nagged me to do a Lambda simulation!
No, I am not affiliated with KORG in what relation ever except that I find myself
entangled with their instruments. 
Ny Manual Page 4

The Lambda Lies Down In Software

I couldn’t resist to type this silly headline. 
And I always thought that my PECS plug-in would fully cover the Lambda as well, but
of course I was wrong. So here we are with Ny (in German you would write it “nü”
using one of those famous umlauts like “ö”) which is a pretty silly name, I know.
As usual, here is my personal confession that Ny does not sound like the Lambda
(how could it since analog rulez?) but more like a poor knock-off (because it is digital
which does not rulez)1. OK, done with that, next paragraph.

It All Sounds Greek To Me

In the beginning was the PE-20002, and it was good – but not perfect. And so the
good folks at KORG decided to enhance their polyphonic ensemble and name it Λ
(Lambda, a Greek letter) as they also did with its siblings, the Δ (Delta) DL-50 and the
Σ (Sigma) KP-30.
Seriously: A direct competitor of that time, the famous Solina string ensemble, is
sounding great because of its patented unique Ensemble effect. But if you switch that
effect off you will get some basic organ-style stuff with a single oscillator bank and
paraphonic articulation. The PE-2000 is much more than that because it features three
oscillator banks, and the Lambda even tops it with fully polyphonic articulation (well,
up to specific degree), an additional Percussive section, and a Chorus effect (called
Chorus Phase although it is not a Phaser).
So it is no surprise that the Lambda still has its fan base, and one of these guys is
Nathan aka SynthNerd who also covers a lot of the technical details in his blog at
https://synthnerd.wordpress.com.

What’s In The Box?

Compared to the PE-2000, the Lambda extends the number of presets from 8 to 9,
and four of those come with the new Percussive section3 to reproduce instruments like
(Electric) Piano and Clavi(net). The result is far from convincing but that is not the
point: It definitely extends the sonic capabilities of the Lambda.
The other five presets are located in the Ensemble section: Brass, Organ, Chorus
(choir) and Strings I+II. The Brass preset features its own single VCF (voltage
controlled filter) which is paraphonic i.e. together for all played keys. However, in the
context of the instrument this is no real disadvantage. Note that all presets can be
activated in any combination!
Unfortunately the Lambda does not have the cunningly designed (although hidden
under the hood) pre-filters of the PE-2000 which provided IMHO a “better” preset
sound-shaping with respect to the played note’s pitch. Instead the preset filters of the
Lambda are static and consequently a bit “limited”.

1 Yes, I know, all my plug-ins sound the identical and not analogish at all...
2 Yes, I know, there was also the PE-1000...
3 Yes, I know, the PE-1000 was able to do percussive sounds as well...
Ny Manual Page 5

Three Banks To Rule Them All

The three oscillator banks of the Lambda are producing 16’, 8’, 4’, and 2’ square wave
signals simultaneousy. To generate sawtooth signals the four square wave signals are
added together – as it is done in many organs, strings ensembles and even
synthesizers of that era, too. The resulting “staircase sawtooth” is not perfect but
good enough for most applications.
The oscillator banks are of course a resource that has to be used wisely. Thus, they
will be shared among the selected presets in the following manner:
● The Percussive presets will always and solely use bank 1.
● The Brass preset will always and solely use banks 1 and 2.
● If any Percussive preset is selected, the Ensemble presets (not Brass) will use
banks 2 and 3.
● If no Percussive preset is selected, the Ensemble presets (not Brass) will use all
the banks 1, 2 and 3.
Connoisseurs of the Lambda already know about that. But there is more quirky stuff
to come:
All three banks feature individual envelopes per key for shaping the amplitude
contour. The bank 1 envelopes are of the Attack/Decay (A/D) type while the bank 2
and 3 envelopes are of the Attack/Release (A/R) type. When no Percussive preset is
selected, bank 1 is used for the Ensemble section as well – but bank 1 does not sport
(variable) A/R envelopes. In this case the individual A/D envelopes of bank 1 are
disabled and replaced by a global (i.e. paraphonic) Attack/Release envelope that
retriggers for each note played! [Thanks again to Nathan aka SynthNerd for
confirming my assumptions here when studying the Lambda’s schematics.] It is quite
surprising that you really have to try hard to hear this effect.
Funny enough, the Brass presets behaves differently: When a Percussive preset is
selected, bank 1 keeps its A/D and bank 2 its A/R envelopes (i.e. no global envelope is
used for the Brass preset). Of course there is another global A/D envelope that
exclusively modulates the Brass VCF.
Confused? Who wouldn’t be. But in the end it all makes some sense. And Ny does
simulate all these quirks.
Ny Manual Page 6

The Ny – An Overview
The Ny basically consists of two sections: Percussive and Ensemble. There is also a
Chorus effect and some options to tweak the sound – some of them not available at
the original Lambda hardware. The instrument itself is fully polyphonic… ah, not quite,
only 64-voice polyphonic.

