LFO Sync Drift - Workaround

[LucidSFX]

So, I finally received a response from DSI pertaining to LFO Sync Drift when set to Play/Beat mode. The solution to make it work is to allocate a voice to the sound. It seems to be working when I do this but the issue is now I have just used up a voice. It is not an ideal solution considering that I am now using 1 bar patterns and 32 sounds for live performances but it gets the job done. It would have been nice to have had an explanation as to why but this may be an unsolvable issue when using the voice allocation algorithm.

I was also in communication with Roger Linn about helping the push. Through no fault of his own, his hands are tied since it is Dave's resources at play and not his.

Below is the complete email from DSI (note...the support person "Dave Mech" just copied and pasted an order email thread devoid of a simple acknowledgement or "Hello." *sigh* Courtesy is non existent these days. I left the entire email sent to me unaltered. Please see below:

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Dave Mech, Mar 17, 00:55 PDT:
Hi Carson, been some time since your last response. Hope you can help me with this issue.
Cheers,
David

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Dave Mech, Mar 9, 02:48 PST:
Oh and of course program a 4/4 kick to here the effect

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Dave Mech, Mar 9, 02:37 PST:
And lock the the sound to a voice of course

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Dave Mech, Mar 9, 02:34 PST:
Hi Carson, thanks for your quick response!
I might have not explained the problem well enough . The sound is locked to a voice indeed. When in beat restart mode it does start correctly when switching beats. But the lfo itself is drifting away. As in, it's not synced to the bpm the Tempest is running on. So after 1 loop of 8 bars you can already hear it is not tight anymore. And it gets worse very fast. Try the following:
- bpm 130
- osc 1 on saw
- lfo 1 on Rev saw, sync, rate: 8th, restart:beat, destination: osc1 frequency. Set LFO amount to something that is musical and won't leave you with a headache during testing.
- set env mode to ADSR
- set amp env amount and release to the max
- set env aux1 destination to amp env release, set aux1 sustain to 70 and aux1 release to 80. Aux1 amount to -127
- set seq length to 8 bars.
Now record 1 sustained note (hold it a couple of seconds) .
For good measure, switch to a different beat and back to the one with this setup to make sure the lfo is synced the way as you describe. Now keep listening for a couple of loops of 8 bars and you'll hear the lfo drifting away from the bpm it is supposedly synced to.
Hope to hear from you thanks again,
Cheers, David

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Carson Day, Mar 7, 11:50 PST:
Hi David,
I'm sorry to hear that you are encountering troubles with your Tempest. I would be happy to assist you with it.
To begin, it's good to note that when the LFO is set to sync with BEAT or PLAY reset mode, the sound must be assigned to a specific voice for the LFO to run correctly. Once the sound is assigned to a specific voice, then the LFO should reset and sync correctly thereafter. Furthermore, with the LFO set to reset to BEAT, the LFO will only sync on beat transitions and not from the play button.
Let me know what you find when the sound in question is assigned to a specific voice and I would be happy to continue to assist if need be.
Thank you,
Carson
Dave Smith Instruments
Checkout the new Prophet Rev2!
Follow DSI:

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Dave Mech, Mar 7, 08:41 PST:
Hi,
Glad with the Tempest. Amazing machine . I have a problem though. The LFO's don't sync well in beat and play modes. They drift away while running a sequence. Im running the latest beta OS and voice OS etc. (see my previous support ticket).
You can replicate this by selecting adsr mode and recording several long notes on one sound and modulate level or pitch with an LFO synced in 8ths and on beat or play sync mode.
Any idea why this is happening on my unit?
Cheers,
David

[RobH]

So, I finally received a response from DSI pertaining to LFO Sync Drift when set to Play/Beat mode. The solution to make it work is to allocate a voice to the sound. It seems to be working when I do this but the issue is now I have just used up a voice. It is not an ideal solution considering that I am now using 1 bar patterns and 32 sounds for live performances but it gets the job done. It would have been nice to have had an explanation as to why but this may be an unsolvable issue when using the voice allocation algorithm.

I was also in communication with Roger Linn about helping the push. Through no fault of his own, his hands are tied since it is Dave's resources at play and not his.

