This more for my curiosity than anything else but on a thread I started about Cabal 8 there was mention about my frustrations with the S3 engine and the lack of "instant" gratification when it came to programming riffs.
Then this message was posted by pryzmusic
"We can provide detailed context on what missteps were involved with the transition from Shreddage 2 to Shreddage 3 regarding its response to riff programming, details about the internal processing, as well as how the available UI parameters are used to replicate the old Shreddage 2 sound (something we provided as presets, which understandably it seems people don't notice are available). However, I would prefer to do this in the ISW subforum, instead of a Cabal 8 thread. If anyone is interested, please post a thread in the ISW subforum restating your grievances and we'll provide information about the current state of things and some tidbits about our future plans"
I don't have any grievances (life's too short to be annoyed by software) but would like more info so consider this the starter.
All the best
"Mis-steps" from S2 to S3
-
- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 20 posts since 28 Dec, 2012
-
- KVRer
- 25 posts since 27 Mar, 2019
Hello ediblepolecast,
It’s my hope that being transparent about what exactly the issues are between Shreddage 2 and Shreddage 3 will help assure users that any perceived loss of quality (described by a disgruntled user as a “horrible mistake” in the design of the S3 engine) are entirely and easily reparable (and for the most part, have already been).
Allow me to break down the problem into its components.
1) Sample offset
Sample offset is a parameter that describes how far into a sample waveform playback begins. Shreddage guitar samples are cut so that there are 30ms of pre-pick noise before the onset of the note, and the mutes are no exception. The Shreddage 3 engine makes this offset feature available globally, per up/down stroke, and per articulation for max control.
Where this comes into play is that Shreddage 2, by default (unbeknownst to me), had internal scripting designed to automatically skip most of this pre-pick noise on palm mute playback with high sample offset values. This resulted in, essentially, a “tighter” note attack, with an onset of the full body of the note immediately when the note is triggered. By default in our Shreddage 3 upgrades, no offsets of any kind were set into the default patch. This means, in Shreddage 3, the full samples are played back without alteration, and that includes the “pre-pick” attack portions. What this ends up creating is a tone that relatively seems messier and flubbier, as a portion of every palm mute note is simply noise.
We also neglected to raise the ADSR env release, so the mutes have also become shorter in standard machine-gunned MIDI, which even further reduces the effective body of the notes.
In our patch to the S3 upgrades, we restored high sample offset values to the mute articulations as well as additional stroke-focused offsets available in the “Metal Rhythms” preset. We will additionally make efforts to restore the ADSR release, however it is an easy adjustment for the user as well. Simply go to the TACT tab, and click the “Env” page to access articulation-level ADSR parameters.
2) Poly Input (and associated damage to riff timing)
Poly input is a new feature I designed for Shreddage 3 that allows users to play simultaneous MIDI notes within a small adjustable ms tolerance and have it be recognized as a chord. This chord recognition will take all the notes that you play and voice them as close to a real guitar fingering as possible, as opposed to having situations where close notes legato-overtake each other, or some notes end up on the other side of the fretboard.
By default, the Poly Input latency is turned on, as we wanted users to be able to play chords. This latency will understandably damage the timing of riffs as it further offsets note transients from where drums would end up. It is a simple matter to turn the front-page knob to 0. But this isn’t the entire fix.
Along with poly input, a new feature called “Strum on Poly Input”. Even when Poly Input latency is 0, notes aligned on the MIDI grid can still be perceived by S3 as chords, and so any manually sequenced powerchord riffs will still trigger Poly Input. Because “Strum on Poly Input” is engaged by default (again, to service the first impression of keyboardists playing chords), manual powerchord chugs, ESPECIALLY low velocity chugs (for tight mutes), result in sluggish strums of powerchord mutes instead of proper tight chugs.
The “Metal Rhythms” preset turns off the poly input strumming feature and sets its latency to 0 in order to restore the expected response.
3) Release noises
Release noises are another thing that are configured to default differently than Shreddage 2. By and large they are set louder and will happen more often. In the Metal Rhythms preset, we set the minimum time window for releases to be greater, so that fast riff programming doesn’t result in a mess of fret sliding and other noise meant to add organicity to the performance. However, this is something that users should get comfortable with adjusting themselves on a per song, even per-riff (they are automatable) basis, and additionally considering to trigger release noises with rules in TACT rather than allow the engine to decide when they are. Speaking as someone who plays guitar, the decision of how messy note endings are is ideally a conscious decision and is used or left out intentionally for expressive effect.
—
Essentially, what happened to the sound of Shreddage 2 is both that old settings were not carried over to Shreddage 3 (due to the differing developers, zircon oversees Shreddage 3 but I am the current programmer) and that new features, targeted to the exact opposite of precise programming use case, interfered by default.
However, we are continually trying to find ways to repair this experience for our upgrade users and are considering the new default patches for our metal guitars to be optimized for metal riff programming from the start instead of messier or more polyphonically aware keyboard performance, and not requiring users to locate the appropriate presets.
We are also planning on introducing a brand new front page UI solution to selecting guitar play styles, such as “Lead, “Riffs”, and so on, so that users can at a glance understand whether or not they have selected a configuration which will suit what they’re trying to write. Needless to say, the “riffs” configuration button will tune all engine settings to essentially exactly how S2 handled performances, to guarantee the same tightness, precision, timing, and body of the palm mutes. However, the timeline on this new UI is a bit indeterminate, as we are an incredibly small team who have a large pipeline of non Shreddage-related projects to complete as the year continues. We do want to assure that making Shreddage 3 easier to use and having more instant gratification (ESPECIALLY with metal programming) is one of our top concerns, as Shreddage 3 is our flagship product, so even if this new update is not in the immediate future, I would not expect it later than the end of this year.
