Clicks and pops

[Toby Dammit]

Hello there,

I bought my first Prophet 6 in july and love it. However, after several weeks of playing and recordings, I began to experience some issues with the keyboard and the sequencer. So I sent it back to the shop where I ordered it. They took forever (three and a half months) to do nothing and finally accept to send me a new one.

So I received my new #2501 and I'm so happy with it. It's still beautiful and I tried all the presets and found some of them very useful.

However I experienced a little issue trying some of the presets. There seems to be some clicks and pops. I found some informations online and it seems that the enveloppe can cause such clicks. On the electric piano preset 515 for example, hitting the notes hard result in clicking.

Also there are some nasty pops on other presets like 545. I recorded it so you can hear it:
http://www.filedropper.com/testpreset545

I tried all volume levels so it's not clipping. I contacted support of course, but I wanted to ask if anyone could try these presets (515 and 545) and tell if the same clicks and pops are heard. I read that some LFO settings could create such effect. It would be kind of a relief to know it's a general issue and not a personal one.

Thanks!

[sequential]

I hear this on my Prophet 6 as well.

[Toby Dammit]

Thanks a lot for taking the time!

It's too bad you have the same issue, I suppose it's "normal" then. Maybe support will help to find a solution, I'll tell here.

[solitud]

Mine does not do this or at least sounds way cleaner...

[LeVo]

I couldn't play the clip as on mobile but The first patch you mention doesn't click on mine (I know you said you checked levels but maybe worth checking again as it velocity sensitive and also maybe add a tiny bit of atack to the amp env?)

The second one has some Nasty pops I'll agree but I'm pretty sure that's an artifact from the osc sync effect.... Mine only pops occasionaly and seems to be with certain frequencies but with a bit of tuning to the oscillator and/or by adjusting the envelops poly mod amount it wasn't happening.

 Tho I'm not really a fan of this type of sliding sync sound anyway it's probably jus a touch of dodgy programming Its not ideal you can't save over it and as I've used all my spaces im foaming at the mouth to use the other 500.

That said Im interested to hear the teams thoughts too.

Cheers

Edit - playing with the filter envelope attack and release and a bit less env poly mod gives some nice effects on the 545 sync patch. !! Now to save it. Ahh

[Toby Dammit]

Thanks LeVo, your help is very helpful. So I guess it's just inherent to the modulation parameters of the synth. Mark from support answered to me but his e-mail said the request was closed, without any solution or help. I didn't understand, maybe he thought I had the answer on the forum? I sent another e-mail to have an explanation so I can understand their thoughts.

[Toby Dammit]

Mark from customer support replied a detailed explanation, I thank him!

What you are hearing is normal and has to do with the sub octave oscillator in conjunction with sync that makes the click present. It is the known and expected operation of the sub oscillator when sync is enabled. Nothing is physically wrong with the synth in this way.

The sub oscillator is a triangle wave generated by a flip fop which is driven from the start of oscillator 2's waveshape. When sync is on, oscillator 1's waveshape is retriggered by oscillator 2's frequency. This means that oscillator 2 is retriggered as well, though the frequency of the sub is half that of oscillator 1.

Depending on the oscillators' respective root notes, the sub oscillator may not work consistently from one voice to the next since it is being retriggered at the same time as oscillator 1.

[LeVo]

Good to know thanks.... 

 So that's why it happens at certain frequencies (certain notes) but not all the time.

I never realised that's how these things worked!! tho would love to know what flip flops have to do with it

Cheers

[Christopher]

tho would love to know what flip flops have to do with it

Using flip-flops as frequency dividers is a very common technique in electronics. You'd typically use a T-flip-flop which toggles the logic level at its output whenever a rising signal edge occurs on its clock input. Alternatively you could use an edge-triggered D-flip-flop if you feed the inverting output back to its input.
In any case, the resulting signal toggles between 0 and 1 (logic levels) giving you effectively a square-wave at half the frequency of your input signal.
That's also the reason why most analog synths have just a square-wave sub-oscillator—it's super simple and cheap to implement.
On the Prophet 6, there must be some additional circuitry following the flip-flop in order to shape the square-wave into a triangle.

[Shift Gorden]

I'm tired and getting a really good chuckle about the thought of flip flops and a P6.  Makes me want a margarita.

[LeVo]

Thanks for the flip flop clarification  

[rosscapricorn]

turning off velocity at envelope amount in the amp section got rid of this for me