The Ensemble Section

It is fair to state that this is the heart of the Ny. There are five presets: Brass, Organ,
Chorus (which is actually a choir), Strings I, and Strings II4.

Strings II is very similar to Strings I but one octave higher, while Chorus is technically
similar to Strings I but fed through a fixed peaking bandpass filter to give it an “A”
vowel-like sound. Brass is a classic synth brass patch, and Organ sounds more like a
pipe organ than a “rock” organ.
The “VIB. OFF” switch deactivates the Vibrato effect applied to the Chorus and Strings
presets. Note that the Vibrato speed is the same for all three oscillator banks but the
frequency shift is out of phase. This means that when bank 1 is shifted positively,
bank 2 is not shifted at all while bank 3 is shifted negatively and so on. This allows for
a rich Ensemble effect without actually using an Ensemble effect.
“ATT. REL. VAR” (“Variable Attack/Release”) activates the two knobs on the right to set
custom Attack and Release times. In theory these should apply for the Chorus and
Strings presets only, but due to the nature of the oscillator banks and their envelopes
(see section Three Banks To Rule Them All) they will also affect the Brass and Organ
presets when at least one preset of both of these groups is activated simultaneously
(for example Brass+Strings I or Organ+Chorus). The same is true for the Vibrato
effect!
The five knobs below the preset switches control the individual level of each preset.
The Lambda originally does not have such an option and uses fixed levels. Personally,
I think this tweak is quite useful.

4 The rocker switches in the UI read “String I” and “String II”. This is to provide better
readability at of lower graphic resolutions.
Ny Manual Page 7

The Percussive Section

The four presets of the Percussive section are Electric Piano, Clavi, Piano, and
Harmonics. The Decay time of the presets can be adjusted using the knob on the
lower right while the “SUST.” (Sustain) switch sets the Release time equal to the
Decay time (I remember some other keyboards from the good old days where this
function was described as “applying a reverb effect” – which is of course nonsense…).

The Percussive section also features a Tremolo effect that can be (de)activated using
the “TREM.” switch. The speed of the effect can be set as well.
As in the Ensemble section the four knobs below the preset switches (which are not
available on the Lambda) control the individual level of each preset.

Modifier Sections
To some degree the sound of the Ny can be tweaked further using the (what I call)
regular modifier sections – “regular” in the sense that they are available on the
original hardware, too.

The Tune section controls the overall tuning (“Total Tune”) and the individual tuning of
oscillator bank 2 (here called “Tune A”) and oscillator bank 3 (“Tune B”). The LEDs on
top of the A/B Tune knobs visualize the amount of “beating” of the detuning.
The Accent section sports two knobs: One for adjusting the cutoff frequency of the
Brass VCF (see section More Tweak Sections) and one for controlling the level of “key-
click” of (and only of) the Electric Piano preset. To my taste the latter sounds pretty
awkward, but who am I to judge…
Ny Manual Page 8

The Tone section consists of two simple lowpass filters – one for the Percussive and
one for the Ensemble section. The frequency of these filters can be controlled
individually.
As the name suggest you can set the volume in the Volume section. Here you find a
minor difference to the original hardware: It is possible to set the panorama position
of the Percussive and the Ensemble section, too. The Lambda has three outputs: Mix
Out (a simple mono mix) and Stereo L + R. The latter two (L and R) are the dry
Ensemble section output plus the Chorus Phase output of the Percussive section and
the dry Percussive section output plus the Chorus Phase output of the Ensemble
section. I think it is useful to have dedicated panorama knobs here (especially given
the tweak parameter X-Stereo of the Chorus Phase section).
Finally you can pitch up the whole instrument by one octave using the “OCT. UP”
switch in the Octave section.

