Section 1: Specifications and capabilities

Question: How much ROM does the Trinity have? I've seen some reports that it's 48Mb and others that it's 24Mb. Is there an optional extra 24Mb or something?

Answer: No, the Trinity has a fixed 24Mb of waveform ROM. However, Korg use 2:1 compression techniques to squeeze more in, hence the reports that there is 48Mb of sample data. This figure of 48Mb may be misleading, but if so I'm not sure by how much. There is 24Mb of physical ROM, although it contains compressed data.

Question: What Polyphony does the Trinity have?

Answer: 32 voices, with tweakable note-stealing priorities. With the Solo board fitted, this increases to 33 voices, the 33rd being the Solo card itself.

Question: Why does the Trinity only have 32 voices?

Answer: This is a moot point. Korg claim that it is to maintain the highest levels of quality. The samples in ROM are all taken at 48KHz and they claim that the processing required to maintain fast response doesn't allow greater than 32 voice polyphony without increasing the cost. Although this seems a little strange to me, I'm happy to go along with it although 64 voices would really make the Trinity extra extra special.

Question: OK then... what are the main specs?

Answer: The basic Trinity (common to all models) has 256 voices and 256 combinations (of up to 8 voices). Each voice can have one or two waveforms (oscillators) assigned to it, independently filtered, tuned etc. Polyphony is 32 voices. The 20-song, 80,000 event sequencer is 16 track and supports both insert effects (direct routing) and master effects (send/return routing), and it can record on multiple tracks simultaneously. Max resolution is 192ppqn, although you can quantise in realtime while you're recording if you so wish. The disk drive is standard HD.

The Trinity Plus has a prophecy daughterboard which adds MOSS synthesis (Multi-Oscillator Sound Synthesis) which has two oscillators, a sub oscillator and a noise generator, plus distortion, wah-wah, and a choice between reverb or simultaneous chorus and delay effects. These effects are built into the patch itself and do not compromise the main insert / master effects in any way. MOSS includes analogue modelling technology, by the way, with separate models for Brass, Reed and Plucked sounds. The prophecy daughterboard adds a further bank of presets taking the total programs to 320.

Section 2: I'm thinking of getting a Trinity

Question: Why would I want a Trinity?

Answer: The quality and the expandability. The ROM holds 375 waveforms sampled at 48Khz. The quality is absolutely pristine, and the outputs are quieter than any digital synthesizer I've ever come across. Recording via the audio outputs to DAT produces no discernible noise whatsoever at normal monitoring levels. The patches are phenomenal, and the effects leave everything else standing. The basic Trinity can provide 8 Insert effects, plus 2 Master effects and a final EQ stage. Sequencer tracks and Combination layers can be routed through Insert effects and then the Master effects are accessed using a traditional Send/Return level routing system. There are 100 different Insert effects and 14 Master effects, and all of these are well up to separate rackmount standards. On top of this, the Trinity has a touch sensitive 300x240 backlit LCD screen which provides a Windows-like graphical user interface, making it intuitive (and impressive) to use. This resolution is higher than the lo-res on an Atari ST by the way :o)

The operating system is expandable, and if this wasn't enough you can buy expansion cards for the beast which provide a range of capabilities including the ability to integrate 4-track digital multitrack audio recording into your sequencer. Yes folks, you can sing and play guitar into a Trinity equipped with the HDR option, and it'll happily record you doing so at CD quality. Add digital mastering via ADAT or S/P DIF I/O to the equation. Now imagine that in Combination mode where you layer sounds, you can have up to 8 simultaneous layers, not all of which need to be internal sounds! You can assign MIDI channel 5, say, to your trusty SY85 across the other side of the room! Assign channel 6 to your JD800, and the other channels to internal Trinity sounds, and you can play your whole MIDI setup with one finger!

Now re-read the question above and let your heart answer it for you this time. You want one!

Question: You've got my attention. What are the effects then?

