Just My Learning MSF Thread

[Held]

Also, for Oscillator, idk if Constant Beat is broken but I can't seem to get anything but huge spikes out of it. Maybe someone here knows how to use it. Here's a preset that demonstrates it.

Set the quality to "high" in the Globals tab, and it works again. Looks like MSF could do with some more thorough testing.

[Hexspa]

Thanks for reading, friends. I'll take your advices.

[Held]

I sent an email to support about the noise volume issues and suggested that they investigate the other issues mentioned here as well.

Let's make MSF bug free.

[Hexspa]

I sent an email to support about the noise volume issues and suggested that they investigate the other issues mentioned here as well.

Let's make MSF bug free.

Thanks, Held. I also requested that Mr. Vojtech take a look at this thread. MSF has so much promise and going back to other synths is like shopping for sports equipment at Toys R' Us lol.

[MeldaProduction]

Hey guys, bad news apparently - I'm NOT reading these threads, if I would, there wouldn't be any progress and I would probably kill myself eventually from stress . So if you have any specific bug reports or something, please just use the contact form or info@meldaproduction.com, or even a separate thread would do, but please be brief and specific.

[Held]

Hey guys, bad news apparently - I'm NOT reading these threads, if I would, there wouldn't be any progress and I would probably kill myself eventually from stress . So if you have any specific bug reports or something, please just use the contact form or info@meldaproduction.com, or even a separate thread would do, but please be brief and specific.

Are you at least going to fix the pink noise oversampling issue I emailed support about?

[Hexspa]

Gonna send this to Vojtech right now (listed in rough order of importance):

EDIT: This is as brief and specific as I can make it.

msf-vojtech-report

1.CRASH TurboFilter FX (reported by sag_the_great 20220518 viewtopic.php?p=8432037#p8432037):
1 osc in generator
1 turbofilter in FX
download presets in turbofilter
load first one
play note
hang and crash in reaper

2. CRASH Enabling Extreme 16x and above, Analog, Oscillator Unison then setting Unison Detune Analog to 10% and attempting to play a note crashes reaper when MSF is in 4x global oversampling. Strange because playing an 8-voice chord at 8x shows less than 1% CPU use.

3.BUG Ghosted overlay when right- or ctrl-clicking FX tab
(pic in thread dated Sat Apr 02, 2022 12:25 viewtopic.php?t=571062&start=15)

4.QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOR LFO Mod Window Amount Creates Static Offset when LFO is not Bipolar and LFO Cycles is
a number other than Off. (Apr 03, 2022 viewtopic.php?t=571062&start=15)
In the LFO(1) window, Cycles is set to Off by default. However, if you reduce it to a finite number, say 1, after the LFO completes, its effect is not returned to zero. For example, assign it to Oscillator Semitones; Mod: Semitones/Depth 5%; LFO1 window/Cycles 1; DAW playback; cycle completes; toggle LFO1 Enable from LFO1 window Toolbar. You will hear that the pitch is toggling. This happens despite Init Phase being at 0%. To me, this seems incorrect because an LFO going from 0 to 0 deg should have a net zero effect after the LFO cycle completes. Importantly, the pitch offset is governed by the Mod: Semitones A/LFO1 amount slider (the one under the Modulation Popup, Invert and Transformation buttons). Fully to the right, the pitch is higher when LFO1 is active and Cycles does not equal Off.

5.NOTES about the Random Per-Voice Modulator:
Small thing: For the Random(1) per-voice modulator window, Speed Multiply has no effect when Speed is at 0%. I understand that n*0=0 but I think it might be better if Speed Multiply acted on the detected tempo rather than the Speed value. If not, the Speed Multiply's values don't make sense because when Speed Multiply is at 0%, it's actually multiplying by 0.5. This is in contrast to Speed which, when at 0% is actually 100% of the tempo. Please forgive if it seems pedantic - maybe it's because I've been reviewing my math skills - but I think that these knobs could be more clear as to what they can do and how they're labeled.

Related is that the Smoothness knob which currently goes from -100 to 100% with 0% at noon. Maybe it's more intuitive to make it go from 0-200% with 0% being not smooth, 100% being noon (linear interpolation) and 200% being 'fully smooth' I think this makes sense because negative numbers imply some kind of inversion, as though the smoothness is applied in some kind of upside down manner.

Perhaps this idea can be more broadly applied to Multiparameters themselves since it seems that many of these 'factory' knobs were created in an MP-like way. What I'm saying is that one of the options in Multiparameter/Value Mode can be 'User' where the left, center, and right values can be defined. Also something like '0.5x through 1x' can be defined as a visual representation of a multiplication function.