Chorus Phase
Well, this is “just” a Chorus effect (not sure where the term “Phase”
comes from). On the Lambda you can only switch it off per preset
section and control its speed using the classic KORG joystick control.
The Ny offers some more tweaks: You can set the minimum Chorus
speed and its modulation depth (the maximum speed is controlled via
the Modulation Wheel – see section More Tweak Sections). Finally, you
can select if the individual Chorus signals of the preset sections should
be put to the opposite panorama position of the dry signals (X-Stereo is
on) or not (X-Stereo is off).

More Tweak Sections

Modulation features the amount of Pitch Bend (± notes) and the Modulation Wheel
controlling the (maximum) speed of the Chorus Phase. In contrary to the Lambda, the
Ny also accepts Velocity information.
While the parameters of the Lambda’s Brass VCF cannot be modified (with the
exception of the Brass fc control in the Tone section), Ny offers some more control
here: Peak (the resonance of the VCF), envelope intensity and Attack/Release times.
The speed of the Vibrato effect can be set in the Vibrato section. It is also possible to
set the depth of the effect for the Chorus and the Strings separately. However, since
the three oscillator banks are used for all presets together, the final Vibrato depth
depends on the preset selection: If Chorus is selected, the Chorus Vibrato depth is
used – else the Strings depth applies.
The tweak parameter for the Chorus Phase have already been dicussed above.
Ny Manual Page 9

Plugin Handling

Control Section
The Lambda is a preset machine, but it is not possible to store the selected presets
along with all the tweaked parameters. Being a software plug-in, the Ny can do this,
and you even can give a name to such a Program.

Options Menu
When clicking the Menu button in the Control section, a context menu opens with the
following options:

Copy Program Copy current program to internal clipboard

Paste Program Paste internal clipboard to current program
Init Program Initialize the current program
Load Program Load a program file containing a patch to Ny's current
program
Save Program Save Ny's current program to a program file
Load Bank Load a bank file containing 64 patches into Ny
Save Bank Save Ny's 64 patches to a bank file
Select Startup Bank Select the bank file that should always be loaded when Ny
is started
Load Startup Bank Load the Startup bank file; can also be used to check what
the current Startup bank is
Unselect Startup Unselect the current Startup bank
Bank
Default Path for Sets the default path for program and bank files
Program Files
MIDI Thru Set globally if MIDI data sent to Ny should be sent through
to its MIDI output (stored in configuration file)
Ignore Program Set globally if MIDI Program Change data sent to Ny should
Change be ignored (stored in configuration file)
Reload Configuration Reload Ny's configuration file
Save Configuration Save Ny's configuration file
Check Online for When connected to the Internet, this function will check if a
Update newer version of Ny is available at fullbucket.de
Visit fullbucket.de Open fullbucket.de in your standard browser
Ny Manual Page 10

The ny.ini Configuration File

The Ny is able to read some settings from a configuration file (ny.ini). The exact
location of this file depends on your operating system and will be displayed when you
click on “Reload” or “Save Configuration”.

MIDI Control Change Messages

All parameters of the Ny can be controlled by MIDI controllers, or more precise: Each
MIDI controller (except Modulation Wheel and Sustain Pedal) can control one of Ny's
parameters. The mapping is defined in the ny.ini for example like this:
[MIDI Control]
CC7 = 1 # Volume Ensemble
CC70 = 8 # Brass fc
CC71 = 43 # Brass Peak
...

The syntax is straight forward:

CC<controller number> = <parameter ID>
Given the above example, controller 7 directly controls the Volume Ensemble
parameter, controller 70 the Brass fc etc. As you can see, comments are introduced by
the Pound sign (#); they are here just for description purposes and completely
optional. Note that the controller number can run from 0 to 110, with the exception of
1 (Modulation Wheel) and 64 (Sustain Pedal); the latter two are simply ignored.

MIDI Learn
The easiest way to assign MIDI controllers to Ny parameters is to use the MIDI Learn
function. To activate MIDI Learn, click on the LEARN button and wiggle both the MIDI
controller and the Ny's parameter that you want to link. If you want to unlearn the
assignment, right-click the LEARN button (the label now reads “UNLEARN”) and
activate it. Now wiggle the MIDI controller or the parameter that you want to unlearn.
Ny Manual Page 11