Answer: Insert effects (up to 8 simultaneously) include: Amp Simulation, Compression, Limiting, Gating, Overdrive, Parametric EQ (Full Q range), Graphic Equalisation (7 and 13 band, mono or stereo), Wah, Random-Filtering, Exciters, Sub Oscillation, Decimation, Chorus (Several types), Ensemble, Flanging (Several types), Phasing, Vibrato, Resonation, Ring Modulation, Tremulo, Rotary Speaker, Delay, Multitap delay, Early reflections, Multiband limiting, Stereo Enhancement, Talking Modulator, Doppler processing, Panning (various), Shimmering, Detuning, Pitch Shifting, Many Reverbs, Piano Body & Damper simulation, Hyper-Gain, Vocoding, All are highly configurable and most are available in mono or stereo flavours and several varieties. Those that benefit from it can be sync'd to the sequencer clock.

Master effects are split into 2 sections where you can have one from each section simultaneously. Section 1 comprises Flanger, Multitap Chorus/Delay, Chorus, Phaser, Ensemble and L/C/R Delay. Section 2 comprises L/C/R Long Delay, Reverb Room, Hall, Wet Plate, Delay/Reverb, Reverb Bright Room, Reverb Smooth Hall, Reverb Dry Plate. Oh, Master effects can be connected in series, where section 1 feeds section 2, although you can take a dry line from each as well. Insert effects are always connected in series, except for the case of drumkits where up to 4 effects are connected in parallel and separate send/returns are applied to the Master effects at the output of each Insert effect.

If Kryten had had a Trinity, he wouldn't have needed 'Lie mode' and 'Smug mode' would have been permanently engaged.

Question: I have seen many references to .PCG and .SNG files on various Trinity related sites. What are these files, and are there any issues concerning them?

Answer: .PCG is an abbreviation of Performance Combination Global, and is the file within which the Trinity stores it's sounds and global settings. Programs are individual sounds, and Performances are collections of layered Programs, up to 8 programs can form one Combination.

.SNG is an abbreviation of Song, and contains sequencer data and settings (such as track name, song name, patterns etc.) If you write a song that uses custom patches, then it is important to have the correct .PCG file and .SNG file together, as the custom patches are stored in the one file and the actual sequencer data using those sounds is stored in the other. You often see a .PCG bundled with a .SNG file for this reason. They usually have the same name. The exception for this is when a song uses the factory presets that the Trinity comes bundled with. In this case you would load the 'preload1.pcg' file to ensure that the sequence sounded correctly.

Section 3: I just got a Trinity

Question: I downloaded a .PCG file from the Internet and loaded it into my Trinity. Now my Trinity crashes every time I switch it on! Do I have to return it to my dealer?

Answer: No! The Trinity is after all only a highly specialised computer and as such it can be made to crash if it is force fed garbage data. The .PCG file you loaded into the machine obviously has corrupted data that the Trinity is unable to handle. It is possible (although this is not confirmed) that some versions of the OS cannot sensibly read data generated by newer versions. As the Trinity goes into Combination mode, preset A000 when you turn it on, if that location holds corrupt data then the machine will crash. To remedy this unfortunate situation, simply press and hold down the <ENTER> and <0> keys while turning on the power. All the patch data is re-initialised during boot-up and you'll now be able to load another voice set to get back to normal operation.

Question: Is there any way to 'Sanity check' a .PCG file prior to loading it?

Answer: Yes! In the Disk screen, before you choose 'Load Selected' from the menu, use the 'Open' button. This will allow you to inspect the contents of a .PCG file, breaking it down into combination, program and drumkits. If the names appear garbled then chances are that loading the .PCG will cause problems, so avoid doing so.

Question: Does the Trinity support General Midi files? How do I load them?

Answer: Yes, the Trinity will read MIDI files. It loads them slightly differently to normal sequencer .SNG files however. The procedure is as follows. Firstly load up the GM voice set supplied with the Trinity or download it from here. Then load in the General Midi .SNG file supplied with the Trinity or download it from here. This will give you a 'blank' song in the sequencer. Now load in your .MID file and the Trinity will import the note data in that file into the sequencer. If when you play it the drums sound all wrong, make sure that whichever track they are on is set to a drum program (some MIDI files cause this to be set incorrectly).

Question: My screen display updates very slowly when the sequencer is playing and also when I'm playing notes on the keyboard. Can I do anything about this?