6. CONSISTENCY Ctrl+Right Clicking on the Oscillator waveform does not reset the phase to 0:
a.To do that, you have to double click. The reason I mention it is because Ctrl+Right Click is supposed to be the new way of setting to default
b.since you can change the waveform phase from the Shape window, I thought it'd be nice if the Init Phase knob would move to reflect the position of the waveform in the Shape window and vice-versa: when you move the Init Phase knob, the Shape waveform will also move. This is similar to how the Transform/Depth knob changes the appearance of the waveform.

7. MXXX BEHAVIOR MPs misbehave when MXXX is bypassed in reaper:
when you have MXXX bypassed in reaper (checkbox unchecked), Multiparameters in Trigger Mode appear like Switches but still act like Triggers. In other words, you can push the buttons but they stay pushed in.

8. BIG INCONVENIENCE popups block other windows when Shift+Tabbing away to a new application
some are persistent but then others will close. Would be better if all windows stayed persistent in background with DAW.

9. ISSUE: Quality Modes above Highest cause Oscillator Constant Beat to produce Huge spikes in reaper

10. ISSUE: Shape is still reversed in Oscillator i.e. 100% is more 'in tune' than -100%. Please see this thread from March 8, 2022:
viewtopic.php?p=8377895&hilit=msf+shape#p8377895

11. OVERSAMPLING causes Noise Generator to change level with different MIDI notes
Only with Pink Noise and Stairs Generator
Happens with internal or external (reaper) oversampling

12.TYPEO in Banks Help:
MSF/Oscillator/Plugin Settings (right click module)/Banks/Help/Insert says:
"Hence if you select bank 4 then bank 4 will become bank 4 and 4 will be erased..."
I think it's supposed to say "...then bank 4 will become bank 5 and 4 will be erased..."

13.IDEA for copy-pasting modules to retain MP settings:
Example: create autopan module, assign depth to MP1, copy and paste module, new module is also assigned to MP1.
This goes for MSF and MX. It could be a popup dialog, context menu or checkbox next to the copy button in the Plugin Settings window.

14.IDEA to define Constant Mode frequency directly:
"For the Oscillator module in Constant mode, this goes for MPowerSynth as well, can we please define the pitch directly? As it is, we have to remember that the tone generated is 440Hz. That's fine but it's not ideal for generating a test tone at 1khz, for example."

15. IDEA Toolbar Set button seems to level the instrument to K16. Maybe it'd be cool if we could set the target level, such as K20.

16. SUGGESTION AND TYPEO For Velocity/Velocity Scale and Key/Key Scale:
Something which is not clear, and doesn't seem to be detailed in the help, is how Velocity/Velocity scale and Key/Key scale differ. I just figured it out but maybe it'd be good to add this kind of explaination:

The Transformation on the right (wiggly line icon) is per-parameter i.e. is not shared among assignments whereas the Transformation graph in the popup for Velocity scale and Key scale are shared.

I don't know how you want to phrase it but I think that anything is better than nothing. Maybe the names of the Transformations can be changed as right now they're identical though having different functionality.
EDIT: I see the Modulation Source Help covers it. Still, a reminder in the Velocity/Velocity scale Key/Key scale modulators would've helped me.
EDIT2: Very small proofread: Time From Last Press/Release Modulators, Help says '...may be wastly...' which is probably supposed to be 'vastly'.

17. OUTDATED HELP in Select Modulation Source (from clicking blank modulation source button in MOD window)
In the Select Modulation Source window Help, it says, "Main Controllers provides access to the 8 custom controllers the user can select in MIDI settings." The thing is that there are 16. I see in Melda Kernel Version 13.06 that 16 Main Controllers were added so maybe this is outdated help info.

18.OMISSION LFO Bipolar has no F1 Help functionality

19.NOTES per-voice Env(1) window and one bigger thing:
a: Env1: Level on trigger has no effect on sustain offset when sustain level is Silence. Maybe put in help notes as a helpful convenience.
b: a weird graphical glitch where the per-voice modulation icon next to Level On Trigger shows an glitchy offset when playing a note and moving the knob.

[jan-sandahl]

Great job, Hex! And, I got a laugh from the sports equipment joke. Very true.

[Hexspa]

Great job, Hex! And, I got a laugh from the sports equipment joke. Very true.

Thanks, Jan. I appreciate it. Right now I'm dusting off some older and simpler synths. We all know MSF has potential and I think our feedback can help its reach.

[Held]

6. CONSISTENCY Ctrl+Right Clicking on the Oscillator waveform does not reset the phase to 0:
a.To do that, you have to double click. The reason I mention it is because Ctrl+Right Click is supposed to be the new way of setting to default

This has been bothering me too. Although I would prefer to have the Oscillators behavior everywhere. Double click to reset and right click for context menu.

