Good envelopes

[GeckoYamori]

I love the draw your own types, as in you add points and lines are filled inbetween where you can adjust the curve. Like in FM8. I like to use these to create "fake" reverb tails or delays after the sustain, or I can even add an attack instead of a release in some cases. You just can't get unique sound movements like these with the boring ADSR.

[@midnight]

Some people say stuff like

"That synth cant even do a proper bass sound"

and they will blame it on the envelope, saying its not snappy enough

i dont really have enough experience on how to test this yet

[miedex]

Beyond a basic ADSR it's really just about control of the shape or inserting more points.. ie stuff like an AHDSR or an ADSAR, where the attack will trigger again when you release the sustain.

Is ADSAR a real thing? Which synth uses it? Google seems to return nothing.

[PAK]

Beyond a basic ADSR it's really just about control of the shape or inserting more points.. ie stuff like an AHDSR or an ADSAR, where the attack will trigger again when you release the sustain.

Is ADSAR a real thing? Which synth uses it? Google seems to return nothing.

Any software, which allows adding more envelope points (than just release) beyond the sustain points, could simulate it. In hardware there's stuff like this Eurorack module..

http://postmodular.co.uk/wmd/multimode-envelope

[realmarco]

i like Absynth's envelopes you can even have them "click" no hardware analogue synth could have faster envelopes

I had an arp axxe,that thing had slow envelopes making kicks on that thing was futile

[Ichad.c]

http://postmodular.co.uk/wmd/multimode-envelope

That's very impressive!

[bmanic]

Envelope shape and "resolution" (when it's a digital synth) have a HUGE impact on the general character of a synth. A great example is the Virus Synth, doing those soft trance stab type things where you drive the rhythm with this percussive soft pillowy sound.

A big part of the Deadmau5 "soft" but punchy/thick sound comes from the way he manages the transients of his sounds, aka, the envelope.

I've been saying this for over a decade already but paying attention to how your envelopes work when creating a synth is at least as important as the other major parts of a synth like the oscillator and filter.

If you have a flexible modulation matrix and you can modulate an envelope with another, or modulate an envelope with itself, then you can create some truly nice fluffy or stabby sounds.

Some synths with great envelopes and thus great potential for fine tuning any sound are:

1) Most image-line synths, at least the ones Didier (gol) has programmed. Very detailed envelopes. Easy to use Bezier curves and other ways to shape them. They can be ridiculously fast and seem to have quite a high resolution.

2) Camel Audio Alchemy. Extremely flexible as anything can modulate basically anything else. There's also a smoothing option for all modulation destinations where you can further refine the shape. High(ish) resolution of the envelopes.

3) Tone2 ElectraX. Not as flexible as the above synths but Markus really nailed the modulation in this synth. It was very poor in the original Gladiator. Got a bit better in Gladiator 2 but in ElectraX it just works very well.. and you can modulate one envelope with another.

4) Uh-e Zebra. Extremely powerful and snappy. You can do whatever you want with this. Only limitation is your imagination.

5) Reaktor and other modular systems like reaktor.. obviously as you can basically create your own from scratch.

6) FabFilter Twin (and also the effects). Very powerful ways to modulate envelopes and thus their shape. However, I do feel the resolution is not as high as it could be. It's hard to get an extremely "ticky" or short sound out of this thing.

There are probably tons more but that's all I can think of at this moment. I can't think very well today. I blame it on the fever and medication.

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

i like Absynth's envelopes you can even have them "click" no hardware analogue synth could have faster envelopes

This is not true though. If you carefully listen and start to actually measure the "click", for instance using an oscilloscope for the analogue signal, you'll quickly notice that there is way more to a simple click than meets the eye.

Fast in theory (amount of samples in a digital output) versus how fast it sounds to our ear/brain, are two different things. I know, it's hard to believe but that's how it is. Shape is everything.

For instance, in a digital system, the actual sample positions in a 8 sample (0.2ms basically at 44.1kHz) mini-click will decide very much how the sound actually sounds when it is filtered at the DA converter of your sound card. In fact, especially on these "clicks" the very type of your DA converter will change the perceived sound of the click.

