KVR Audio

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:32 pm

You could probably just use a transient shaper too if you need even more snap.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:43 pm

Mutant wrote: Ah so "snappy envelopes" really means "exponential envelopes".

Not at all... if you take Z3TA and Spire e.g., both have the option to use linear or exponential envelope stages, yet they sound very different. It is only recently IMO that virtual analogues envelopes have become really snappy and boomy. Anything before, say, 2009-2010 was much less snappy.

I think someone has to post some sound examples soon, otherwise this will become too esoteric.

Mutant · Post by **Mutant** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:18 am

TAL NoiseMaker has spline / multipoint envelope.
You can use it to tune in the snappiest possible envelope, then post the patch here for everyone to hear.

ZentralmassivSound · Post by **ZentralmassivSound** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 8:25 am

Here is the Virus punch on a saw and rectangle osc:

I guess punch and snappiness are different things though. Punch refers to a very short click right at the beginning, first 1-3 ms of a sound, while I guess snappiness refers to the envelope of the first say 10-15 ms?

cytospur · Post by **cytospur** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:45 pm

Here's how 'snappy' the DUNE2 MSEGs are:

DUNE2 MSEG Env.jpg

The x-axis is in samples (44100 samples per sec). The initial peak reaches a maximum in 4 samples and decays by 50% per 4 samples thereafter until it reaches the constant amount that I have set for the amp envelope. Seems pretty 'snappy' to me

4 samples is about 100 nanoseconds off the top of my head.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:55 pm

IMO it's not only about the snappiness of the envelopes. It surely is also determined by the sound engine in general whether the envelope has a snappy character or not. Not sure if it's the envelopes, the filters, or a combination of both, but there's synth which tends to be plasticky (Electra2 e.g.), creamy (rather a filter thing i guess), or dry, or stump (Z3TA 2), or just don't bang at all (Synthmaster). I will post some sound examples later which IMO show pretty well the characteristics of the respective synths in that regard.

ZentralmassivSound · Post by **ZentralmassivSound** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 2:16 pm

cytospur wrote:Here's how 'snappy' the DUNE2 MSEGs are:

Ha, doesn't that look almost exactly like the Virus? (except your screenshots have a way better resolution

)

oskari · Post by **oskari** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 2:33 pm

Corona-snappy: . Keyboard-player-snappy maybe.

mholloway · Post by **mholloway** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 3:59 pm

The snappiest bass patches I've ever heard in a soft-synth are from U-He Bazille. Just run through the factory library basses and, assuming we have the same idea of what Snappiness means, I think you'll see what I mean...

Synthetic Wav · Post by **Synthetic Wav** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 4:21 pm

the more the decay get fast the more it should go to the click wihtout farting out.. some envelop just fade out the sound with no punch when reducing the decay stage while some will sounds more precise and strong , that give the snap feeling to me.
if the filter is involved in the patch the sound of the filter will matter a lot too. i was trying mpower synth and the envelop can have a good snap, there is also a great feature that let you smooth the envelop curve, great for a more musical rounded transient that can still be snappy .

i have the feeling envelops are often overlooked by plugin developers,they probably think it will matter to only few users or maybe it's too save cpu no idea .

technicaly i wonder what is needed? oversampling should give a quicker and more precise envelop or not?

Synthetic Wav · Post by **Synthetic Wav** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 6:58 pm

i did a test on Mpowersynth just to check by curiosity as i m new to programing it, i reduce de decay on patch i was programing till 10/15 ms then i push the sustain, no hold stage used , close to fastest attack .
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8iz7tmavuy2q ... 1.wav?dl=0

some plugs will reduce to silence, or have zero punch with quick decay and cause of this never sound right if you want slapy attack ( tricks like using a burst of noise or very quick pitch modulation help but it's not suited for every patchs ) on this one it s seems to be decent i might check on a analog with very fast attack i think it might be a bit more snappy and nice sounding than this but not sure.

not really a great test file but it's just by curiosity i did the test, some might find it intresing .
it's not used there but with the smooth to round the edge as you want + draggable curves this synth offer good control to shape transients

kv331 · Post by **kv331** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 7:03 pm

chk071 wrote: Some synths just don't have it, no matter what you do to them. Synthmaster is one of the least "snappy" synths i ever tried. Good luck in getting any snappy sounds of it (or really fat basses). Dune 1/CM/BE is not the most snappy synths either, but already a lot snappier than Synthmaster. While "snappy" for me mostly refers to filter and envelope behavior. Maybe amp envelope too, dunno.

Hey we wanna improve that part, so could you give us some samples that we could use as reference ?

Thanks!

cytospur · Post by **cytospur** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:00 pm

ZentralmassivSound wrote:
cytospur wrote:Here's how 'snappy' the DUNE2 MSEGs are:
Ha, doesn't that look almost exactly like the Virus? (except your screenshots have a way better resolution )

Indeed

It's not a screenshot though. Plotted in and exported directly from a program called Mathematica.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:04 pm

kv331 wrote:
chk071 wrote: Some synths just don't have it, no matter what you do to them. Synthmaster is one of the least "snappy" synths i ever tried. Good luck in getting any snappy sounds of it (or really fat basses). Dune 1/CM/BE is not the most snappy synths either, but already a lot snappier than Synthmaster. While "snappy" for me mostly refers to filter and envelope behavior. Maybe amp envelope too, dunno.
Hey we wanna improve that part, so could you give us some samples that we could use as reference ?

Thanks!

Hey, that's nice to hear.

Here is an example from Electra2:

Electra2

Note that there's probably soft synth which are snappier out there, i just think Electra2 has a nice snappy-, creamy- and plasticky-ness to it, which makes sounds like these very nice. Just personal preference, others might disagree. Also analog synth are of course even snappier (so i'd rather take those as a reference). For the example, i used the LP Moog filter in Electra, with some of the analog knob dialed in, first sweep is without resonance, the second with about 50 % resonance, and the last with about 75% resonance. The filter envelope decay is exponential and the slope set to 7.

_al_ · Post by **_al_** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:31 pm

that electra clip would sound a lot more snappy, if you gave it an exponential vol env, as well as cutoff.
imo thats the trick to getting a really hard hitting attack. have the attack at like, 5 times the volume of the tail, and as long as the synth has a fast env (and exponential curve), then it can be more punchy than you could ever possibly need, though you might need to have separate msegs for filt and vol.
imo the the vol should be more exp than the filter.
expecting the filter to do all the work, is where you're going wrong imo.
also, if you got a nice sounding filter, then using vol for punch, and leaving the res at zero while filtering, can give some lovely, almost acoustic-like sounds.
well these are my findings using zebra, anyway

Synths with the snappiest envelopes