Glide sometimes doesn't happen.

Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« on: March 04, 2021, 04:32:38 AM »
I'm playing a non unison patch.  Glide will usually work for the first few notes but then it will become unreliable, sometimes happening and sometimes not.  I'm not sure if this has something to do with the envelopes, I am still fairly a newbie.  Any help is appreciated, thanks :)

timboréale

  • **
  • 204
  • MIDI nerd
Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2021, 06:18:01 AM »
With unison disabled, glide happens on a per-voice basis - since the voices are allocated in a round-robin fashion, any consecutive notes you play will not be applied to the same voice until you come around to the 8th or 16th voice again, depending on which version of Rev2 you have. So your experience of glide is correct - glide is largely useful only in unison.

Glide has nothing to do with envelopes, by the way. I recommend you youtube how basic subtractive synthesizers work in general, such as a standard monosynth like a MiniMoog. The fundamentals of all subtractive analogue architecture synths work largely the same and having a strong understanding of those principles will help you greatly in sound design. Polysynths can be very confusing to someone who has no idea of what each individual voice is doing, let alone how the voices interact (or don't) with each other - in short, polysynths can be roughly approximated as additional layers of complexity on top of a whole bunch of monosynths, effectively. So, learn the fundamental voice architecture and what's going on there, and then the additional complexities to manage multiple voices will become understandable.
Prophet 6 keyboard, Rev2-16, Prophet 12 Keyboard, Nords, etc...

Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2021, 10:58:33 AM »
Thanks Timboreale :)  I was pretty sure it was a user error but wasn't sure.

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2021, 06:38:34 PM »
This is just the way that DSI/Sequential glide works in the polyphonic mode.  It's useful for the first one or several chords, and then it's a matter of hit or miss.  You have to plan the use of it moment by moment.  I've experimented with it quite a bit, and even the excellent explanation Timboreale gave doesn't allow for its behavior to be always predicted.

Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2021, 08:30:23 PM »
Thank you Sacred :).   I am trying to play a song that has some glide parts, but usually has more than 1 note happening at a time.  Maybe if I try to do a split I can make it work, thanks everybody :)

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2021, 08:50:03 PM »
The polyphonic glide was difficult to manage and I didn't especially like the results.  The last few glides have the chords rising up from below, rather than descending from the higher chords I had just played, for some unknown reason.

https://youtu.be/BbElAdvjXFc?t=424
« Last Edit: March 04, 2021, 08:59:58 PM by Sacred Synthesis »

maxter

  • ***
  • 419
Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2021, 02:15:46 PM »
I think it has to do with voice allocation, or whatever it's called. On an 8-voice Rev2, if the first key pressed is a C1 for instance, which gets allocated to voice 1, then you press a C2 which gets allocated to voice 2... the next to voice 3 etc etc... when you've played 8 notes already, the next (9th) note again gets allocated to voice 1, starting the cycle over again. Let's say you play a G3 as the 9th note, it will then start gliding from C1, which is where voice 1 is still at until it gets assigned a new pitch. The next key pressed, the 10th in succession, will glide from whatever voice 2 is at, in this case C2, to whatever key/pitch you play as the 10th... and so on.

The voices "rotate", as to minimize potential voice stealing probably (ie not killing a decaying note... like if you have set long release times), which is a good thing, but when it comes to glide... well, it gets hard to predict where the start point of the glide will be, unless you have a strictly sequential (no pun intended) pattern that is predictable. In this case, using an 8 step sequence with an 8 voice Rev2 would give predictable results.
The Way the Truth and the Life

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2021, 02:53:21 PM »
That's the logical explanation, Maxter.  But try it on your Rev2.  If it were that predictable, you could work with it.  But it just doesn't behave in such a way.  The glide will often be totally absent when you've made a leap with a chord.

I've always preferred Roland's portamento.  It's monophonic in that every note is treated the same; it's consistent and therefore predictable. 
« Last Edit: March 06, 2021, 03:20:47 PM by Sacred Synthesis »

Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2021, 09:41:22 PM »
As the above posts have mentioned, polyphonic glide is very hit or miss, due to the amount of voices.

A couple tricks you could try:

1. If you have a single layer sound design, you can stack the patch with another layer with everything turned off (turn osc 1/2 shapes to off), in order to defeat half the voices (16v becomes 8v...  8v becomes 4v) for more predictable poly glide action.

OR

You can copy a single layer A to layer B so you have the exact same sound on both layers, and then activate SPLIT...  this is an interesting option because you can limit the glide to bass notes to stay in bass region, and upper melody/harmony notes to stay in the upper keyboard region, which prevents long distance / crossover glide action between low and high notes... if you're playing two handed bass with melody/harmony on top.   You can also turn the bass part of the patch to mono/unison and leave the upper split as polyphonic...  which can produce some good results... the entire keyboard still playing the same patch, but just using SPLIT to limit where and how glide takes place.     


OB-X8, Pro 3, P6, Rev2, Take 5, 3rd Wave, Deepmind, PolyBrute, Sub 37
Sound Sets:
https://sounddesign.sellfy.store/
Free Patches:
https://www.PresetPatch.com/user/CreativeSpiral

Re: Glide sometimes doesn't happen.
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2021, 08:03:57 AM »
Thanks for all the insights guys :)  I think using a split is probably going to be my best bet.  I am not a huge glide person but my buddy has made a part for me that uses some glide in a couple of parts and at least 1 of those parts will have to be polyphonic.