Silent Way Voice Controller Cal issue.

[zmix]

I have been working with a client who has a large modular synth and several other CV/Gate based synths, and uses an Apogee Symphony audio interface and Logic 9

Naturally I asked him to purchase the Silent Way plugins...!

I managed to set up and calibrate his Synthesizers.com modular, but when I tried to calibrate the Prophet 5
I could not get the plugin to respond to the audio input.

If I recall the Modular's calibration file I can play the Prophet 5 via it's CV/Gate but the pitch doesn't track properly.

I have a Voice Controller inserted on an "software instrument" channel.

I have the Prophet 5 audio output routed to "audio input 1" on the Apogee and I have a channel in Logic using that as it's input. I can monitor the Prophet 5 through this input.

When I set the Voice Controller's input using Either "input 1" or "Audio 1" ( the logic Channel) via the sidechain input and press "calibrate v/oct" I can see the voltages rising on the Apogee and also on Logic's meters, the Prophet 5 is triggered, but the pitch on the Prophet 5 does not change.

The resulting blue curve is a horizontal flat line. If I reload the previous calibration the plugin works but the pitches do not track properly, as I stated before.

I am mystified.

I've restarted Logic. I've created a new session just for this procedure, but no input pitches are detected during calibration.

Can anyone help?

PS: I set up an account at "Muffwiggler" but the forums are a mess, every topic says "No posts exist for this topic"

[os]

This is a P5 issue. It only samples the pitch CV input on a gate start - you can't change the pitch via CV with the gate constantly open, which is what the Voice Controller assumes.

[zmix]

Thanks for the reply.

Is there a workaround?

Perhaps there is a manual calibration mode for the Voice Controller plugin? (If not, then please..? )*

I wonder what would happen if I fed the gate input with a rapid pulse during calibration….



* I realize that every audio interface is different, etc, but I think it would be great if the Voice Controller plugin came with a few basic presets, 1v/oct for example, which is going to look pretty linear on any system anyway.

[os]

>> I wonder what would happen if I fed the gate input with a rapid pulse during calibration…

that would probably work fine.

[zmix]

Thanks OS..!

Is there a manual calibration mode?

[os]

There is not.

[zmix]

A manual calibration would be a welcome addition, or at very least a simple set of presets. As it is I have heard from countless people who have dismissed the Silent Way plugin out of hand "because it only puts out one note".. Crazy but true.

At the moment you can't test the demo without calibrating, and there are just some instruments (like the very popular Prophet 5) that cannot be calibrated at all.

You've already included parameters for offsets, etc, but why not scale adjustments?

Or a simple interpolation of two or three notes during calibration? This would solve the Prophet 5 issue..

Just my £2

[zmix]

I wanted to post a follow up...

I sent a rapid sequence of gate pulses to the gate input of the Prophet 5 while running the Silent Way Voice Controller calibration and managed to come up with a valid and accurate calibration..!

The blue line in the display looks very weird, but the pitch tracking is excellent across the entire range.

The fact that the Prophet 5 only samples the CV input during the gate on is unfortunate. It means no legato playing, no Silent Way LFO or pitch envelopes.

On the other hand the timing is so much better than what you'd get via the MIDI interface, it's worth putting up with these limitations.

[os]

Good news! Could you post a picture of the calibration graph, just for reference for anyone else attempting this?

[zmix]

I'll take a screen shot when I get to the studio. The visible curve has no bearing on the actual output, however, it's full of clipped and folded back segments.

[zmix]

Here's the calibration display for the Synthesizers.com Modular:

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 8.34.03 PM.jpg

[zmix]

Here's the calibration display for the Prophet 5:

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 8.33.23 PM.jpg

[os]

OK, looks like a normal linear curve but with badness at the ends.

Chances are the P5 only responds to positive voltages. If you used the Output Matrix to limit the voltage range before calibration you might get a better curve.

With your constant fast gate pulse, you could use the SW DC plug-in to manually sweep over the CV range to see what range produces a useful result.

[zmix]

OK, looks like a normal linear curve but with badness at the ends.

Chances are the P5 only responds to positive voltages. If you used the Output Matrix to limit the voltage range before calibration you might get a better curve.

With your constant fast gate pulse, you could use the SW DC plug-in to manually sweep over the CV range to see what range produces a useful result.

True. I did several passes of the calibration and by luck got one that covered the 5 octave range of the keyboard, and who's pitches were in tune with the built in keyboard.

That one looks like this:

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 8.33.52 PM.jpg