Forgive me for digressing a bit in discussion of patch volume...

I personally find that most factory banks contain at least a few patches that are too loud, resulting in clipping. I find that I routinely have to adjust the volumes of many factory patches downward to prevent clipping. Adjusting patch volume so they all have similar apparent or average volumes will give this result if the bank contains patches with varied dynamics. The loss of dynamics in music may be contributing to a loss of dynamics across factory patches, I don't know.

In my opinion, a patch should be able to be played at full velocity across the full range of the keyboard without clipping. I set the volumes of my patches as loud as I reasonably can without clipping. This allows me to dial in my patches without having to worry about adjusting the input gain. This also results in some patches sounding considerably less loud than others, because some are much more dynamic than others. I like dynamics, and I record at 24 bit depth, so I don't need to maximize volume at risk of clipping, nor does it make any sense to me to have all the patches at the same apparent volume, because I am not selecting between them in a live situation. And if I were playing live, I would still either leave the dynamics there as intended, or add a compressor to the more dynamic patches if needed.

In my case, I adore punchy attacks, and many of my sounds have extremely high transient attacks. But when you play these patches, they sound softer than most. Contrarily, most patches have lower dynamics than mine, and in addition, are sometimes set up such that when played at full velocity, particularly in polyphony, clipping is possible.

Exactly. I trigger (read bash) as many keys as I can and set the volume as close to 0dB on K-system metering as I can, allowing it to slightly peak over 0dB on the K-system which I believe, on the K-14 setting is -6dB.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that DAWs vary, but I find stock patches often sound clipped when they go into the red in SONAR X1.

I don't understand this.
You've designed a set of Diva sounds for sale...using the demo?
Is that correct?
I'm confused, maybe I'm just misunderstanding something here.

Did I miss a memo? I thought voting closed Monday.

The article on BPB said voting closed Monday.

Which I took to mean, y'know...Monday.

...which it still is in the US.

I was hoping get that free 20 patch bank and I just ran across this yesterday and didn't have time to audition them until tonight....kinda bummed to say the least....
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Well, I enjoyed every bank...and FWIW my Fave Five were

City Never Sleeps
Bank Left at the Moon
Cosmophile (Loved Luna)
Steempunk Baroq (mainly for the patch Steam Puff Calliope)
Viva La Diva (Especially Melting Pad)

Again, all of them were just fab...thanks!

That's right, but only after talking to Urs about it first.

@ Gonga

I agree with much of what you said. It seems that the loudness war has spread to synth presets - you do now commonly find factory sounds that clip when played. Howard knows his stuff, but even some of his patches clip. And no doubt some of mine do too, though I've tried to avoid it (I know that Grand Slam clips for the first few voices - until the previous voices are played out) [Edit: just checked some poly patches do. Oh well... ]

I also agree that having all patches adjusted to the same perceived volume isn't desirable - I said as much in my last post.

Where we disagree is what might be considered a desirable dynamic range. Going on your patch bank, *my personal taste* is for a little more consistency - I find going from very soft patches to very loud ones makes auditioning a less pleasant experience.

And I get your liking for ultra punchy transients but, again *personal taste*, I don't think that the somewhat inconsistent attack that results in Diva (not a criticism of you or Diva) makes the considerable reduction in overall perceived volume worthwhile.

As far as the contests go:

1. It's impossible to get everyone to agree upon and stick to a common range of volumes.

2. There's been an explicit instruction about clipping in every contest for donkeys now, but getting everyone to abide by it just isn't going to happen.

3. For good or ill, in these contests louder patches will stand out and get some votes for it. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the competition and, considering 1) and 2), I can't see any way to change that.


Last edited by hakey on Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:56 am; edited 2 times in total

Hakey, thank you for the bank, amazing quality! Is it part of a commercial release? I would be really interested.

I'm checking Aiyn's demos too, I loved his patches for the contest. This combination of the best synth ever (notice that I didn't say 'softsynth') and a flood of people making so many great sounds in such a little time is incredible.

Thanks!

Nope, no plans (not convinced it's worth the hassle).


Last edited by hakey on Tue Apr 10, 2012 1:43 am; edited 2 times in total

Ok, thanks again!

Cool. Looking forward to it. We have too many skins for V2 now lets make some patches to complement it.

Good points, and I will think some more about the notion of consistency within a single bank. I've never actually thought about banks outside of the functional "Bass," "Lead," etc. But a "Dynamic" bank makes sense I suppose...

Oh, and there is at least one of my patches that is way too loud...

Yeah, I wouldn't take what I have to say on the matter as gospel - it is only an opinion.

Don't get me started on volume matching of presets
I always spend *a lot* of time with it and still I completely mess it up every single time

Cheers
Dennis

I want to thank you guys for your thoughtful comments on patch volume. I was planning on going through the factory patches to see where the volumes were set in them. Now, considering your input re: perceived volume vs. absolute volume, I think I'll get more out of that exercise.

As far as balancing patch volumes across a patch bank goes, I think that a bank submitted to a contest like this would benefit from balanced volumes for comfortable previewing (as long as I avoid the "hammer down" syndrome!). But a bank intended for performance would probably need much variation in patch volume due to the dynamics of the performance. I can even imagine using the same patch saved with different volumes in different places through a performance bank.

I appreciate your opinions.