Diva and Zebra questions

[wagtunes]

TBH, i don't find the example you posted above very punchy. Or snappy. Which, in my book, are two different things.

Here's a sound snippet i always post to demonstrate very fast, snappy envelopes:

https://soundcloud.com/chk-sound/monark-snap

"Punchy" i'd rather define as something heavy, weighty, and beefy. Fluffy demonstrated that pretty well with his Sylenth1 patch. And Sylenth1 is one of those synths which can get pretty "punchy". It doesn't take fast envelopes, and considerable "snappy"-ness to do a punchy sound though. In my opinion. Your definition may differ.

Now THAT sounds cool.

What is it that makes one envelope snappy and another mushy? I can never understand that if you're doing the exact same settings on two different synths. Some synths, even with fast decay times, sound like hitting mashed potatoes.

[chk071]

Good question. I never really found any information in that regard. People typically argue that you only need a certain slope on the envelope stages, or a MSEG, to make everything snappy. Which couldn't be further from the truth, in my experience.

Bulent from KV331 Audio once mentioned that the envelopes on Synthmaster are too slow, and he "fixed" that in a newer version of the synth. I don't know if that's true for any synth though. Some synth's envelopes sound soft, lame, and thin like paper, while others have real punch.

[AnX]

What is it that makes one envelope snappy and another mushy? I can never understand that if you're doing the exact same settings on two different synths. Some synths, even with fast decay times, sound like hitting mashed potatoes.

depends how they are coded. Could have pre defined times and/or diff curves (log/lin/exp) or they could be both to mimic whatever synth they are emulating

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

What is it that makes one envelope snappy and another mushy? I can never understand that if you're doing the exact same settings on two different synths. Some synths, even with fast decay times, sound like hitting mashed potatoes.

depends how they are coded. Could have pre defined times and/or diff curves (log/lin/exp) or they could be both to mimic whatever synth they are emulating

Yes. Also, it's just not the shape but how the envelope times are scaled across the length of the knob or fader. For instance, a synth that devotes 50% of the knob range to the first 600ms of the attack might seem punchier than a synth that covers that range in the first 25% of the control. Even if the envelope shapes themselves would be otherwise identical when properly matched.

[pdxindy]

What is it that makes one envelope snappy and another mushy? I can never understand that if you're doing the exact same settings on two different synths. Some synths, even with fast decay times, sound like hitting mashed potatoes.

depends how they are coded. Could have pre defined times and/or diff curves (log/lin/exp) or they could be both to mimic whatever synth they are emulating

Yes. Also, it's just not the shape but how the envelope times are scaled across the length of the knob or fader. For instance, a synth that devotes 50% of the knob range to the first 600ms of the attack might seem punchier than a synth that covers that range in the first 25% of the control. Even if the envelope shapes themselves would be otherwise identical when properly matched.

that just means one is more convenient... not as much need for fine adjustments

I wonder how much the control rate that the env's are calculated at matter?

[Elektronisch]

Elektronisch:
At the beginning of your audio there is no bass in the click, either. It seems to get added as the decay increases. It sounds almost like a sub-oscillator, a couple of octaves lower than the main sound. I can't think of many examples where I would even want that. I would only have to remove the low frequencies again with an equalizer as they would interfere with bass and bass drum...

Yes it is not a bass, but click already has covered all the frequency spectrum range and you can see that in analyzer that it has bass and sub bass frequencies playing. Well maybe you dont want that and its totaly fine, but there are handful of people who do want that, so please respect that

[Elektronisch]

TBH, i don't find the example you posted above very punchy. Or snappy. Which, in my book, are two different things.

Here's a sound snippet i always post to demonstrate very fast, snappy envelopes:

https://soundcloud.com/chk-sound/monark-snap

"Punchy" i'd rather define as something heavy, weighty, and beefy. Fluffy demonstrated that pretty well with his Sylenth1 patch. And Sylenth1 is one of those synths which can get pretty "punchy". It doesn't take fast envelopes, and considerable "snappy"-ness to do a punchy sound though. In my opinion. Your definition may differ.

I think everyone has a different definition of punch Monark here does indeed sound snappy, but you put "work" in it, you had to use the filters to bring out that punch (if i hear correctly). And you dont have to do any kind of work to do in elements (or virus, viper - just thinking of synths who does that straight out of the box)

And here is the difference, when you dont use just for regular synth sounds, emulation sounds aka simple synth brass, but you use that synth for more modern sounds, much more complex sounds that involve some heavy post processing, then it actually matters, because final result can be different like a day and night from one or another synth.

[AnX]

What is it that makes one envelope snappy and another mushy? I can never understand that if you're doing the exact same settings on two different synths. Some synths, even with fast decay times, sound like hitting mashed potatoes.

depends how they are coded. Could have pre defined times and/or diff curves (log/lin/exp) or they could be both to mimic whatever synth they are emulating

Yes. Also, it's just not the shape but how the envelope times are scaled across the length of the knob or fader. For instance, a synth that devotes 50% of the knob range to the first 600ms of the attack might seem punchier than a synth that covers that range in the first 25% of the control. Even if the envelope shapes themselves would be otherwise identical when properly matched.

yes, that i mean by pre defined times

[Urs]

I don't know... this totally reminds me of that other thread. And the question, as to how many more friends our products gain if we add clicky things, as opposed to how many we'd loose.

In total, I think more pople complain about Hive's 0 ms envelopes than we ever get people's praises. We often have to tell people that's Hive's 3.00 Attack position equals 0.00 on a standard synth, and that's where the clicks come from.

Not convinced.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I don't know... this totally reminds me of that other thread. And the question, as to how many more friends our products gain if we add clicky things, as opposed to how many we'd loose.

In total, I think more pople complain about Hive's 0 ms envelopes than we ever get people's praises. We often have to tell people that's Hive's 3.00 Attack position equals 0.00 on a standard synth, and that's where the clicks come from.

Not convinced.

Out of curiousity, is Tyrell in the same boat with envelopes? I can get them quite clicky, which I'm ok with even if I always end up just increasing the envelope length a bit to avoid the clicks.

[Urs]

I think TyrellN6 envelopes are identical to ACE/Bazille. Could be wrong, but I'm quite sure. For Hive we did new envelopes to match certain shapes also found in certain synthesizers (digital), like we did for Diva (analogue).

[chk071]

People complaining about a clicky attack should be

As Urs said, you can always add a bit of attack, or add a de-click option to the synth. I sometimes don't get the mainstream taste.

[david.beholder]

I think TyrellN6 envelopes are identical to ACE/Bazille. Could be wrong, but I'm quite sure. For Hive we did new envelopes to match certain shapes also found in certain synthesizers (digital), like we did for Diva (analogue).

Urs, btw I remember talks about Release in Moog Envs and Alpha Juno Envs in Diva? Are they probable to happen?

[Teksonik]

What is it that makes one envelope snappy and another mushy?

Good question.

I see Punchy and Snappy are back at it....Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy, Abbott and Costello all equally comical.......

[Elektronisch]

People complaining about a clicky attack should be

As Urs said, you can always add a bit of attack, or add a de-click option to the synth. I sometimes don't get the mainstream taste.

The irony of that the popular music (future house ect) actually use more "clicky" sounds like bass ect.

Its just an open tought, I wonder if that majority of envelope complains come more from people who like to toy around with softsynths and collect or actual producers who make living out of making music, having a career