How to Use C700: Global Behavior Settings

C700 Sections

In this section we'll be covering the global behavior settings available in C700, shown as section B in the above image – located below the MIDI channel and polyphony info we just learned about. "Global behavior settings" here means settings that affect the entire chip/plugin.

All of the areas with black backgrounds and blue text can be modified either by clicking and dragging up/down, or by clicking and typing in a value. Some only respond to one or the other. If one doesn't work, try the other! (This is true for the entire interface, not just this section!)

Poly & Engine    C700 Poly    C700 Engine

Let's talk about polyphony on the SNES (and in C700). This soundchip has a maximum polyphony of 8 – that is, at most, eight different notes can be playing at once. This is what Poly 8 represents, and if you're trying to make hardware-authentic chiptune files, Poly and Engine will both never be changed.

If you're not trying to create a hardware-playable chiptune, changing the Engine setting from "Accurate" to "Relaxed" will allow you to increase the Poly setting up to a maximum of 16, as well as load larger samples above the 64KB limit. However, in "Accurate" mode, Poly will be locked to 8 no matter what. Don't mess with these two settings if you're here to make chiptune files, but this is an exciting option for larger productions!

The Pitch Modulation effect (covered in section D) will only work in "Accurate" Engine mode.

VoiceAlloc    C700 VoiceAlloc

The VoiceAlloc (voice allocation) setting determines in what way C700 makes cuts to obey the 8-polyphony restriction. There are two options, with the default being "Oldest". This means that in the event of a new note surpassing 8 polyphony, the oldest currently-playing note will be cut to make room for the new note. The other option, "SameCh" (same channel), alters this rule slightly: if a new note would surpass 8 polyphony, C700 will cut the oldest currently-playing note in the same MIDI channel as the new note. If no such note exists (i.e. the new note is the only active note in the MIDI channel), the "Oldest" behavior will still apply.

Additional, optional information about voice allocation in C700: Voice allocation to the soundchip's 8 channels is dynamic, meaning that the VST does its best to separate the notes out across channels so as many things as possible can be heard without anything being cut. This cannot be controlled and has no adverse effect on the sound (aside from channel muting in your .spc player or SNES emulator being made impractical), but it is an interesting feature of the software. Depending on the arrangement, a fuller sound may come about than if each musical line were sequenced in its own SPC700 channel.

Notably, if every sample is set to Mono mode, voice allocation is static.

Bend Range    C700 Bend Range

The Bend Range setting controls how many semitones you can bend the pitch of your channels. By default it is set to 2, which means you can bend the pitch as far as two notes away in either direction. Increase this value to be able to bend further! Even though the VST lets you increase this number to 24 (which is the maximum in the MIDI spec), some programs may restrict you to 12 (one octave up or down). In some programs you also may need to set this to 12 to achieve two semitones of bend range.

A related, more advanced feature that expands Bend Range proportionally is the MIDI RPN "Pitch Bend Sensitivity", covered in section A.

Velocity Curve    C700 Velocity Curve

The Velocity Curve setting handles how you want C700 to interpret the velocity parameter of your notes (i.e. their loudness). You have three options. On the left is a straight horizontal line: velocity will be ignored and all notes will be played with the same velocity no matter what. On the right is a linear slope upwards: velocity will be linear with all velocity values interpreted literally. In the middle is actually our default setting, a curved shape that makes it so the uppermost velocities have greater volume difference than the lower/middle ones. This choice is up to personal preference.

Vib. Depth and Vib. Rate    C700 Vib. Depth and Vib. Rate

Vib. Depth and Vib. Rate (vibrato depth and rate) are global settings that define how vibrato will sound if enabled on a channel. Specifically, these two settings affect the automatic vibrato heard by using MIDI CC#1 (Modulation), which you might also know as "the mod wheel" if you have a MIDI keyboard.

Depth controls how far up and down the pitch will waver, and Rate determines how quickly the vibrato waveform will cycle. The default Depth of 1.000 means that the full pitch range of the vibrato is 1 semitone – that is, the lowest and highest point are 1 semitone apart.

These settings apply globally to all channels, although they can be automated (MIDI CCs #77 and #76 respectively), and vibratos of your choosing can also be programmed by using MIDI channel pitch instead.

Multi Bank A/B/C/D    C700 Multi Bank

C700 can store samples in four different banks (A through D). Turning on Multi Bank mode for a bank will allow you to play multiple different samples in that bank without the need to change channels or use a Program Change event to swap samples – most commonly this is used for mapping a drumkit to one channel.

Multi Bank has to be used in conjunction with the sampler's "High Key" and "Low Key" settings to have any effect (covered in section D). The numbers in those settings correspond to notes (0 being the lowest, 127 highest). For example, if you wanted to map a simple drumkit, you could set a kick drum to a range of 66-66, snare drum to 67-67, and tom to 68-74. Only one note would be able to trigger the kick and snare, but a small range would be available to the tom. Again, you must adjust the High Key and Low Key for this to work, and the high/low ranges should never overlap with other samples in the bank.

If this method suits your workflow, making use of the banks will be very useful; however it is entirely possible to ignore this feature and sequence drums in their own individual MIDI channels, too. Samples all default to bank A, so it's recommended to select bank B, C or D for all the samples you want to group together, then enable Multi Bank for whichever one you chose.