Messages

31

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New beta firmware 2.00 beta 1 (August 28th)

« on: September 28, 2015, 05:45:55 PM »

Yes no resolution lost, only display limitation.

What is possible is to change the encoder tick step (from 0.01 to 0.1) for value above 10 .
A=>F for value 10=>16 is also possible.
Not sure i'll implement any of both though

I have to check custom characters, but they are very limited and i already use several of them.

I might be misunderstanding, but if the tick was changed to 0.1 over values of 10 how would we get a modulation amount of say 10.04? It seems to me that we would be limited to multiples of 0.1, this is what I mean by loss of resolution. At the moment we can at least count the ticks to get values like 10.04. Apologies if I'm just misunderstanding.

32

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New beta firmware 2.00 beta 1 (August 28th)

« on: September 28, 2015, 03:43:59 PM »

i dont think you lose real resolution its just the displays limitations

Not at the moment, but look at the quote in my previous post. I interpreted that to mean Xavier was considering changing the resolution to 0.1 above 10.

33

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New beta firmware 2.00 beta 1 (August 28th)

« on: September 27, 2015, 06:24:36 PM »

I agree it would be more comfortable if the encoder step become 0.1 for value bigger than 10.

Rather than lose resolution above 9.99, why display the just the 'tens' column in hexadecimal or something? So 9.99 - A.00, A.99 - B.00 etc.? I can't remember, is the maximum depth 16.0? If so I guess at the end it could go from F.99 to 16 or MAX or something.
Or if custom characters are possible on this screen, maybe some characters with two digits squashed together... not sure how possible that would be at this resolution though.

34

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: PreenFM2 More Waveforms Like the Ableton Live Operator?

« on: September 14, 2015, 01:55:39 PM »

I'm actually looking to add simpler waveforms in some ways, at least less complicated than the included saw and square! A bandlimited triangle would be a nice one, I really like the sound of triangle-on-triangle FM. Just a bit more complex than sines alone.

I also want to add (softly) bandlimited saw and squares. Hard bandlimiting (where the harmonics are normal level up until the point they suddenly stop) sounds kind of like it's has a resonant filter on it (I guess your ear hears the top harmonic as a resonant peak). I'm plan to do some soft versions where the last few harmonics drop off a bit. The other ideas I had were simple waveforms with the fundamental and just one or two harmonics.

I have written a few additive waveform generators in Jesusonic so I just need to work out how to export them in the right format and set up the build environment for the firmware.

I remember you originally saying that the waveforms had to be in the quick RAM and so adding some required removal of others, but it's nice to hear that it's not the case any more and we can just append them. I feel bad suggesting this because you already implemented one of my suggestions really well and really quickly, but what about an option to load a custom waveform into RAM from a folder in the USB drive? It would mean new waveforms could be added without building custom firmware and reflashing. Of course, I might be the only person that would use it so it's possibly not worth it.

35

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: PreenFM2 More Waveforms Like the Ableton Live Operator?

« on: September 14, 2015, 12:23:09 AM »

I'll have to look into this too as I'd love to add some custom waveforms.

36

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New beta firmware 2.00 beta 1 (August 28th)

« on: September 07, 2015, 09:25:53 PM »

No dithering, no interpolation...

Ah good, the way a bitcrusher should be, full of artifacts!

37

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New beta firmware 2.00 beta 1 (August 28th)

« on: September 03, 2015, 11:41:46 PM »

. Decreased max number of voices to 14.

Small sacrifice for such an increase in functionality! BTW, I'm curious about the bitcrusher; is it using dithering at the low settings?

38

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New beta firmware 1.99c (August 20th)

« on: August 26, 2015, 04:39:11 PM »

Yes, I agree. It's not a good idea to break the compatibility! I just have to remember to put some bitcrushing on before changing to a resonant filter, I'll get used to it eventually.

39

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New firmware 1.99c

« on: August 25, 2015, 04:58:08 PM »

New firmware uploaded....
Thanks to those who can try it 

Oh wow! Just got back from a holiday so I was catching up on this thread and after reading the bit about the matrix being paraphonic I was going to ask what the behaviour was for the key tracking when playing chords (is it first note played, last note, highest or lowest?). But then I looked at the first post again and realised it had been updated... I was not expecting you to go and expand the matrix to polyphonic, but it's very much appreciated!

I'm just curious as I never actually used them, but why were the Att* and Rel* destinations removed? Is it just that something had to go and they were the least useful or is there a specific reason that they wouldn't work with the new version of the matrix?

Thanks again for the really cool updates.

EDIT: A hopefully small request, can the sample rate in the bitcrusher effect respond to the filter cutoff destination in the matrix so that we can modulate it with LFO, free envelope etc? I really enjoy the sound of sample-rate sweeps but I've just been doing them by hand while playing with the other hand.
At the moment the filter frequency destination doesn't seem to do anything if the bitcrusher is selected, so I don't think we'd be sacrificing anything.

Also a sort of related suggestion: When changing through FX, the values carry over from one to the next which has the unfortunate result of causing low amounts of bit-depth reduction = a high amount of screeching resonance and similarly a low amount of resonance = a large amount of crushing. One way around might be to invert the crushing parameter, so a low number means less reduction and a high number means more but I'm worried that that would break patches that use the crusher already (although it wouldn't be hard to fix them manually).

40

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New firmware 1.07 beta 1

« on: August 15, 2015, 04:33:54 AM »

SirPrimalform, i have to rework the "midi note scaling" so thanks for your remarks.
I wanted to have it coded for the beta but i haven't thought enough about it.
Having BrPonint set to 0 and then the curve positive or negative from there would be better.
I'll go for that. And FLAT, +LIN, + EXP, -LIN, -EXP for each part of the curv. Will be clearer.

