I have just brought Kick 2, and WOW... What a great synth!
I think either I am doing something wrong though, or I may have found a bug with the sub osc:-
When I set a node to say 10KHz, 0.100S, the synth and the display show a waveform a LOT shorter than this, i.e. 10KHz 0.09S. This happens for all the notes and pitches. Its almost like the synth display is logarithmic.
Is there anything I can do the make the displayed times of the nodes match up the the waveform generated by the sub osc?
the Nodes are logarithmic the waveforms are linear… we tried various combos to have them both be the same but a linear node spacing was very weird to work with… all the important nodes where bunched up right at the start.
As you can imagine a log waveform view would be quite bizzare. so we had to compromise for useability.
The waveform view ties in to the beats and bar which is really the most important bit for managing kick length.
This explanation doesn’t acknowledge the problem which is that the time readouts are simply wrong! To get an amp env node to start half way through a kick of 210 ms duration, the node should be displaying 100 ms, not 180ms.
Please check them. It has nothing to do with the curves being log, the time readouts should still be correct even if visually they are skewed horizontally.
Also, the tail of the kick is unstable and plays back differently on each trigger. This makes it impossible to work with at present as the kick has a different weight each time it hits.
Can you please view the kick as it plays on a loop through an oscilloscope plugin (vengeance Scope etc) and check out the issue?
I would be happy to upload a short video or make some screen grabs to demonstrate the problems, feel free to pm or email me Phil or Bryan
The mouse pointer readouts top right are showing the position in time in relation to the waveform behind, but perhaps it might make more sense for them to show the time position of the nodes - will take a look.
Regarding the playback issue, perhaps you are getting different results on each playback because of your limiter release settings. It would be different if the limiter hasn’t fully recovered and your kick is playing something other than 4/4
Yes, that must be the problem, the time relates to the waveform when it should reflect where the currently active node is. This has to be an oversight as it makes zero sense to track the time on the waveform rather than on the nodes!
I can totally see the issue regarding the need for the time scale to be log and I think you found the right compromise.
However, it would be ideal to allow the user to switch between log and linear so that when zoomed in, the envelopes and time readouts matched the waveform. Just a switch next to the other graph buttons would be very useful.
I will look again at the amp release when I get to the studio today but i had the limiter off and it was just a 4/4 kick playing for an eighth note duration, so not much to go wrong at the user end. Maybe I missed something though so I’ll report back
Also, what’s the deal with the curves on the envelope? When zoomed out it looks different to when zoomed in.
By that, I mean the curve is often sloping upwards as it meets the next node when zoomed right in, even though the curve appears to have just a downward trend when zoomed out? This is probably best represented by a screen shot or quick video capture to be honest, but the curves don’t seem to be visually consistent at different zoom levels!
It’s a bug with the tail of the amplitude envelope. It seems to be applying a fade out whether one is programmed or not which is a bit annoying! The unstable fade length manifests itself when the “GATE” button is NOT engaged, so that might be a good place to start looking for problems
Here is a quick video screen capture which shows both the fluctuating amplitude release envelope when GATE is deactivated, and also the inconsistent curve shape when zoomed.
I meant to show the amp envelope too, which was simply set to MAX at start and end, so I don’t know why the kick is fading out at all. Any ideas on how to get a kick the full length and without a fade at the end?
Ok, this is an amendment to my explanation above about the “GATE” button. If the Kick midi length exceeds the length set in kick, the fade out is always inconsistent, regardless of whether “GATE” is on or off.
There must be some kind of fade generated by midi note off or something. Where is the control or pref to turn that off? It’s a really long fade and we have zero control over it. Very frustrating!!
I’m with Ady on a switch-able waveform view for the sub oscillator. That would make it much easier to do precise work.
And I can confirm all the issues that Ady mentions. Curves look different when zoomed in and kick tail varies each hit when the envelope length is shorter than the MIDI notes. (With gate turned on or off).
I have a few more suggestions. This might not be the right place but as you are already the thread:
(Note, I haven’t read the manual yet so I might be requesting things that already exist)
SUGGESTIONS:
Volume lock button to keep the volume locked when changing between presets.
Ability to type in specific values for each node
Ability to type in Length and Pitch (X/Y axis)
Ability to select and drag several nodes at once
Ability to reset curve between nodes (to a straight line)
Ability to adjust visual height of Click overlay in graphic section
AMP Envelope bypass button to quickly hear the pitch sweep with no amp modulation.
A/B/C/D comparison slots
Apply Pitch knob value to curve
Waveform graph same length as curves (Basically what has been mentioned before).
Yeah, after some more playing I was really wanting some of Allistair’s suggestions, some of which I made shortly after the release of Kick v1!
A way to reset the curve between nodes would be really useful, and some sort of readout to let you know the curve value would be nicer still, so you can repeat settings more easily or keep all curves consistent.
Is there a particular reason why the clicks don’t fill the vertical space / height, even when using a normalised sample?
Allistair’s suggestion above to allow resizing would help with this
About the click sample waveform view; I have the amp envelope fully up, but for some reason a normalised file is only filling about 85% of the vertical height rather than 100%. For non normalised files to be used as clicks, the ability to zoom the vertical display would be really usefulor things’ll get a bit lost.
Cheers
I had a similar thing with the sub. When you set the amplitude to 1, and gain to 0dB, all effects etc off, you end up exporting at 75% amplitude (-3dB), even though the waveform shows 100%. To actually export the sub at 100% amplitude, I have to add a gain of 3 dB.
so I might be requesting things that already exist)