It’s my hope that being transparent about what exactly the issues are between Shreddage 2 and Shreddage 3 will help assure users that any perceived loss of quality (described by a disgruntled user as a “horrible mistake” in the design of the S3 engine) are entirely and easily reparable (and for the most part, have already been).
Allow me to break down the problem into its components.
1) Sample offset
Sample offset is a parameter that describes how far into a sample waveform playback begins. Shreddage guitar samples are cut so that there are 30ms of pre-pick noise before the onset of the note, and the mutes are no exception. The Shreddage 3 engine makes this offset feature available globally, per up/down stroke, and per articulation for max control.
Where this comes into play is that Shreddage 2, by default (unbeknownst to me), had internal scripting designed to automatically skip most of this pre-pick noise on palm mute playback with high sample offset values. This resulted in, essentially, a “tighter” note attack, with an onset of the full body of the note immediately when the note is triggered. By default in our Shreddage 3 upgrades, no offsets of any kind were set into the default patch. This means, in Shreddage 3, the full samples are played back without alteration, and that includes the “pre-pick” attack portions. What this ends up creating is a tone that relatively seems messier and flubbier, as a portion of every palm mute note is simply noise.
We also neglected to raise the ADSR env release, so the mutes have also become shorter in standard machine-gunned MIDI, which even further reduces the effective body of the notes.
In our patch to the S3 upgrades, we restored high sample offset values to the mute articulations as well as additional stroke-focused offsets available in the “Metal Rhythms” preset. We will additionally make efforts to restore the ADSR release, however it is an easy adjustment for the user as well. Simply go to the TACT tab, and click the “Env” page to access articulation-level ADSR parameters.
2) Poly Input (and associated damage to riff timing)
Poly input is a new feature I designed for Shreddage 3 that allows users to play simultaneous MIDI notes within a small adjustable ms tolerance and have it be recognized as a chord. This chord recognition will take all the notes that you play and voice them as close to a real guitar fingering as possible, as opposed to having situations where close notes legato-overtake each other, or some notes end up on the other side of the fretboard.
By default, the Poly Input latency is turned on, as we wanted users to be able to play chords. This latency will understandably damage the timing of riffs as it further offsets note transients from where drums would end up. It is a simple matter to turn the front-page knob to 0. But this isn’t the entire fix.
Along with poly input, a new feature called “Strum on Poly Input”. Even when Poly Input latency is 0, notes aligned on the MIDI grid can still be perceived by S3 as chords, and so any manually sequenced powerchord riffs will still trigger Poly Input. Because “Strum on Poly Input” is engaged by default (again, to service the first impression of keyboardists playing chords), manual powerchord chugs, ESPECIALLY low velocity chugs (for tight mutes), result in sluggish strums of powerchord mutes instead of proper tight chugs.
The “Metal Rhythms” preset turns off the poly input strumming feature and sets its latency to 0 in order to restore the expected response.
3) Release noises
Release noises are another thing that are configured to default differently than Shreddage 2. By and large they are set louder and will happen more often. In the Metal Rhythms preset, we set the minimum time window for releases to be greater, so that fast riff programming doesn’t result in a mess of fret sliding and other noise meant to add organicity to the performance. However, this is something that users should get comfortable with adjusting themselves on a per song, even per-riff (they are automatable) basis, and additionally considering to trigger release noises with rules in TACT rather than allow the engine to decide when they are. Speaking as someone who plays guitar, the decision of how messy note endings are is ideally a conscious decision and is used or left out intentionally for expressive effect.
—
Essentially, what happened to the sound of Shreddage 2 is both that old settings were not carried over to Shreddage 3 (due to the differing developers, zircon oversees Shreddage 3 but I am the current programmer) and that new features, targeted to the exact opposite of precise programming use case, interfered by default.
However, we are continually trying to find ways to repair this experience for our upgrade users and are considering the new default patches for our metal guitars to be optimized for metal riff programming from the start instead of messier or more polyphonically aware keyboard performance, and not requiring users to locate the appropriate presets.
We are also planning on introducing a brand new front page UI solution to selecting guitar play styles, such as “Lead, “Riffs”, and so on, so that users can at a glance understand whether or not they have selected a configuration which will suit what they’re trying to write. Needless to say, the “riffs” configuration button will tune all engine settings to essentially exactly how S2 handled performances, to guarantee the same tightness, precision, timing, and body of the palm mutes. However, the timeline on this new UI is a bit indeterminate, as we are an incredibly small team who have a large pipeline of non Shreddage-related projects to complete as the year continues. We do want to assure that making Shreddage 3 easier to use and having more instant gratification (ESPECIALLY with metal programming) is one of our top concerns, as Shreddage 3 is our flagship product, so even if this new update is not in the immediate future, I would not expect it later than the end of this year.
-
- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 20 posts since 28 Dec, 2012
Thank you for a very detailed response, I'm guessing this should silence the moans now, knowing that you and the team have taken on board the comments with the new engine.
I've always thought ISW was great when it came to customer support and actually listening to users when they had suggestions or critiques and am glad that that is continuing.
Looking forward to the updates and hoping it resolves the issue.
Thanks again Pryz and ISW
All the best
I've always thought ISW was great when it came to customer support and actually listening to users when they had suggestions or critiques and am glad that that is continuing.
Looking forward to the updates and hoping it resolves the issue.
Thanks again Pryz and ISW
All the best
