Blofeld fx

[crofter]

I've noticed some of the patches have an unpleasant fizzey sort of sound that continues after the main sound finishes after releasing a key, I've pinned this down to the phaser effect, if I bypass this or change it to flanger the unpleasant artifact disappears, anyone else have this?

[crofter]

not very chatty round here are we?, any other forum and someone would have at least tried to sell me some frozen fish

[blue hell]

the question may a bit ... I mean no one could really answer "no" ... but then again if "yes" stays away long enough that might be a factual "no"

Erm ... I don't have a blofeld BTW ... so I really wouldn't know.

[robsol]

Hi Crofter!

I have heard that there is a fizzy quality to the phaser, which may be a bug. At least i think it was the phaser...

I don't have one either, but the place to go is the waldorf list, here:

http://www.waldorf-forum.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/user-forum

It is not an official waldorf forum, but some of the beta testers and professionals use it, and it is fairly good imo.

Check out the archives or register if you haven't already.

rob

[crofter]

Hi Lemmons old boy, a friendly face at last, thanks for the link, I'll have a look.

[rh2y]

[crofter]

I have the latest firmware and sound set, I've also reinstalled both, the problem seems confined to patches in the sound set, I've tried applying the phaser effect to patches that don't have it already and all seems fine, very strange.

[xjscott]

Might help if you said which patches in particular you hear this in.

[crofter]

I first noticed this on the DeepSpace 9 and Space Echo patches

[xjscott]

I hear a sort of metallic squeal at a particular frequency at the tail end of A14 DS9. It goes away when I turn off the phaser.

I hear the same squeal in A33 Space Echo, but it is there even when the phaser is off, and mid-sound rather than post release, so it must be due to phaser in one and not in the other??

I'm not sure if this is what you mean though. I heard more squeal than fizzy, which I'd think fizzy is like a soda can listened to up close after opening.

Space Echo after playing a while started getting weird sounding, reseting the patch returned it to normal. Sometimes this happens and I wonder if things got some strange control message.

Is any of this what you are meaning?

The sounds are most all so strange I never know if anything is sounding like it is supposed to anyway.

[crofter]

Some of the patches are a bit strange and do seem to change character after a while, as someone who likes evolving tones perhaps I shouldn't complain , both the patches I mentioned have a high pitched Fzzz sound that tails off after the main body of the sound ends, well they don't now as I've saved them without the phaser effect, particularly the A14 DS9 a nice dark pad was spoiled by the Fzzzz which just sounded wrong to me anyway.

[Synthluver]

The Blofeld is not perfect. People are demanding.

I also was taken back by a few side effects on some patches. Did not play much with the effects. My opinion is that that they crammed so many things (algorythms) into this tiny box (too much to be perfect one would say) it is almost unbelievable. Now if I was not entirely pleased at first, the little white box has grown on me for what it does good, the once-in-while-not-so-good does not bother me much anymore. It was well worth the money.

They are also steadily working on firmware. That must account for somehing.

[xjscott]

Do you feel that people here are being too demanding?

[Synthluver]

That was a generic comment. As far as people here goes, hummm... I joined this forum.. hummm was it 36.. no I think 38 hours ago.

I have 25 years experience writing firmware and interface protocols for scientific instruments and DSP routines. I know what goes on under the hood. The Blofeld interface is brilliant. But they suffer from trying to put too much, some things are bound not to be perfect.

It's easy, programmatically to route anything to anything, but that does not mean it should be done. Take the Mopho for instance : there are 45 destinations for the sequencer (but strangely, not to midi). Why so many? What for? Then people complain it is not working as THEY expected to and why won't they fix that. Then it turns out limitations comes from harware. All good time wasted.

I try to keep my expectations and demands realistic. People are right to be demanding when it counts. I just had a brush with a synth company that has one single flaw in one of its product, but of gigantic proportion. The company is not responding. I am not thrilled.

I would have a wish list and arm and a leg long for the (not perfect) Blofeld. Yet, i admire the product and the fact they are working hard on it. I am satisfied.

Software itself is another discussion altogether. Tough business. The software guy is always the one doing the work to patch up for hardware deficiencies. You'd be surprised about what goes into firmware. Recent years in PC computing have steered people into very fancy looking gadgets, emoticons and cool looks (which is a computing specialty by itself), but even worse, into the illusion that software should be free (or almost) and of course cool looking. There's a lot of work involved in programming a quality product.

In the few months I have been interested in synths, I have written my own librarian (works with the 8 synths that I own). I also have written my own VST, it does a few neat tricks no other does, and some cool utilities (like control of my daw software through midi from my BCR 2000 controller). All these are pretty good, if I may say so, however, the visual interface is way below current industry standards. Sometimes I feel like sharing some of the work I've done. Actually, I tried that in the past in areas other than music. In the end, people expected the product they wanted, not the product I wrote. And I got blasted. I don't need this kind of aggravation, especially at no pay. So my music software stays on my computer. No one knows about it, no one complains, and I have more time for earning a good dollar (not to mention playing music) for products I commission to big companies that get what they paid for (realistic expectations since they follow a commercial agreement), and everyone is happy

Sorry people if I got sucked into this and bore you to death. My own fault. But more than a one-liner was needed to express my point of view.

(The pic included shows my wav analyser playing a Moog Voyager Taurus bass patch, showing waveforms and harmonics in the spectrum domain. It records in stereo at any sample rate, tapping directly into the sound card, no third party software required... my own daw. It can also turn a sound source from a monophonic instrument into a note midi file. It was written in two days, not including the wav-to-midi-routine. Plain looking but effective)

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[msy2]

very interesting software. would love to see more.

[pizzamon]

The effects on the blo are known to be pretty poor. I think most would like to see the effects nixed and devoted to other things. The chorus being the one exception.

[Oli]

[Synthluver]

Thanks for your comments, although a bit late (I don't visit here often).

I have been showing the wavanalyser (in it's now much more advanced version, not geared for audio) to some people lately, and it is generating interest to say the least.

I am now considering releasing a scaled back (and free) audio version of it, with a simpler up to the point look. Just a cool tool for people to record instruments and play back .wav files, and watch waveforms playing back.

Any interest?

[Oli]

Hi,

I would love to have a look at your wavanalyser. Tools are like toys for we technical people.

I'm getting my first hardware sampler soon, so I may also have some practical use for this.

Cheers mate,

Oli

P.S. Perhaps some Blofeld and Nord Wave owners may also have interest in this. I don't have a Blofeld (yet), though it is definitely on my list.

[jksuperstar]

I'd be very interested in a wav analysis tool. I especially like some of the things your tool extracts, which could be useful for looking at reverb tails, etc. Great for analyzing field recordings