Re: [LAU] zynaddsubfx / yoshimi... beginner's questions

On Sun, 8 Apr 2012 15:23:50 +0200
David Adler <david.jo.adler@email-addr-hidden> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 10:40 AM, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> > On Sat, Apr 07, 2012 at 11:57:57PM +0200, David Adler wrote:
> >
> >> My experience with Yoshimi (under Linux) is excellent,
> >> Zynaddsubfx tended to produce dropouts/clicks and
> >> sometimes exited from Jack, back when I used it.
> >
> > Another beginner's problem: whatever instrument I select,
> > there always seems to be a second one active: it produces
> > a short 'ping' with a repeat echo on it, and seems completely
> > unrelated to the patch I actually want. And I can't get rid
> > of it...
>
> I don't here such a 'ping' on all patches, but I do recall having
> had hard times trying to get a smooth sounding attack, despite
> sufficiently long attack times.
>
> When starting yosh without any instrument/parameters, there
> are clicks/plops/pings on note on. Not surprising of course,
> due to the short default amplitude-attack times and near sine
> default waveforms.
> What I do notice is that for SUBsynth, increasing attack time to
> a value of ~10 is sufficient to remove note-on clicks for even
> moderately low frequencies, as should be expected if the unit
> is [ms]. For ADDsynth and PADsynth in contrast, a value of >35
> just barely silences the somethat 'plop'-like attac sound.
> The same for release times.
> Naively asking my ears, I'd say those plops are not tied to the
> attack ramp of the env, the ramp just decreases the volume of
> some plop, irrespective of the note frequency.
>
> I find this not to be audible (or perceived as part of the
> characteristic attack spectrum) for most patches with
> significant HF content.
>
> This is no different in Zynaddsubfx.
> Not sure about any repeat echo.
>
>
> best,
> d

I've just done a quick and dirty test of this with quite interesting results.
For a short while I have two files on my website:

http://www.musically.me.uk/Attack_Test_0mS.mp3
and
http://www.musically.me.uk/Attack_Test_15mS.mp3

These were recorded using yoshimi and the default AddSynth sound simply
triggered with the virtual keyboard. Unfortunately, I don't have time to cross
check with subSynth at the moment :(

If you look at them with audacity and at a very stretched scale, you will see
that they all start with a negative going half-cycle and there is absolutely no
offset, and no significant distortion. Therefore the seeming pulse sound is a
purely psycho-accustic effect.

The 15ms attack ones are more interesting as they show a nice increasing
amplitude at low pitches (which sounds nice and smooth) but that rapidly
dissapears as you go up in pitch. This I would suggest is a bug in the
implementation - apparently true of both zyn and yoshi. 15mS attach should
*always* be 15mS.

I don't usually cross-post but I think this will be of significant interest on
the yoshimi list.

-- 
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.
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