11. OVERSAMPLING causes Noise Generator to change level with different MIDI notes
Only with Pink Noise and Stairs Generator
Happens with internal or external (reaper) oversampling

Luke from support wrote me back that they haven't been able to reproduce it with the latest beta. I can't test it, though because the installer is broken for me.

I'm going to take a break from MSF anyway. I bought the Arturia V collection and that stuff is amazing. Especially Synclavier V is mind blowing with all the additive stuff you can do in there. The collection covers maybe 95% of what MSF can do and has a lot of other stuff and the UI is much more user friendly.

But I also haven't given up on MSF yet. I'll come back in a few months to see if things have improved.

I would suggest to hire a UX expert and rework the UI completely for V20 and create a new release without backwards compatibility instead of constantly pushing out new half-backed plugins.

[Hexspa]

6. CONSISTENCY Ctrl+Right Clicking on the Oscillator waveform does not reset the phase to 0:
a.To do that, you have to double click. The reason I mention it is because Ctrl+Right Click is supposed to be the new way of setting to default

This has been bothering me too. Although I would prefer to have the Oscillators behavior everywhere. Double click to reset and right click for context menu.

11. OVERSAMPLING causes Noise Generator to change level with different MIDI notes
Only with Pink Noise and Stairs Generator
Happens with internal or external (reaper) oversampling

Luke from support wrote me back that they haven't been able to reproduce it with the latest beta. I can't test it, though because the installer is broken for me.

I'm going to take a break from MSF anyway. I bought the Arturia V collection and that stuff is amazing. Especially Synclavier V is mind blowing with all the additive stuff you can do in there. The collection covers maybe 95% of what MSF can do and has a lot of other stuff and the UI is much more user friendly.

But I also haven't given up on MSF yet. I'll come back in a few months to see if things have improved.

I would suggest to hire a UX expert and rework the UI completely for V20 and create a new release without backwards compatibility instead of constantly pushing out new half-backed plugins.

I agree that MSF can use a fundamental streamlining. My main concern is that its structure is 'unspeakable'. I mean that in the sense that it's going to be hard for people to talk about it. "Go into the Mod Window, select an empty mod slot, in the popup window, select a Special modulator. You can click the question mark to understand what they all do," and so on.

While MSF is more capable in many ways, compare that to, say, a Minimoog in that it's easy to talk about and talking creates community. In my opinion, the further you get from go-here-do-this syntax, the more the tool stands in the way of the work.

I mean, your post says it all: you'd rather have 35 separate simple synths than one behemoth. However, I think we can both agree that if MSF was functionally flawless, we'd be too busy using it to have this discussion.

[Held]

I agree that MSF can use a fundamental streamlining. My main concern is that its structure is 'unspeakable'. I mean that in the sense that it's going to be hard for people to talk about it. "Go into the Mod Window, select an empty mod slot, in the popup window, select a Special modulator. You can click the question mark to understand what they all do," and so on.

I think that's going to be an issue with any modular synth. At least you don't have to wire everything manually in MSF.

I mean, your post says it all: you'd rather have 35 separate simple synths than one behemoth. However, I think we can both agree that if MSF was functionally flawless, we'd be too busy using it to have this discussion.

I wouldn't call the DX 7 V, Synclavier V, or Pigments "simple". The difference is that they feel like a lot of thought has gone into making the user experience as smooth as possible given the complexity. And with Bitwig, you can wire them together pretty well, so they become like one huge instrument.

With Melda, it feels more like the focus is on making it as easy as possible for Vojtech, and the user experience is secondary. As long as the user can get stuff done somehow, it's good enough. (At least you're not forced to install 32bit versions anymore because it was easier for Vojtech to support.)

And even worse, the more you're leaving the beaten path and try to do things that are impossible in other plugins, the more likely you are to run into bugs. So the main selling point for Melda gets negated.

I'm still using Melda plugins where there are no alternatives like MTurboReverb, but it's becoming less and less. Maybe the mixing revolution will change that if it ever comes out, but I have zero interest in MGuitarArchitect which seems to be a stripped down version of MXXX with a bunch of custom GUIs. What's the point?

I really hope things get better, but there's a lot of catching up to do.

[Hexspa]

Yes, perhaps I spoke too soon: you make great points. The software landscape is changing. More companies are offering multiband options and oversampling support. Another modular synth just lowered its price and included what used to be add-on modules. In other words, MSF seems to have serious competition; both in terms of functionality and user enthusiasm.

While I'm not prepared to abandon Melda yet, it's clear that competition benefits the end user so long as they can afford the alternatives in terms of cost and time spent learning.

[jan-sandahl]

Standard copy/paste operations on lane items, and full lanes would mean a lot. Solo lane too, while we're at it.

Overall Melda sound quality remains my favorite thing. Sometimes you may not want that, but it makes life much easier downstream.