Answer: Maybe. Early versions of the Operating System (prior to 2.0) certainly had very slow screen update speeds when significant activity was occurring (such as playing the sequencer). Your Operating System version is displayed on the screen during boot-up. If this is earlier than version 2.1.2 then you can benefit from upgrading your operating system to 2.1.2. There is a big speed improvement between versions prior to 2.0 and 2.0 itself, and a further improvement from 2.0 to 2.1.2. Although there are versions of the OS higher than 2.1.2, there are no speed improvements at the time of writing. For details on upgrading your Operating System, refer elsewhere in this document.

Question: On my old workstation, there was this really neat ability to use combinations / performances in the sequencer. On the Trinity however, it will only let me select Programs. Can't I use any of those lovely Combi sounds in the sequencer?

Answer: You can, but it's not immediately obvious how you do it. This is undoubtedly a weakness in the Trinity's software, although it can be overcome. Remember that a Combi is made up of layers, each layer being a program. The sequencer can therefore be made to duplicate this arrangement by assigning each layer of the combi to a separate track, and then causing all those tracks to be played simultaneously. This is a two stage process. Firstly use the 'Copy from Combi' option in the sequencer to copy the layers from a combi to the tracks on the sequencer. This will automagically preserve effects send levels, panning, volume, pitch etc. settings for each layer, but will not copy the actual effects themselves. To get the effects transferred over, go to Page 7 of the sequencer and use the 'Copy from Combi' option to transfer the Insert effects over, and then go to Page 8 and do the same for Master effects.

This is all fine and dandy, but there are a couple of things to remember. Firstly, the 'Copy from Combi' facility will always copy all 8 layers from a Combi, and you only get the choice of writing them to sequencer tracks 1 - 8 or 9 - 16. This always applies, even if some of those layers are unused, which is annoying. You will invariably have to do some tidying up therefore ... resetting unused tracks to sound independently etc. More sensible would have been an option to specify which layers to copy... let's hope that this at least is implemented in a future version of the Operating System. The biggest drawback is that you can only ever easily get a maximum of two Combi's in a sequence, which  is a far cry from the lovely ability of, say, the SY85, to have a performance *per track*.

Question: Wouldn't it be great if Korg were to allow a combination to be assigned to a track in Sequencer mode?

Answer:YES!

Section 4: Miscellaneous issues

Question: Are there any 'hidden' self-test routines in the Trinity which I might find useful?

Answer: There are, yes. However, be advised that they are 'hidden' for a reason, that reason being that they will erase data from memory, and possibly hard drive (I don't know for sure), so only use if you have nothing to lose. The SY85 for example had the ability to test the floppy drive, but it would destroy any data you had on the disk in the drive at the time. Consider the implications of doing self-diagnostic tests on a SCSI drive used for 4-track recording. Having said the above, the self test routines can be accessed by switching the Trinity on while holding down the <ENTER> and <5> keys. From then on you're on your own. It's a good way of generating test tones, testing noise levels, joystick calibration and a whole host of other stuff. Very useful for diagnosing a faulty controller! Use of the self-test routines will erase your joystick and touch screen calibration settings so be sure to reset these after you exit, by going into Global mode.

Question: When I press my sustain pedal, it doesn't work properly. When the pedal is not pressed, the voices sustain, and when it is pressed they cut off? Why is this?

Answer: The Trinity can use sustain pedals of either polarity. Go to Global Mode, and change the polarity of the sustain pedal and it'll solve the symptoms outlined above.

Answer: Yep. Here it is: http://eddy.deegan.org/wishlist.htm

Question: Can I use my Trinity floppy disks in my PC for data exchange?

Answer: Yes and, errrr Yes certainly unless you are using Windows95 in which case it depends. Personally, I have used floppy disks for months to transfer data between the Trinity and my Windows95 PC without any ill effects whatsoever. However, I have only transferred three kinds of file, .PCG files, .SNG files and .MID files. I know for a fact that if you are enthusiastic enough to lock up your Trinity SCSI hard drive to your PC you will lose all your audio data, and the Trinity will not read the drive again (until you format it perhaps?). This is because Windows95 in typical Micro$oft arrogant style tends to write bits of data to the lesser used areas of the boot sector of any drive it sees. It does this to 'keep track of which drives it has seen' according to Microsoft which personally I think is inexcusable. The Trinity uses MS-DOS format disks, and as such it should read normal DOS-type files such as .SNG, .PCG and .MID without problems. However Flash ROM upgrade disks such as those used to upgrade the Trinity Operating System will be damaged beyond repair simply by allowing Win95 to see them without them being write protected.