Below is the complete email from DSI (note...the support person "Dave Mech" just copied and pasted an order email thread devoid of a simple acknowledgement or "Hello." *sigh* Courtesy is non existent these days. I left the entire email sent to me unaltered. Please see below:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Mech, Mar 17, 00:55 PDT:
Hi Carson, been some time since your last response. Hope you can help me with this issue.
Cheers,
David

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Mech, Mar 9, 02:48 PST:
Oh and of course program a 4/4 kick to here the effect

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Mech, Mar 9, 02:37 PST:
And lock the the sound to a voice of course

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Mech, Mar 9, 02:34 PST:
Hi Carson, thanks for your quick response!
I might have not explained the problem well enough . The sound is locked to a voice indeed. When in beat restart mode it does start correctly when switching beats. But the lfo itself is drifting away. As in, it's not synced to the bpm the Tempest is running on. So after 1 loop of 8 bars you can already hear it is not tight anymore. And it gets worse very fast. Try the following:
- bpm 130
- osc 1 on saw
- lfo 1 on Rev saw, sync, rate: 8th, restart:beat, destination: osc1 frequency. Set LFO amount to something that is musical and won't leave you with a headache during testing.
- set env mode to ADSR
- set amp env amount and release to the max
- set env aux1 destination to amp env release, set aux1 sustain to 70 and aux1 release to 80. Aux1 amount to -127
- set seq length to 8 bars.
Now record 1 sustained note (hold it a couple of seconds) .
For good measure, switch to a different beat and back to the one with this setup to make sure the lfo is synced the way as you describe. Now keep listening for a couple of loops of 8 bars and you'll hear the lfo drifting away from the bpm it is supposedly synced to.
Hope to hear from you thanks again,
Cheers, David

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carson Day, Mar 7, 11:50 PST:
Hi David,
I'm sorry to hear that you are encountering troubles with your Tempest. I would be happy to assist you with it.
To begin, it's good to note that when the LFO is set to sync with BEAT or PLAY reset mode, the sound must be assigned to a specific voice for the LFO to run correctly. Once the sound is assigned to a specific voice, then the LFO should reset and sync correctly thereafter. Furthermore, with the LFO set to reset to BEAT, the LFO will only sync on beat transitions and not from the play button.
Let me know what you find when the sound in question is assigned to a specific voice and I would be happy to continue to assist if need be.
Thank you,
Carson
Dave Smith Instruments
Checkout the new Prophet Rev2!
Follow DSI:

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Dave Mech, Mar 7, 08:41 PST:
Hi,
Glad with the Tempest. Amazing machine . I have a problem though. The LFO's don't sync well in beat and play modes. They drift away while running a sequence. Im running the latest beta OS and voice OS etc. (see my previous support ticket).
You can replicate this by selecting adsr mode and recording several long notes on one sound and modulate level or pitch with an LFO synced in 8ths and on beat or play sync mode.
Any idea why this is happening on my unit?
Cheers,
David

Its actually in the manual that for it to work with free running sync u need to allocate a voice, this is good to hear though, very good!!!!

Let us know if it does in deed work as intended with a voice allocated!

[idm]

Eh what??

That is my ticket! How did you get that?
That's really strange..


And no, Aargh.... For the 10th time, allocating a sound to a voice does NOT fix the drifting problem. As can be read from my ticket above...

The drifting occurs after a couple of loops have gone by. Locking a sound to a voice doesn't solve this. It is the same standard answer, and it's plain wrong. Locking to a voice only solves that the lfo resets correctly. This is in the manual yes, and is never brought up as being a bug. The LFO drifting is a real bug and locking a voice is not the workaround. Please refer to my "leaked" ticket and follow the steps I give there to notice what a drifting lfo is.

Sorry for the tone, but after me, John, yorgos and others referring to this bug a lot of times, and explaining what is meant by drifting, it is starting to get frustrating...

Cheers,
Dave

[LucidSFX]

Thanks Dave! Like I wrote...they just copied and pasted...

Since I only tested it with one bar patterns I couldn't say it worked with 100% accuracy. I  glad you posted!