I've done a lot of tests with this during various product developments and sound bank creation.

There's no such thing as a "simple click". Even an extremely short sound can have a lot of different flavors. People who are into any type of glitch music will know this very well.

Cheers!
bManic

[Halma]

... If you have a flexible modulation matrix and you can modulate an envelope with another, or modulate an envelope with itself, then you can create some truly nice fluffy or stabby sounds. ...

This is a nice trick I do sometimes inside THOR. Depends on the situation though but yields into some snappy filter cutoff if used correctly.

My KORG DSS-1 has two 6-stage envelopes (ADSDSR if I remember correctly).

[xoxos]

i use a curve function that goes from n*n to linear to 1-(1-n)*(1-n) (the envelope SEM modules are included in the sifft zip).

fun part is caclulating the non-curved position value on envelope pickups (translating release curve to attack curve).

[Ichad.c]

My KORG DSS-1 has two 6-stage envelopes (ADSDSR if I remember correctly).

ADSDSR - two sustain sections? That doesn't make sense

Still wondering about keytracking envelope times - only some rolands and some yamahas seem to do it (albeit a bit different to each). Anybody used something like this before?

[tooneba]

Harmor.(Sytrus will do.) Infinite break point, various bezier curve type - Single curve, Double curve, Smooth, Wave, Pulse, Alt Double curve, Stairs, Smooth Stairs, etc... It also has sequence editor to modify envelope. They are ready to be used for envelope, lfo, key map, vel map, unison map, random map, etc... 100+ parameters you can asign unique envelope/lfo/shape for.

[SODDI]

My KORG DSS-1 has two 6-stage envelopes (ADSDSR if I remember correctly).

ADSDSR - two sustain sections? That doesn't make sense

Still wondering about keytracking envelope times - only some rolands and some yamahas seem to do it (albeit a bit different to each). Anybody used something like this before?

Those S are just levels, so it's much like a Reaktor ADBDSR (from the Classic Modular macros, B -breakpoint - also being a level value.)

Mostly I think that keytracking was used on attack time, though theoretically with something like Reaktor you could keytrack each envelope value. I could see some uses for that.

I want a GOOD old-school analog legato.

[earlevel]

Plus it's becoming increasingly apparent that, unless TPT (Topology Preserving Transform) coding methods are used for envelopes then, just like filter feedback, there's always going to be a small (but noticeable) difference in the perception of snap/punch with software envelopes VS hardware.

I don't understand what you're getting at, regarding TPT and envelopes. Care to elaborate?

[PAK]

I don't understand what you're getting at, regarding TPT and envelopes. Care to elaborate?

You'd think an envelope is a pretty simple thing. Yet software has, to varying degrees, often been perceived as being less snappy/punchy/other-subjective-term compared to some hardware, even where that software sought to directly copy the hardware behaviour. Why?

It's possible to make very fast software envelopes which "click". But that's not quite the same thing as perceiving the envelopes as "punchy". If anything clicky attacks only help mask some other underlying difference(s) about the envelopes and how they act. But what is it that's different?

Well, I'm not the person to tell you, because understanding this stuff really requires someone who's done the work to strip apart hardware, monitor what's going on, then (more importantly) work out why things happpen. But, obviously, our perception of what envelopes are doing can be altered by other components in the chain, the main candidate being the volume level via a VCA.

Now consider that you're a dev calculating these differences and attempting to model them. It doesn't take a huge leap in logic to consider that -at least part of- the perception difference has, just as with filter feedback, been down to the method in which things are being calculated and that, when things don't "line up" in the same a way as the hardware presents them, our ears pick up on these small differences. They probably touch on more than just the attack. That's just the bit our ears are most sensitive to, and so that's where we notice a difference more.

Unlike filters, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of talk around about envelopes with regard to this stuff. Yet, with newer filters coming out, other than further increasing the harmonic complexity of models, the envelopes are arguably starting to become the main thing people pick up on (EG some recent comments about Lush 101) which is different.

How far off those thoughts are? Who knows.. but, given the strange similarity to the sort of perception differences people had with filter resonance, it doesn't seem unlikely that things aren't totally unrelated.. Perhaps someone can enlighten us more