Newbie Synth question

[seangm]

Hi all,

I've been messing around with soft synths for a while but don't have much understanding of the technical side of things. One thing I've noticed with some of the preset patches, I think it's analog patches mostly, is that if I'm playing a line and some of the notes overlap the sound will just fade out until it's pretty much silent. So all of the notes after the first note get quieter and quieter. I'm assuming this was done by design? To me it makes playing them really difficult because I can't play more than a couple notes in a row without losing the sound. Is there anyone who can enlighten me as to why that happens and if there is a good reason for it. I'd also like to "disable" this option if possible but not sure how to do that, I don't find it useful at all. I'm using Omnisphere and Massive mostly. Thanks for any help.

[ahanysz]

Yes it's by design, and yes you should be able to turn it off. I haven't used Omnisphere or Massive specifically, but you want to look for a control called "legato". If you can't see it, then look for "polyphonic/monophonic", "trigger" or "retrigger".

Alternatively, you can look for ADSR settings and try putting S (sustain) up to the max value.

Before I explain in more detail: have you figured out what the word "envelope" means for synth sounds?

[seangm]

Yes it's by design, and yes you should be able to turn it off. I haven't used Omnisphere or Massive specifically, but you want to look for a control called "legato". If you can't see it, then look for "polyphonic/monophonic", "trigger" or "retrigger".

Alternatively, you can look for ADSR settings and try putting S (sustain) up to the max value.

Before I explain in more detail: have you figured out what the word "envelope" means for synth sounds?

This is awesome info, thanks for the reply. I don't completely understand how envelopes work but it's time to dig into some synth tutorials on youtube. I have seen the ADSR section in Omnisphere so I think I'll try to mess with the sustain volume then. Thanks again.

[ahanysz]

Legato mode means that instead of each note getting its own envelope, you have a single envelope being stretched over multiple notes. Hopefully this will make sense after you go through some tutorials! Personally I found Syntorial pretty good for learning this sort of stuff (and much more), but of course YouTube is cheaper :-)

[wangeroge]

Most of the times the synth does this on purpose. It might sound crap in polyphonic mode. Often this is turned on when the sound contains multiple notes, e.g. a 7th chord in a deephouse sound. You can't play that sound polyphonic.