On the other hand, I have heard accounts from users who say that they have lost disks to Windows95 even when transferring .PCG, .SNG and .MID files about. Personally I would put this down to bad luck... perhaps a drive incompatibility of some kind. The bottom line? Well, for audio data or flash ROM disks, forget it. For data files, well why not do some experiments and see? As I said above, I use this method frequently. Perhaps the data Win95 writes to the boot sector doesn't affect the Trinity for certain values but does for others. There is a workaround for this problem ...

Question: A workaround? What is it then?

Answer: Well there are two. One is to write protect your floppy before reading the files from it to back up to your hard drive. The other is a bit complex, and involves editing the registry, giving it a disk label which supposedly makes Win95 not alter that disk from then on.

Below is the information needed to hack the windows registry, as provided by Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Windows 95 Overwrites Boot-Sector Field on Floppy Disks

Article ID: Q148637 / Creation Date: 18-MAR-1996 / Revision Date: 18-MAR-1996

The information in this article applies to: Microsoft Windows 95

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, you should first make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat). Both are hidden files in the Windows folder.

SYMPTOMS

A floppy disk provided by your computer manufacturer (for example, a system reference disk or flash BIOS update disk) or a floppy disk created by one of your programs (for example, a backup disk or a copy-protected program installation disk) may not be recognized as a valid disk after being accessed in Windows 95 using Windows Explorer, a command prompt, or another program. Programs designed to use the disk may report that it is either unrecognizable or damaged, or you may be asked to insert a valid disk when the correct disk is already in the disk drive. This problem is known to occur with the following disks: IBM Reference Disks and Flash BIOS Update Disks After accessing an IBM Flash BIOS Update Disk in Windows 95, you may receive the following error message when you attempt to flash your BIOS with the disk:

Invalid flash diskette

CAUSE

The tool that created the floppy disk uses a boot-sector field that is used by Windows 95. On floppy disks that are not write protected, Windows 95 writes a unique volume identification number to the OEMName field (offset 0x03, or 0003h) of the boot sector for use by Volume Tracker (Voltrack.vxd). Volume Tracker ensures that the correct disk is in the drive and reports improper disk removal or insertion.

RESOLUTION

To prevent this problem from occurring, use one of the following methods.

• Write-Protect the Disk

If you do not need to write to the floppy disk, set the disk's write- protect tab. On write-protected disks, Volume Tracker caches the disk's label, serial number, and BIOS Parameter Block (BPB), instead of writing to the boot-sector OEMName field.

• Add Boot-Sector ID to the NoVolTrack Registry Key

NOTE: For information about how to edit the registry, view the Changing Keys And Values online Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). Note that you should make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat) before you edit the registry.

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall Windows 95. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

If your hardware vendor or program writes a unique string to the boot sector to identify the disk, add the string and boot-sector offset location to the following registry key:

HKey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\NoVolTrack

To accomplish this, add a binary value (use the hardware vendor or program name for the value name) to the registry key with the value data in the following format:

<xx> <yy> <zz zz zz zz zz zz zz zz>

where <xx> <yy> is the offset in the boot sector where the vendor-specific string is located (written in reverse-byte format), and <zz zz zz zz zz zz zz zz> is the vendor-specific string in hexadecimal.

For example, if the vendor-specific string is "PVBACKUP" at offset 0003h, <xx> is 03 and <yy> is 00 (because 0003h is written 03 00 in reverse-byte format). In this case, the value for <zz zz zz zz zz zz zz zz> is 50 56 42 41 43 4b 55 50 (the hexadecimal equivalent of "PVBACKUP").

NOTE: The "PVBACKUP" string in this example is already included in the default NoVolTrack key created by Windows 95 Setup. Volume Tracker scans the NoVolTrack key and does not write to the boot-sector OEMName field of floppy disks specified in the key. Note that you can create a text file with a .reg extension that includes the appropriate settings to add to the NoVolTrack key. You can merge the .reg file into the registry using Regedit.exe or batch Setup (Msbatch.inf). This can be helpful when you need to add a NoVolTrack entry on multiple computers.

