Pan modulation bug?

[Razmo]

Hi everyone... can any of you confirm, that when routing "Note Number" to "Pan" in the modulation matrix, that you get no panning according to the note played? ... here with me it just works like if "DC" was chosen as the source... the Pan Mod Mode is of course set to "Fixed".

[Chimponaut]

+1...I can confirm this. 

[Razmo]

I have send a bug report to DSI... waiting for them to confirm it...

[philroyjenkins]

I have send a bug report to DSI... waiting for them to confirm it...

The range for keynote modulation is 7 octaves from one side of the effect to the other. It is possible that its just very subtle of a change or your center point isn't where it should be.

You can use the DC modulation source to sort of shift the "Center Point" of your pan modulation, even if its less than 0 or greater than 127.

Scope this out, this guy is doing what I think you are trying to do and he explains the DC offset issue well.

[Razmo]

I have send a bug report to DSI... waiting for them to confirm it...

The range for keynote modulation is 7 octaves from one side of the effect to the other. It is possible that its just very subtle of a change or your center point isn't where it should be.

You can use the DC modulation source to sort of shift the "Center Point" of your pan modulation, even if its less than 0 or greater than 127.

Scope this out, this guy is doing what I think you are trying to do and he explains the DC offset issue well.

Well... support already confirmed the bug to me, and has added it to the list... under normal circumstances, it should not be complicated to set up... just a simple routing of note-number to pan (fixed) should be all that it takes... if there really is a change and it's subtle, then the range should be scaled to fit... I'm not much of a fan for obscure workarounds

[Razmo]

I've tried the DC thing... even though it sounds like it works, there is still something weird about the values because the most change seems to happen within the center key on the keyboard... when you have played about an octave up or down, the sound is almost at the extremes (L/R)... it sounds like if the spread is somehow logarithmic and not linear.

So this really should be fixed... there are no need to have to use two modulation slots, just to modulate the pan position with the note-number...

[Razmo]

After playing with the DC in addition to the notenum->pan, I can see that it does give some added possibilities... the setting of DC=-64 and Notenum=127 is a bit extreme... I've had better results with half these values... DC=-32 and Notenum=64 ... gives it a bit more even range, though the extremes will never fully reach to the left or right.

The advantage is that you can decide the CenterPoint yourself this way... but it is a bit more complicated to set up in the modulation matrix...

I'd still prefer that the Notenum->pan made the DC offset without the user having to do this... it's more straight forward, and you could then use the DC as well, to shift the CenterPoint on the keys anyway... that would be a more logical way to do it.

[philroyjenkins]

The Rev2 is a workhorse of a synth. If its not doing something you want chances are you can find a way to get there via a slightly different path.

It sounds like you've made the DC thing work for you. And yes, since it is a separate modulation you can fine tune it as much as you'd like and really taper the settings to your play style or the patch. The DC is an interesting modulation source that has a few other utility uses as well.

That is the downside of a workhorse synth. Some things might not be straight forward to program to your liking. The beauty of this is the flexibility that comes with this mentality. It wouldn't be in the spirit of this kind of synth to alter a bunch of things by default so that the keynote>pan mode works as Razmo expects it to because not everyone may want the mode to work as Razmo expects.

Scaling the range just to fit this one specific modulation source and destination would add all kinds of complications to the use of the synth. I would much rather everything function in the same, predictable way when it comes to the modulations. That way I could adjust accordingly based on the situation using the tools D.S.I. was mindful enough to implement like the DC source. 

[Razmo]

The Rev2 is a workhorse of a synth. If its not doing something you want chances are you can find a way to get there via a slightly different path.

It sounds like you've made the DC thing work for you. And yes, since it is a separate modulation you can fine tune it as much as you'd like and really taper the settings to your play style or the patch. The DC is an interesting modulation source that has a few other utility uses as well.

That is the downside of a workhorse synth. Some things might not be straight forward to program to your liking. The beauty of this is the flexibility that comes with this mentality. It wouldn't be in the spirit of this kind of synth to alter a bunch of things by default so that the keynote>pan mode works as Razmo expects it to because not everyone may want the mode to work as Razmo expects.

Scaling the range just to fit this one specific modulation source and destination would add all kinds of complications to the use of the synth. I would much rather everything function in the same, predictable way when it comes to the modulations. That way I could adjust accordingly based on the situation using the tools D.S.I. was mindful enough to implement like the DC source.

I'm sorry, but honestly... every other synth out there with a modulation matrix, that can route the note number to pan position works the way I suggest here, and not obscure other ways that require you to do math on top to figure it out... the note-number to pan is probably one of the most used modulations in many machines...

Now personally... now that I have a work around, I don't really care if they fix it or not, but I'm pretty darn sure, that many synth programmers will be scratching their head around this when they first encounter it... precisely because they're used to the fact that any other synth "does it right"...

I don't see why a comprehensive synth should have these illogical ways of doing stuff... being a comprehensive machine gives it a hard enough time for the user to understand it fully... to have to do even more obscure kinds of workarounds will only further complicate the machine (in my opinion).

So I see no reason to not fix this... I'll not call it a REALLY pressing bug, now that the workaround is there, but if DSI care for their synths, and want them to be as simple as possible to use, they should fix this... being a programmer myself, I know that this little thing here will most likely not be that hard to fix... but hey... we'll see... they added it to the bug list, so I suppose they will look at it at some point

[philroyjenkins]

I'm sorry, but honestly... every other synth out there with a modulation matrix, that can route the note number to pan position works the way I suggest here, and not obscure other ways that require you to do math on top to figure it out... the note-number to pan is probably one of the most used modulations in many machines...

Now personally... now that I have a work around, I don't really care if they fix it or not, but I'm pretty darn sure, that many synth programmers will be scratching their head around this when they first encounter it... precisely because they're used to the fact that any other synth "does it right"...

I don't see why a comprehensive synth should have these illogical ways of doing stuff... being a comprehensive machine gives it a hard enough time for the user to understand it fully... to have to do even more obscure kinds of workarounds will only further complicate the machine (in my opinion).

So I see no reason to not fix this... I'll not call it a REALLY pressing bug, now that the workaround is there, but if DSI care for their synths, and want them to be as simple as possible to use, they should fix this... being a programmer myself, I know that this little thing here will most likely not be that hard to fix... but hey... we'll see... they added it to the bug list, so I suppose they will look at it at some point

To each his own man. I didn't think that was all that common of a modulation but then again I don't have a whole lot of experience with different modulation heavy synths.

A neat kind of work around that I think would assist in this issue and a few others I've run into is some kind of control over the keynote modulation. Maybe something like its range and start point within some deeper menus somewhere, just to fine tune the behavior of this modulation for a variety of patching purposes.

I use keynote mod a lot of making single patch drum kits and being able to reduce the effective range to 2 octaves only between 0 mod and 100% mod would be great.