Parameters

Modifier Sections
parameter id description
Volume Percussive 0 Volume of the Percussive section
Volume Ensemble 1 Volume of the Ensemble section
Pan Percussive 2 Panorama of the Percussive section
Pan Ensemble 3 Panorama of the Ensemble section
Total Tune 4 Total (master) tune
Tune A 5 Tune of oscillator bank 2
Tune B 6 Tune of oscillator bank 3
Octave Up 7 Pitch one octave up (off/on)
Brass fc 8 Cutoff frequency of Brass VCF
Electric Piano Key-Click 9 Key-click level for Electric Piano preset
Tone Percussive 10 Tone control for the Percussive section
Tone Ens 11 Tone control for the Ensemble section

Percussive Section
parameter id description
Perc: Sustain 12 Sustain (off/on)
Perc: Electric Piano 13 Preset Electric Piano (off/on)
Perc: Clavi 14 Preset Clavi (off/on)
Perc: Piano 15 Preset Piano (off/on)
Perc: Harmonics 16 Preset Harmonics (off/on)
Prec: Tremolo 17 Tremolo (off/on)
Prec: Tremolo Speed 18 Tremolo speed
Perc: Decay 19 Decay time
Volume Electric Piano 31 Volume of Electric Piano preset
Volume Clavi 32 Volume of Clavi preset
Volume Piano 33 Volume of Piano preset
Volume Harmonics 34 Volume of Harmonics preset
Ny Manual Page 12

Ensemble Section
parameter id description
Ens: Brass 20 Preset Brass (off/on)
Ens: Organ 21 Preset Organ (off/on)
Ens: Vibrato Off 22 Vibrato (on/off)
Ens: Chorus 23 Preset Chorus (off/on)
Ens: Strings I 24 Preset Strings I (off/on)
Ens: Strings II 25 Preset Strings II (off/on)
Ens: A/R Variable 26 Attack/Relase variable (off/on)
Ens: Attack 27 Attack time
Ens: Release 28 Release time
Volume Brass 35 Volume of Brass preset
Volume Organ 36 Volume of Organ preset
Volume Chorus 37 Volume of Chorus preset
Volume Strings I 38 Volume of Strings I preset
Volume Strings II 39 Volume of Strings II preset

Chorus Phase Section

parameter id description
Chorus Phase Percussive 29 Chorus effect for Percussive section (off/on)
Chorus Phase Ensemble 30 Chorus effect for Ensemble section (off/on)
Chorus Phase Speed 50 Chorus speed
Chorus Phase Depth 51 Chorus depth
Chorus Phase X-Stereo 52 Chorus stereo mode (see Chorus Phase section)
Ny Manual Page 13

Tweak Sections
parameter id description
Pitch Bend 40 Pitch Bend amout (± notes)
Mod. Wheel 41 Modulation Wheel amount
Velocity 42 Velocity intensity
Brass Peak 43 Brass VCF resonance
Brass EG Intensity 44 Brass VCF envelope intensity
Brass Attack 45 Brass VCF envelope Attack time
Brass Release 46 Brass VCF envelope Release time
Vibrato Speed 47 Vibrato speed
Vibrato Chorus Depth 48 Vibrato intensity for Chorus preset
Vibrato Strings Depth 49 Vibrato intensity for Strings presets
Ny Manual Page 14

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I install the Ny (Windows VST2 32 bit version)?
Just copy the files ny.dll from the ZIP archive you have downloaded to your system's
or favorite DAW's VST2 plug-in folder. Your DAW should automatically register the Ny
VST2 plug-in the next time you start it.

How do I install the Ny (Windows VST2 64 bit version)?

Just copy the file ny64.dll from the ZIP archive you have downloaded to your
system's or favorite DAW's VST2 plug-in folder. Your DAW should automatically
register the Ny VST2 plug-in the next time you start it.
Note: You may have to remove any existing (32 bit) ny.dll from your VST2 plug-in
folder or else your DAW may screw the versions up…

How do I install the Ny (Windows VST3 64 bit version)?

Just copy the files ny.vst3 from the ZIP archive you have downloaded to your
system's or favorite DAW's VST3 plug-in folder. Your DAW should automatically
register the Ny VST3 plug-in the next time you start it.

How do I install the Ny (Mac VST2/VST3/AU 64 bit)?

Locate the downloaded PKG package file ny_1_0_0_mac.pkg in Finder (!) and do a
right- or control-click on it. In the context menu, click on “Open”. You will be asked if
you really want to install the package because it comes from an “unidentified
developer” (me J). Click “OK” and follow the installation instructions.

What is the plug-in ID of the Ny?

The ID is n y 5 0 .

…?
[intentionally left blank to answer your own questions]