The contents of the .reg file should be

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\FileSystem\NoVolTrack]

<VendorName>=hex:<xx>,<yy>,<zz,zz,zz,zz,zz,zz,zz,zz>

where <VendorName> is the manufacturer name and <xx>, <yy>, and <zz,zz,zz,zz,zz,zz,zz,zz> are as defined above.

NOTE: The registry key should be on one line. It may appear on two lines above due to limited space.

For IBM Flash BIOS Update Disks, the following .reg file should be merged:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\FileSystem\NoVolTrack]

"IBM flash disk"=hex:03,00,49,42,4d,20,35,20,33,66

NOTE: The registry key in square brackets should be on one line. It may appear on two lines above due to limited space.

Use Only MS-DOS Mode to Access the Disk

Do not access the floppy disk from Windows 95. If you need to access the floppy disk only in MS-DOS mode, specify MS-DOS mode in the program information file (PIF) that runs the program you use to access the disk, or boot to a command prompt to access the disk. Windows 95 does not perform volume tracking in MS-DOS mode

WARNING: This resolution assumes that you will never access the disk, or view its contents, from Windows 95 (using Windows Explorer, a command prompt, or another program). If you do, the OEMName data will be overwritten for Volume Tracker.

MORE INFORMATION

If you can no longer access the floppy disk, contact the manufacturer for a replacement disk.

REFERENCES

Microsoft Windows 95 Resource Kit, "Assigning Drive Letters for Removable Media," page 652

Section 5: Upgrading

Question: What upgrade options are there for the Trinity?

Answer: The Solo TRI prophecy daughterboard, offering MOSS analogue modelling technology. The HDR TRI which offers 4 track hard drive recording (Max 4Gb per drive, drives not included), an external SCSI port and S/P DIF digital I/O as well as 2 analogue inputs. The PBS TRI which offers 8Mb of flash ROM for uploading your own samples for manipulation by the ACCESS technology on the Trinity. An ADAT compatible digital output with Word Clock In synchronisation. The Operating System can also be upgraded as it is held in Flash ROM.

Question: I like the idea of digital I/O. I see that you can get both ADAT and S/P DIF outputs. What is the difference between these? Are they compatible?

Answer: No, they are not compatible. The ADAT interface multiplexes 8 channels of digital audio down a single cable, and uses a completely different format to achieve this. The S/P DIF format only multiplexes two channels down a single cable. As such, S/P DIF is usually used for stereo applications whereas ADAT is used for multitrack work. Broadly speaking home and semi-pro digital multitrackers usually use S/P DIF and ADAT is used by the professional rackmount units.

Question: I would very much like S/P DIF output but without the HDR option. Is this available as a separate option like the ADAT compatible digital I/O?

Answer: No, the S/P DIF outputs are only available on the HDR upgrade board.

Question: I have a Trinity equipped with S/P DIF outputs, but when I connect this up to my multitracker's digital I/O ports, it doesn't work. What do I need to turn the digital output of the Trinity on?

Answer: The Trinity always outputs S/P DIF signals. There is no switch to turn them on/off. This is not a problem but there is a drawback which you are probably now experiencing. Most home and many semi-pro digital devices will only read S/P DIF signals at 44.1Khz, whereas the Trinity has a fixed frequency of 48Khz. This is a royal pain in the neck. The only way round it is to buy a sample rate converter to dither the 48Khz output of the Trinity down to 44.1Khz which your multitracker will digest. We can't really moan at Korg for this, (well, not much) because sample rate conversion would have added to the price of the Trinity, and the fact that the internal waveforms on the Trinity are all sampled at 48Khz is no doubt beneficial to the quality of the instrument. The ability to output 44.1Khz would have greatly improved the Trinity' flexibility however. In an interview with Korg by Sound on Sound magazine, before the Trinity was first released, this fixed frequence of 48Khz was acknowledged by Korg, and at the time they said there were no plans to change this.

Question: I have downloaded a newer version of the Operating System from the Internet. How do I install it?

Answer: If the system came in a ZIP or similar archive, you will first need to create 2 diskettes that you subsequently use to upgrade the Trinity. With the archive you should get a program which will recreate a floppy from an image file. Follow the necessary instructions that came with the software to create these 2 diskettes. If on a PC, always use DOS mode to do this, for reasons outlined below. It is a very good idea to do a full surface scan of the disks with scandisk or similar to make sure that there are no bad sectors which could cause the upgrade procedure to fail.