It would make an already versatile feature even more powerful. I guess to replicate the original 'note' behaviour (up to 1.06), you'd set both halves to linear and then move the keybreak all the way down? I was meaning to ask about that actually, is there a technical reason the keybreak is limited to values between 5 and 122? Is it just that you didn't think there'd be much point in setting it lower or higher than that?

41

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New firmware 1.07 beta 1

« on: August 14, 2015, 06:33:54 PM »

(I think i'll multiply values by ten so that we can have rapid growing effect when playing upper notes without using maximum matrix multiplier.)

I agree with this, I found myself using the full range of the matrix and it still not being enough. That's assuming you're just planning on increasing it, if you already increased it then I say it wasn't enough!

Hmm, it seems like I'm not understanding the internal logic of the options quite right. I expected something like the breakpoint defining '0' and notes above it generating a positive output and notes below generating negative (except of course when it's set to flat).

Flat 64 Lin with a negative routing to IM* behaved as I would have expected, with notes below 64 being unaffected and notes above having their IM attenuated. But when I changed it to Lin 64 Lin, I found all the notes having their IM attenuated to some degree as if I had just moved the breakpoint all the way down. I would have expected something more like the notes below the breakpoint to have higher IM.

I guess I'm misunderstanding the thinking behind it. It seems like it always counts from 0 to 127* and the breakpoint just changes the point at which it changes angle or curve. Since there is no change when both are set to Lin, the breakpoint has no function. If it could be used to set the 0 point in that instance then it would function like a bias control and make it much easier to get and adjust modulation that would otherwise require a lot of fiddling of the original parameter to get right.

Say we're using this to scale IMs to get the bass end brighter and the top end softer (like a piano or something). The IM levels we have set are nice for the middle, with the break point moving the 0 we can easily set that to the right place. Without that, I'd have to increase the IMs to the right amount for the bass and then mess around with the note scaling to try and get it sounding right in the middle again.

I've never played one, but from what I understand the DX7 had both positive and negative linear and exponential settings. If there's room for the code that could be interesting, so you could have the modulation increase or decrease in both directions from the breakpoint.


Sorry for the rambling, I hope I've understood this correctly and that my suggestions aren't stupid for some reason that I've not noticed.
Thank you for adding this! I hope I don't seem ungrateful for making so many suggestions. I've already lost a few hours making interesting sounds (and revisiting ones I had been working on).




*or whatever form it actually outputs in, a float from 0 to 1?

42

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: New firmware 1.07 beta 1

« on: August 14, 2015, 01:52:11 AM »

Just noticed this at almost 1am, so too late to try it right now but very cool! Thanks for implementing key scaling, and although I never popped into the discussion, I had been following the microtuning topic too. This was already a powerful synth, but it's just become even more powerful.

I'll check it out and give some feedback when I get time, especially the note scaling. If I understand correctly, we still use the matrix to route 'note' to whatever we want. The new page allows us to adjust the response of the 'note' source? Very cool and more versatile than my original suggestion which was specific to IM scaling by note (which I guess is somewhat analogous to filter key tracking).

43

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: Newbie questions

« on: July 28, 2015, 12:42:20 AM »

Adding a more flexible 'Note' matrix source would be great to increase control on aliasing... i agree.
But that wouldn't fit the UI.
I was  thinking about simply adding 'not1', 'not2', 'not3' source matrix that would return 0 the x first midi notes than starts increasing at x+1.
note1 : x = 32
note2 : x = 64
note3 : x = 96

Let me know if you think that would help,

Xavier

I wasn't suggesting a new source in the matrix, but rather a new page in the engine section. Something along the lines of what Kuzma posted with a breakpoint and amount and an option for an exponential curve. But if it's too much to be adding extra pages to the UI I understand.

If I follow your suggestion correctly, you mean that note2 (for example) would return a 0 for every note below 64 and then 65 = 1, 66 = 2 etc.? That's quite clever, and combined with a multiplier one could probably get a nice curve. I would say that an extra page with a breakpoint that can be set is more desirable for precision, but your suggestion is a very elegant way of adding this functionality without changing the UI.

44

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: Newbie questions

« on: July 22, 2015, 06:40:57 PM »

I think I understand, so those multiplier destinations multiply that slot? So I guess yeah, I could get a ^2 curve, which is probably close enough. It'd be great if key scaling with breakpoints was possible, but there might not be enough cycles left to do that...

45

preenfm2 and preenfm3 / Re: Newbie questions

« on: July 22, 2015, 05:55:32 AM »

New newbie question!

I've been running into aliasing problems on high notes when creating patches that are relatively bright at the low end. This makes sense obviously, but from what I've read a lot of FM synths have some kind of key scaling? I've been trying to emulate this by mapping 'note' to IM* in the mod matrix. It sort of works, but it feels like the linearity isn't helping. I've tried various amounts of this modulation but if I get the aliasing under control then it tends to either sound good in the middle and too bright at the bottom end or good at the bottom end and mushy in the middle.

Is there a clever routing trick I could use to get a different curve?

Alternatively, is the any chance of key scaling being added to the engine pages? It seems like the DX7 had options for exponential as well as linear scaling and a definable breakpoint, which sounds useful for attacking the aliasing without killing the tone of lower notes.

I have no idea how reasonable a suggestion that is, so no offence intended if it's a stupid request.