voice whilst it is played, allowing for complex and evolving organic movement of sound. The way in which the Free EG loops can also be set in various ways, as well as the keyboard tracking and triggering. Multi effects The effects section contains three different sets of programmable effects, as well as a programmable 3-band equaliser (EQ). The 14 variation effect types are: Chorus, '2 types', flanger, symphonic, phaser, auto pan, rotary speaker, pitch change, aural exciter, compressor, wah, distortion, overdrive and amp simulator. The five delay effect types are: Delay left-centre-right (LCR), delay left-right (LR), echo, cross delay and tempo delay, which automatically matches the delay time to the current tempo setting. The eight reverb effect types include three types of hall reverb, two types each of room and stage reverb, and a plate reverb. The voice signal initially passes through the variation and EQ sections in series, then on to the delay and reverb sections. The delay and reverb sections can be configured to operate in either series or parallel. Individual effects sections (variation, delay, reverb) or all effects, excluding the EQ, can be bypassed at will. Additionally, realtime controllers can be designated to control specific effect parameters. Control synthesizer As well as promoting its "Analog Physical Modelling", Yamaha referred to the AN1x as a "control synthesizer", in a similar vein to the CS1x and CS2x. This is due to each voice patch in the AN1x having 20 "control sets", which utilise assignments of the user-adjustable controls and MIDI control change messages to a number of numerical parameters within the sound engine. The user controls include: Keyboard pitch, velocity and channel aftertouch, a modulation wheel, a pressure-sensitive (X-axis,Z-axis) ribbon controller, two expression pedal input sockets, a footswitch input socket, and eight assignable parameter control knobs. The underlying philosophy of this arrangement is that the user doesn't have to alter the actual sound editing parameters whilst playing, instead using the assignable real-time controls mentioned above. The physical keyboard action includes velocity, aftertouch, and portamento. The X-Z ribbon controller, responds to horizontal sweeps and pressure. The eight realtime control knobs can also be pressed to display their current parameter values. Each knob and controller can have multiple parameters assigned to them. Controller resolution Being a first-generation virtual analog synthesizer, the AN1x's controller resolution responds by default to 128 increments from its built in controllers. Consequently, the user will sometimes hear