Once you have the 2 diskettes, write protect them immediately. This is because Win95 will overwrite certain bytes of the boot-sector of any floppy it sees in the drive with data that it uses for it's own nefarious purposes. Normally this doesn't matter, but in the case of your Trinity upgrade disks it will cause the Trinity to reject them during the upgrade procedure. You do not want this to happen under any circumstances so make very sure that Win95 doesn't ever see an upgrade disk unless it's write-protected. Once you are satisfied that Win95 hasn't seen the disks, and your earlier surface scan revealed no problems, insert Disk 1 into the Trinity and power on while holding down the <ENTER> and <.> keys. The Trinity will prompt for a boot disk which it should find and from then on the procedure is automatic. The only intervention that you'll be required to provide will be the insertion of Disk 2 half-way through the process. No confirmation is required from you after the switch... the Trinity will find the second disk on it's own.

IMPORTANT NOTE!

The Trinity uses FLASH ROM to hold it's operating system. While the upgrade is going on do not under any circumstances press any key or button on the keyboard, move any controller, or even touch the screen. Doing so may cause the upgrade to fail part-way through and should this happen the likelihood is that your Trinity will require returning to Korg before it will work again! Why is this? Well, the boot-code which the Trinity uses to kick off the upgrade procedure is actually stored in Flash ROM along with the OS. As the first thing that the upgrade procedure does is wipe the Flash ROM, the Trinity cannot boot again until the new Operating System has been safely installed. You have been warned. Having said this, many Trinity users have successfully upgraded the system, myself included.

Question: Is it easy to install the upgrade options yourself?

Answer: If you are competent with a screwdriver, and have some common sense, then yes. I have installed the Solo and HDR options myself without any problems. Having said this, if your dealer will do it for a nominal fee and minimum delay then I'd get them to do it just in case anything goes wrong.

Question: Well, I've bought the Solo option, and it looks pretty innocuous to me. How do I install it?

Answer: If necessary, first upgrade the operating system, preferably to 2.1.2 or higher. After doing this, turn the Trinity upside down with the back of it facing away from you. Remove all the screws that hold the bottom on, taking care to remove only those that do so. There are a couple which are actually located in round holes in the base plate which make it pretty obvious that they are not holding the base on. The bottom will easily lift off. Now follow the steps below.

1) Cast your eyes to the left. If the HDR-TRI board is installed, you'll need to remove it first as the Solo board sits underneath it. The HDR-TRI board when installed properly is mounted on a couple of brackets that also have mount points for the Solo board. If this applies to you, then you won't need the brackets supplied with the Solo option. If you have got the HDR installed, jump to step 3 below.

2) If you have not got the HDR installed, to your left you'll see the bay within which the Solo option resides. Mount the brackets on the Solo board as indicated in the installation manual and remove the blanking plates in the Trinity which cover the analogue, digital and SCSI ports (there is a replacement blanking plate with the Solo board as you'll have no doubt seen by now). You'll have to gently move some of the cables out of the way inside the bay, and the Solo board on it's mountings should fit snugly into the recess. Screw it in place, having made sure that the extra I/O ports mentioned above are suitable blanked with the supplied self adhesive plates. Plug the ribbon cable into the expansion slot on the motherboard adjacent to the Solo board (this is obvious and you can't go wrong). Reassemble the Trinity and run the self diagnostics to make sure it works. Remember after running the diagnostics to resynchronise the joystick and touchscreen from Global mode. Skip step 3 below, although that should be pretty self evident!

3) If you do have the HDR installed, remove the brackets and the HDR board. Then remove the brackets from the HDR board itself. Mount the solo option on the brackets underneath where the HDR board was. The ribbon cable coming off the solo board needs to be at the right hand side as it plugs into the motherboard next to where the HDR board does. Once the Solo board is properly mounted reattach the HDR board afterwards. There may well have been a silver strip of grounding foil attached to the top right hand screw on the HDR board. Make sure this is reattached if it came off. It should be stuck with a bit of sticky tape to the 'lip' on which the base of the Trinity sits when you put the bottom back on. Gently ease the HDR / Solo 'lump' into the recess being careful to get the I/O ports on the HDR board back into the holes in the back, and also being careful not to force anything. Gently move any wires in the bay out of the way. Plug the ribbon cables back into the motherboard and reassemble the Trinity.

