Saving copies of edited voices within patch.
HappyIrishman | Posted on Fri 04 Jun 2021, 04:14 PM HiJust bought your EssenceFm. Beautiful synth. Incredible Interface. Easiest synth I’ve ever used. Hardly looked at manual. Some of my feature requests have already been answered as in lofi effect. More like the SY77 . Which I may be selling. Feature requests (1) I understand the relationship between voices and patches. Global options of patch is great. But when you edit an operator in patch mode that voice changes wherever it’s used in other patches. I know I can copy multiple copies of voice and point patch towards them. Wouldn’t it be handy if voices were altered in patch mode that they were copied automatically to a location with a reference in name to patch they were used in. Would mean you could edit operators in patch mode and not worry about messing up original voice. There’s so much storage in EssenceFm that they could be put in a special bank. If it’s filled then be given the option of saving it over other voices or somewhere else or not at all. All this can be done already but just make it easier. Let’s face it a lot of the demos are played in patch mode with multiple voices (2) Can extra breakpoints be made in the voices. Especially the pitch envelope at operator level. The old Synergy had a lot of character which the pitch envelope on each character helped a lot. Real life instruments go sharp when struck. Each operator could be a harmonic with its own amplitude and pitch envelope. Combine 2 or 3 voices and you’d have an 24 harmonic additive synthesiser. Like the Synergy. It probably wouldn’t be Kodamo but someone could program an simple analysis program that would analyse a sound. Extract the harmonic profile and save it patch format. Something like the synclavier does. It’s getting away from FM but it’s making it more versatile. (3) The modulation index has too few slots. 8 is too little. More like the Hydrasynths 20 is needed. (Great combination by the way). Also a lot more sources and destinations. Modulation of effects parameters etc (4) Filter drive. Will add a much stronger quality to it. None of these suggestions may not be feasible or practical. Also understand that you can’t drift too far from the fact it’s an FM synth. I know extra feedback oscillators can’t be done because of software limitations. It’s a great synthesiser as it is. Sorry for long post. Cheers |
| HappyIrishman | Posted on Sat 05 Jun 2021, 02:20 PM Maybe the feature requests aren’t monitored. Where would I make them?On Facebook? Thanks |
KODAMO | Posted on Sat 05 Jun 2021, 03:15 PM HelloDon't worry we see them 😉 It just takes some time. Can extra breakpoints be made in the voices. What do you mean by breakpoints ? How should they work ? The modulation index has too few slots. 8 is too little. More like the Hydrasynths 20 is needed. (Great combination by the way). You can stack as many voices as you like in a Patch to overcome the 8-slot limitation. Modulating effect parameters doesn't work well in a polyphonic synthesizer, each note would fight each other. For your (1) suggestion, a "Duplicate" feature that not only duplicates the patch but also duplicates associated voices could be useful, so you know the copy is totally independent. The filter doesn't saturate like an analog one so a Drive parameter would have no effect. We suggest using a slight distortion effect on the sound itself instead |
| HappyIrishman | Posted on Sat 05 Jun 2021, 08:51 PM HiCongrats again on EssenceFm. Forgot one small suggestion in previous post. Your random facility is excellent. Especially choosing what you want to randomise. Could you add an amount the random feature would deviate from say pitch? From 0 to 127. Subtle use of this on pitch would produce interesting results. Set at 127 would be more SFX territory. The envelopes at the the moment allow 6 segments. Quite sophisticated for an analog but could there be extra segments added? The Synergy had a pitch envelope for each harmonic. This gave it a lot of its distinctive sound. Wendy Carlos wrote a few albums on that synth. The kodamo could allocate each operator as a harmonic. As I said a patch with 6 voices stacked would give 32 harmonics. Essentially an additive synth. Your suggestion to apply the bit crusher effect to produce a more “lofi” sound is great. I use the the mild distortion effect which saturates the sound without sounding like distortion. Could this not be added to the filter to saturate it in a subtle way. This would mean you wouldn’t need to waste a valuable effect on doing essentially the same thing. Except you’d only be distorting the filter and not the underlying algorithms. It sounds different. I know that you have to focus on improving what is an FM synth but if others produced a simple commercial program that could do what the synclavier analysis/resynthesis function did. Never sounded exactly the same but produced interesting FM sounds. That’s why more than 6 envelopes points would be needed. The main thing is saving copies of edited voices with patch . Roland had partials years ago that were used in numerous patches. It was most annoying to change the patch down to partial level and they were changed in every other place that partial was used. In most synths you have a patch and performance mode. All my old digitals and my andromeda does. You have an extra layer of voice with patch and performance. With the layering capabilities and huge polyphony the EssenceFm sounds at best in patch mode. My SY77 has a patch mode but let’s me use two algorithms within the patch. Freely editable and when edited is unique to that patch. That’s why a copy of voice edited in a patch could be stored in a seperate area. Original voice totally unaffected. Sorry for such a long post but this is the most interesting synth I have at the moment. The beautiful screen. Ease of editing and the deep editing possibilities make it very exciting. Thank you 😊 |
| KODAMO | Posted on Sat 05 Jun 2021, 09:20 PM Thank you for your comments and suggestions.You can already use the EssenceFM as an additive synth, each operator as an harmonic as you say. Each operator has its own pitch envelope and can be controlled independently via the mod matrix. About a resynthesis tool that converts samples to FM patches, that's an incredibly complex subject that is probably worth years of research. That would be cool though, we totally agree. Have fun with your EssenceFM! |
| HappyIrishman | Posted on Sun 06 Jun 2021, 12:14 AM Thanks for listening.By the way I wasn’t talking about resynthesis tool to convert to FM. That’s virtually impossible. A resynthesis tool to convert a sound to a additive harmonic series where each operator is a harmonic combined into 4 or 5 voices that’s in EssenceFm patch format. As you state the EssenceFm can do. That’s what the Synclavier does. Anyway thanks again and keep those updates coming 👍. Cheers |
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