[idm]

Cheers,
Frustration not meant towards you of course . I'm just amazed.

So they copy paste my problem as being a work around. I just don't get this...

If you follow the steps I give there, you'll notice the lfo slowely drifting away. I still have to get an answer on that ticket by the way.

[RobH]

Cheers,
Frustration not meant towards you of course . I'm just amazed.

So they copy paste my problem as being a work around. I just don't get this...

If you follow the steps I give there, you'll notice the lfo slowely drifting away. I still have to get an answer on that ticket by the way.

LOL seriously they answered your ticket to someone else, but its a wrong answer, some serious crazyness going on hahaha

[AdamXAudio]

Cheers,
Frustration not meant towards you of course . I'm just amazed.

So they copy paste my problem as being a work around. I just don't get this...

If you follow the steps I give there, you'll notice the lfo slowely drifting away. I still have to get an answer on that ticket by the way.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but to clarify - in the latest Beta OS the LFO Sync works correctly with Note Restart but not with Beat/Play? Apologize for the redundancy, but I've been trying to play catch-up with the various forum posts about this subject and it's been a little tricky to get the facts straight  .  Thanks!

[idm]

Haha yeah, well they did not even answer it. Check the dates on my responses. The response on top is the last one from this week. Carson never gave an answer after my thorough explanation of the real issue.

My explanation is just one example of how to replicate the issue. The lfo will also drift on 16th notes being played. The reason why this is important, is because you could program 16th notes, set the lfo to reset on beats, and a rate of say quarter notes or dotted quarter notes. This would not work with reset set to 'note'. This gives very interesting rhythmic options and since it is in fact, as described in the manual, "sync", one would expect it to keep sync until the end of days in stead of slowely drifting apart like a DJ going out for a coffee after beat matching one record on a gig.

[idm]

Cheers,
Frustration not meant towards you of course . I'm just amazed.

So they copy paste my problem as being a work around. I just don't get this...

If you follow the steps I give there, you'll notice the lfo slowely drifting away. I still have to get an answer on that ticket by the way.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but to clarify - in the latest Beta OS the LFO Sync works correctly with Note Restart but not with Beat/Play? Apologize for the redundancy, but I've been trying to play catch-up with the various forum posts about this subject and it's been a little tricky to get the facts straight  .  Thanks!

Correct, sort of. When the lfo resets every note, the drifting issue won't be noticeable, because it resets at least every 8 bars, which is enough for it not to be noticed.

Indeed, when set to beat or play reset, it will drift away very obviously after 2 loops of 8 bars already. This is running the latest beta and has been confirmed as being an official bug by Yorgos, John savage and Roger Linn.

It is also, in my opinion, the last remaining important bug that needs to be fixed.

[AdamXAudio]

Cheers,
Frustration not meant towards you of course . I'm just amazed.

So they copy paste my problem as being a work around. I just don't get this...

If you follow the steps I give there, you'll notice the lfo slowely drifting away. I still have to get an answer on that ticket by the way.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but to clarify - in the latest Beta OS the LFO Sync works correctly with Note Restart but not with Beat/Play? Apologize for the redundancy, but I've been trying to play catch-up with the various forum posts about this subject and it's been a little tricky to get the facts straight  .  Thanks!

Correct, sort of. When the lfo resets every note, the drifting issue won't be noticeable, because it resets at least every 8 bars, which is enough for it not to be noticed.

Indeed, when set to beat or play reset, it will drift away very obviously after 2 loops of 8 bars already. This is running the latest beta and has been confirmed as being an official bug by Yorgos, John savage and Roger Linn.

It is also, in my opinion, the last remaining important bug that needs to be fixed.

Perfect. This is exactly the information I was looking for, thanks.  So it's a problem with after X amount of time the synced LFOs will drift no matter the restart type, but the Note Restart occurs much more frequently by it's nature so it's not really an issue.

[RobH]

I mean, you do actually manage to get through one full 32bar sweep so for production purposes, although not good and i'm not trying to say this is actuallly a thing, but you can get one clean loop of whatever it is before it drifts i think.

So at least there is that for essential shit you just have to even get a sample of so u can sleep tonight