Various usability questions

[gastric]

QUESTION: Should an envelope filter with a Sensitivity = 0 have absolutely no filter movement? E.G. provide a totally static filter?

Set a bandpass filter with a Lo Freq = 120 and a Hi Freq = 4000, Q=0 for both, Curve = Linear, Mode = Envelope, then Sensitivity, Punch, etc. all to 0, then push your pedal heel down. For me I notice the filter opening quite a bit. Now switch Mode = Pedal and observe the filter darkens noticeably. You can also physically see the little X in the Editor moving around indicating envelope movement.

If i set the master sensitivity to -45 then in envelope mode the filter finally stops moving. I'm not sure what this means, if anything. Though my first inclination is that my input signal is hot and master sensitivity SHOULD be throttled back. Or perhaps a filter Sens = 0 isn't designed to provide a static / immobile filter?

My workaround for a truly static filter is simply to set Lo and Hi Freq to be the same then it has nowhere to move to.

[gastric]

What kind of things are you thinking of doing with the LFOs? Ramp may not be the best parameter for other waveshapes, but maybe there is something else that will work?

I'm not personally likely to use LFOs at all in reality. But I know there's a small but dedicated group of electric bass players always on the hunt for powerful dub step capable pedal effects that can produce the wob-wob-wob they're looking for. Get a quality video showing a variable-rate, clock-synced dub-steppy wobble produced with a 4 string bass guitar and that crowd will go wild.

But when I was originally playing with clock sync I was having some issues where the LFO seemed to be off-tempo from the DAW generated clock and it was due to r.up / r.down which I swear I had applied to a Sine and/or Triangle wave. But I could be totally mistaken. But I thought perhaps the newer Editor paired with the older firmware somehow allowed r.up/down to be applied incorrectly other waveforms.

Ahh, I figured out where I thought I was using r.up/r.down on the other waveforms. I was actually using Response Curve which drastically changes the LFO. Good stuff.

[james]

Here is a beta firmware with changes to the envelope detector: version 1.1.03. It's not an offical release currently, so there are no release notes. Please test it and report back on what you think of it.

Now, the envelope can follow fast drops in the signal level, allowing it to reset its position before the next note arrives. Using this, I can get closer to the sound you are looking for. You need to set decay to a low value (e.g., 0) otherwise there won't be much difference.

We've not simply made the envelope detector faster, but it balances the smoothness of the original envelope detector with the fast response of the new one -- it turned out to be a rather interesting problem to solve!

This firmware version also contains a change to LFOs to let them reset their position when the effect is enabled (see this post for more info: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=851&p=2696#p2696)

[james]

Here are a couple of graphs that show the old and new envelope detector performance. The new one can track (most of) the rapid fall-offs between the notes. The other parts of the envelope are not affected by this change.

(Note that the envelope drawn doesn't exactly follow the signal waveform. This is because only the positive half of the waveform is shown; it's not gone wrong!)