After installing any hardware in the Trinity, run the self diagnostics (power on while holding ENTER+5) to make sure there are no problems. If you do run into difficulties, I would recommend carefully inspecting everything to make sure you haven't missed anything. If all else fails, remove the hardware you installed and consult your dealer (I hate those words!)

Question: What should I expect to see after installing the Solo board?

Answer: When you boot it up, the intro screen will have the word 'plus' after the word 'Trinity' on the logo. There will be a new bank in Program mode which is accessed by pressing the Bank button until bank S is displayed. This contains 64 new voices (0 - 63) which are Solo voices generated by the MOSS technology on the card you just installed. Entering EDIT mode at this point takes you into a wonderful world of tweaking and playing which you'll probably never come out of if you like that sort of thing.

Question: I have the HDR board and I want to install it. How do I do this, bearing in mind that if I screw it all up it's on my own head?

Answer: The HDR board is pretty easy to install, although there is one issue which I'll mention first. If your Trinity was manufactured before April 1996 (lot number U-4) then there is a minor modification that needs to be made to the motherboard for the HDR to work properly. The motherboard is the PCB to the right of the Solo / HDR expansion bay, and is marked KLM-1820 somewhere on it. The modification involves removing the motherboard from the Trinity and removing the components IC20 (TC7W14F) and D2 (RLS-73) and mounting a fly lead at location R117. This involves soldering as and such I can't really recommend you do this yourself. On my Trinity however, I ignored this part as I bought my Trinity new roundabout August 1997.

If the Solo option is already in the Trinity, then you'll need to remove it and the brackets holding it, and mount the HDR on top of the Solo option (trust me, it's pretty obvious how this is done when you have it in front of you!). One thing to note is that on the HDR SCSI port you will need to remove the two threaded sockets on each end of the 25-way D connector at this stage. When mounting the HDR board, attach the little strip of solver foil provided with the kit to the top right hand screw as indicated in the instructions. It will just sit unattached at one end for now… don't worry about this. If there are little self adhesive blanking plates over the I/O and SCSI port holes on the bracket, remove these. They are quite securely attached and will require a fair amount of levering! Then gently place the assembly back into the Trinity, carefully locating the ports on the card into the holes in the back of the case. From the back, re-attach the little threaded things at each end of the SCSI port, and also screw the locking nuts onto the back of the analogue inputs.

Finally, bend the little strip of silver foil back and up over itself and attach it to the lip where the bottom of the Trinity sits when you put it back on. Attach it there with the supplied strip of double sided sticky tape. This is presumably some kind of screen or grounding device. Having made sure everything is screwed in securely, both internally and from the back, replace the bottom of the Trinity and check your new installation by powering up with ENTER + 5 pressed. Remember that this test mode erases all patch memory so be careful to save any work before you take the Trinity apart in the first place.

Question: What type are the actual ports that the HDR board provide?

Answer: The analogue inputs are two 1/4" jack plugs, and the S/P DIF sockets are of the 'phono' type. Remember that the S/P DIF ports are both stereo … the input is a stereo input and the output is a stereo output. The SCSI is standard 25 pin D type connector.

Question: If I buy the Solo option, is that the same as having the Prophecy?

Answer: Nearly. The synthesis engine is the same (MOSS) and you get dedicated effects added to your armoury. The bigger touch screen is fully utilised for parameter editing and of course the keyboard is bigger than the Prophecy. However you do lose two main things that the Prophecy has, namely the arpeggiator and the log controller. This said, you save a lot of money and you still get the very good controllers offered by the Trinity, plus you can use Solo sounds in the Sequencer.

Question: What about this new Z1 then?

Answer: Well, the Z1 isn't designed to do the same job as the Trinity. For example the Trinity excels in all round music production, and the Z1 excels in sound synthesis. The Trinity has better effects, better polyphony, more sound generation methods and is primarily sample based (with the exception of the Solo option). The Z1 has better sound modelling capabilities and is more suited for live work and would make more of a (wonderful) addition to a studio for certain applications.