Novation Peak: Did I receive a defective unit?

[TheWaveWarden]

I just received my second hand Novation Peak.

It behaves really weird: When using polyphony, a weird aliasing / artefact noise appears. I made a video to showcase what's happening:



Steps are:
- Init patch
- Osc1: Sine wave
- Resonance up
- FilterFreq to ~11 o'clock
- Play chord

Now there is a weird noise, which is eliviated by the resonance. I expect the synth to play clear sine notes instead, like when using monophonically. I can hardly imagine this being the expected behaviour?

Please can someone with a Peak tell me if this is normal or maybe test on their unit?

halp!

[tehlord]

Sounds like distortion tbh. Try turning the individual oscillator level down and see if that removes the issue.

I would imagine your filter frequency is coinciding with the approx frequency of the notes you are playing, and the resonance is pushing it into distortion.

[zerocrossing]

Sounds like you’re slamming the input of your audio interface.

[TheWaveWarden]

Yes, that makes sense. I am just wondering why the instrument would have so little headroom, especially for a poly synth. There's the dedicated Distortion FX if I would want it.

Guess I'm too much used to virtual synths

[tehlord]

Yes, that makes sense. I am just wondering why the instrument would have so little headroom, especially for a poly synth. There's the dedicated Distortion FX if I would want it.

Guess I'm too much used to virtual synths

Modelling pushing oscillators into a filter is a thing.

[TheWaveWarden]

Sounds like you’re slamming the input of your audio interface.

No, levels are way below clipping

[tehlord]

It's not about lacking headroom, it's about modelling distortion. A lot of plugins do it too, but it'll be very noticeable with sine waves.

[JCJR]

Well assuming the audio interface input is not ovwrloaded, the "poly mix" of a sine chord seems to sound more distorted than single notes, possibly indicating clipping in the voice mixer stage in addition to whatever distortion contributed by individual voice filters.

Possibly for some reason your Peak lacks normal headroom. It would need comparing to another Peak to discover if abnormal. Maybe a Peak owner can help long distance diagnose.

Sine only has one harmonic. If the filter is not driven to distortion, then sweeping the filter freq or changing the filt resonance on a sine does not change timbre at all. It just acts like a volume control.

If you tune the filt to the freq of the sine wave then raise the Q to 10, in some filter designs this would be the same as adding 20 dB gain boost. 20 dB is a lot of gain. And a typical synth filter can go lots higher Q than 10. If the filt can self oscillate at max resonance then that is essentially "infinite gain" at the center freq.

Some filt designs avoid getting "loud as hell" at high resonance by keeping the resonant peak gain near unity and "turnng down the bass" instead. This gives a clean well behaved filter that has wimpy bass when ypu turn up the resonance.

The kind of filter that lets high-resonant peaks get loud as hell gives much phatter hi-res bass, but "protects itself" at overload by transient distortion rather than getting loud enough to blow yer speakers.

Dnno what flavor of filter Peak is sposed to have.

[vurt]

Yes, that makes sense. I am just wondering why the instrument would have so little headroom, especially for a poly synth. There's the dedicated Distortion FX if I would want it.

Guess I'm too much used to virtual synths

different uses of distortion.
i don't know how routable the distortion fx on the peak is, but for example driving the front of a filter, has a different sound than adding a distortion post filter

so you have more sound design possibilities with both available.
not all sounds driving the front of the filter will sound like a distortion fx, depending on wave shape or filter and resonance freqs.

turn the oscillator mix down, you may need to turn the synth output up a little to compensate.

[zerocrossing]

Sounds like you’re slamming the input of your audio interface.

No, levels are way below clipping

The oscillators do go very hot into the amp and filter. If you’re using more than one I often keep them in the 50% range. Filter resonance can further distort the amp stage. Lot’s of places on the Peak to get into trouble. That’s a good thing, IMO, but you need to learn it.

[zerocrossing]

Yes, that makes sense. I am just wondering why the instrument would have so little headroom, especially for a poly synth. There's the dedicated Distortion FX if I would want it.

Guess I'm too much used to virtual synths

different uses of distortion.
i don't know how routable the distortion fx on the peak is, but for example driving the front of a filter, has a different sound than adding a distortion post filter

so you have more sound design possibilities with both available.
not all sounds driving the front of the filter will sound like a distortion fx, depending on wave shape or filter and resonance freqs.

turn the oscillator mix down, you may need to turn the synth output up a little to compensate.

The Peak has pre filter drive and post filter distortion as well as an analog distortion on the output bus. Plus, as the OP has discovered, you can overdrive the VCA/Mixer.

[chk071]

I'm a bit confused regarding the topic title. It says that you think you "solved" the issue, but, I don't see any actual solution. Could you elaborate? Just interested, I don't own the Peak.

Are you saying that the levels and clipping were the issue?

Actually, thinking about it, and watching the video, the source of distortion could simply be the analog filter?

[TheWaveWarden]

The oscillators do go very hot into the amp and filter. If you’re using more than one I often keep them in the 50% range. Filter resonance can further distort the amp stage. Lot’s of places on the Peak to get into trouble. That’s a good thing, IMO, but you need to learn it.

The distortion I'm hearing must happen in the section where the voices are mixed already, since the spectrum clearly shows frequencies below the notes ones being played. This can not happen if the individual sine-waves are distorted, since that would just produce harmonics above the fundamental. I am still a bit confused by the lack of headroom in this section, but after playing for the evening it seems nothing bad happens unless I force it, like in the video.

I'm a bit confused regarding the topic title. It says that you think you "solved" the issue, but, I don't see any actual solution. Could you elaborate? Just interested, I don't own the Peak.

Are you saying that the levels and clipping were the issue?

Actually, thinking about it, and watching the video, the source of distortion could simply be the analog filter?

Is that still shown? I actually removed the [Solved] again. I made this post after playing with the peak for a mere 10 minutes. I just wanted to make sure the gear is not defective (as was the case when I bought a Pro2 a while back).

The solution seems to be distortion due to the VCA section being driven too hard. Although I am not too sure, if a Peak user could verify, I'd still be glad.

[chk071]

Alright.

AFAIC, it could be the filter as well. But, that should be easily checked, by simply lowering the levels, and see if it still distorts the same way then.

[vurt]

Yes, that makes sense. I am just wondering why the instrument would have so little headroom, especially for a poly synth. There's the dedicated Distortion FX if I would want it.

Guess I'm too much used to virtual synths

different uses of distortion.
i don't know how routable the distortion fx on the peak is, but for example driving the front of a filter, has a different sound than adding a distortion post filter

so you have more sound design possibilities with both available.
not all sounds driving the front of the filter will sound like a distortion fx, depending on wave shape or filter and resonance freqs.

turn the oscillator mix down, you may need to turn the synth output up a little to compensate.

The Peak has pre filter drive and post filter distortion as well as an analog distortion on the output bus. Plus, as the OP has discovered, you can overdrive the VCA/Mixer.

ah, so it has a few options
as you said in the post previous to the quoted one, its a good thing, but you do have to learn it!