KV331 Audio

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Sat Nov 02, 2013 1:25 am

Hello -- I recently purchased Synthmaster and have a few questions:

- The instruction manual shows controls in the additive oscillators that are not in the program. Please explain.

- I cannot copy and paste between envelopes, oscillators, arpegiattor, etc... I can save but then the settings do not open. How is this supposed to work.

The synth sounds great and has some wonderful features.

Thank you.

FLWrd · Post by **FLWrd** » Sat Nov 02, 2013 8:05 am

It certainly has additive oscillators. Open a layer, choose an oscillator and then type "Additive". You'll see a mix panel that allows you to mix and detune any 8 wave forms.

Copy and paste between settings works as follows. Choose the envelope or LFO or whatever, click on the pop-up menu that is the second to the right on top of the chosen element (just before the Save button), and choose "Copy settings". Now go to a similar element, and use the same menu, but choose "Paste settings". Works for me in 2.6.8, AudioUnit version. I agree that the menu is a bit hard to find...

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Sat Nov 02, 2013 5:49 pm

Thanks FLWrd. I know it has additive oscillators, but in the manual it shows a picture of the additive oscillator with additional functionality -- most notably an operator section along the bottom that allows you to choose from adding, multiplying or subtracting the waves. The volume controls are sliders and it has rotary controls for the tone and phase of each oscillator as well.

Copying and Pasting just does not work. I tried it many times, and have followed your instructions as well (which is the same as I had done previously) and I simply get no results. Waveforms and parameters do not change on oscillators when I paste, envelopes sometimes work, LFO's don't work at all. I'm using SM 2.6.8 in Logic Pro 9 on an iMac running 10.7.5.

I also have a problem sometimes with stuck notes. Any advice on that would also be helpful.

Thanks very much.

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ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Sat Nov 02, 2013 6:47 pm

UPDATE -- I re-installed and have the same problems. Copy and paste works sporadically, cannot copy and paste anything between layers. It's frustrating.

FLWrd · Post by **FLWrd** » Sat Nov 02, 2013 8:16 pm

ontrackp wrote:most notably an operator section along the bottom that allows you to choose from adding, multiplying or subtracting the waves.

That's weird. You can subtract. At least, on my computer, there is a button "INV" under each oscillator, which inverts the wave, thereby subtracting it. I never heard about the multiplication, but then again, I've never bothered to check the manual lately: it was pretty minimal some time ago.

But if you cannot copy&paste between layers or not at all, that's a bug that should be addressed, because it's pretty vital to programming this parameter-rich synth...

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Sat Nov 02, 2013 9:29 pm

If I could figure out how to include an image I would post the screen shot showing the enhanced interface. Not being able to consistently copy and paste is driving me crazy.

Have you run into an issue with stuck notes? Occasionally I will start to program a new patch from the default preset and notes hang -- the only way to stop them is to start my sequencer. Weird.....

Thanks!

FLWrd · Post by **FLWrd** » Sun Nov 03, 2013 8:04 am

Including images is as easy as clicking the Img button on top of the editor, pasting the URL that leads to the image (and not to the page containing the image! It has to be a proper png, jpg or gif), and clicking the Img button once more for the end tag. Otherwise a link to the image will also be good enough for those interested.

I've never had hanging notes with SynthMaster as a bug, but ... I did experience that oscillators or layers were not controlled by an envelope, or that influence of the envelope on the signal was 0 because it was controlled by an external parameter. Then the note is hanging, but it is actually so by design.

~Pd~ · Post by **~Pd~** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 4:56 am

I find I have to change the oscillator type to the same type I'm pasting from, before pasting. If the source is wavetable, change the destination to wavetable, then paste.

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 5:56 am

I found the same thing -- but it's still inconsistent, works sometimes and not others. And I cannot paste between layers. For instance, I will set up ADSR 2 to control Filter Cutoff in Layer 1, then try to copy it to ADSR 2 in Layer 2 and no luck. Maybe it works one in ten times. Also, if I save an oscillator or envelope as a partial preset, it comes up in the list when I click on the Restore button, but most of the time it doesn't actually open, which is really inconvenient. Having the ability to create a collection of custom starting points for oscillators and envelopes is HUGE, but useless if it doesn't work. Another weird inconsistency I have is that the list of templates sometimes changes when I open different instances of the synth.

There is something really wacky with this. It's a shame because it sounds very good.

While we're on the subject of SM, I would like to ask about your experience with using the LFOs for vibrato. I've found it very hard to get a subtle vibrato. If I modulate the Pitch of an Oscillator with a LFO, even when I bring the LFO volume down to practically nothing and barely nudge the modulation amount, the effect is pretty extreme. For effective vibrato all the parameters have to be at tiny amounts. It gets more difficult if I am modulating the LFO volume with another envelope so it comes in slowly. Any thoughts?

Also having 4 LFO's that can't be modulated by voice parameters but only two LFO's per voice seems backwards. More voice LFO's that can be modulated would seem to make sense.

I don't mean to be bashing Synth Master -- I think it has great potential but I'm feeling like this synth it's not quite ready. It has great features, offers tremendous sound design potential, but is really buggy.

~Pd~ · Post by **~Pd~** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 1:37 pm

Yeah I've noticed that for example envelopes don't paste once in a while. I will do some more testing and file a detailed bug report. Synthmaster sounds so goddamn good that IMHO it is worth sticking with through a few minor bugs like this. The proof, for me, is in what the sound designers have come up with.

Regarding LFOs and vibrato - I can get subtle effects by aiming the LFOs at the fine tune rather than pitch, and adjusting the volume and modulation amount. For extra LFOs, try using the looping 2D and multistage envelopes. (incidentally I'd like to see the multistage envelopes get more Absynth-like in version 3!)

kv331 · Post by **kv331** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:25 am

Guys, will test copy/paste behaviours thoroughly next week as we'll release a new update this month with tutorial presets + videos and an updated user manual!

~Pd~ · Post by **~Pd~** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 4:41 pm

Thanks! Looking forward to that.

kv331 · Post by **kv331** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 5:58 pm

Right now I am working on a bug that causes crashes with multiple instances of SM (I think happens on Windows x64 only). Once I fix that will fix this issue.

kv331 · Post by **kv331** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 9:24 am

Also just remembered that when copying pasting partial settings I did not implement copying pasting of modulation matrix entries.

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Sun Nov 17, 2013 4:09 pm

Thanks for looking into the copying and pasting issues -- the envelope copying has been working better the last few days, but the oscillator copying is still inconsistent.

Really a great sounding synth.

Any plans on re-working the graphics in the future?

Thank you.

KV331 Audio

KVR Audio

Mac version tech questions