James Morris wrote:
1) Monophonic in the event a note is playing and a new note is played, would you expect a) the envelope release stage of the old note to continue while the new note plays?
Never, because from the monosynths (hardware and software) I've got and my understanding of synths, I wouldn't consider that monophonic behaviour. To my mind that would be exhibiting two-note polyphony (not duophony) as it would be allowing two notes to sound at once, the release of one overlapping the attack of another.
Depending on the architecture/settings of the synth (and assuming legato playing, as stated in the question) I would expect either the envelope to retrigger when the new note is played, or the SUSTAIN stage of the old note to continue whilst the new note sounds and the release stage to only activate when I release the last note (i.e. the envelope doesn't retrigger until the key is fully released).
Having said that, reading the manual, I have a synth which exhibits a third behaviour, dubbed legato off, where the envelope is retriggered from the current envelope level (whichever ADSR stage it is at), rather than retriggered from 0 V every time. This is the Moog Little Phatty. To be honest, I only ever use the LP in legato mode.
I have two synths that are switchable between legato and retrigger: one will only ever get used in retrigger because it would be quite a pain in the arse to change the settings and the other I think so far has only ever been used in legato mode -- it just suits the way I play, if I want retriggering, I play staccato and tweak the release to suit the speed of playing.
Having said that, I have one synth that only retriggers (ARP Axxe) and I just live with it, but where I have the option I tend to prefer legato behaviour.
b) the old note to cut and the new note play?
Yes, when considering the pitch (see my first comment above regarding monophonic behaviour) with one caveat. That is, assuming that the second note is capable of triggering under the note priority the synth is set to. (The Axxe actually has the behaviour that if you play notes above the one you're holding, it will retrigger the note you're holding, being low note priority.)
In terms of the filter envelope and amp envelope (and any other envelopes there may be) properties of the note, as stated above, it depends on whether the synth is set to retrigger the envelopes every time a note is pressed.
2) Polyphonic - This is in terms of a sampler whose playback mode is 'Singleshot' where the sample is played back in full regardless of note-off events. Would you expect the retriggering of the same note within time < sample-duration to cause: a) a second instance of the sample to play back simultaneously (albeit beginning and ending later in time) without affecting the first? b) playback of the first instance to stop before being retriggered as the second (if we're going to talk about first and second)?
Sorry, I've no experience with single-shot samples, so can't comment.
--- I would expect to be able to have a choice between a and b in both questions 1 and 2 above. But do general users? Should I expect them to go through the same confusion I have to learn the subtle differences (subtle to untrained ears at least).
For 1b, your expectation is a nicety, sure. For 1a, I wouldn't expect that choice.
As always, other people's fuel consumption may vary. Hope this helps. Q _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
