digital noise and stage edition

electrical_engineer_gEEk · Post by **electrical_engineer_gEEk** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:06 pm

I'm just teasing you....you can call it whatever you want

sir_dss · Post by **sir_dss** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:30 pm

What is this DIGITAL NOISE issue with the Trib? I have one and I just updated the os to 1.03.

robles · Post by **robles** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 5:40 pm

If you look back a-ways in the forum, before all the sturm und drang of the 2nd mod destination, you'll find complaints about digital artifacts. You'll hear them when you turn the osc level for both oscillators all the way down. Next turn the cutoff all the way up. Now press keys while adding overload and you'll hear them clearly. With both oscillators at zero, you shouldn't hear anything, but there is digital interference creeping into the signal path, kind of like a cheap sound card.

dlearyus · Post by **dlearyus** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 6:28 pm

yeah i hear it but its way down in the mud it will make a nice intro if i amp it a bit :)

robles · Post by **robles** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 7:13 pm

I noticed Amos metioning that the Stage Edition no longer has RAC control for the Filter or Amp EGs. It took me a second to put two and two together, but now I realise that they figured the only way they were going to get rid of this noise was to completely disconnected analog control of the EG section. Hence the ability to turn off or on direct analog control in the new OS for the Trib. Now I'm rather happy to have a Tribute where I can decide to have analog control of the EG or not. It's rather ironic that the first recording I made with my LPTE used real time knob movements of the Filter Decay parameter.

What I would love is if the EG Matrix On/Off can be assigned individually for each patch. Most of the time I don't make real time EG adjustments, so I'd like the better signal/noise ratio. But for those occasions where I do make those changes, I'd much prefer to do it analog. I'm seeing how long I can go on my LP without ever needing midi control of any parameter. I love going analog as much as possible. So hopefully, for the next OS update, I'd love to see EG Matrix moved to the Patch menu.

synthpimp · Post by **synthpimp** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:13 am

Per the tech notes in the LP Stage manual...
"RAC provides responsive analog control for the Osc 1&2, Filter Cutoff, Filter Resonance, EG Amount, Overload and Filter EG Sustain parameters."

Tangsonghe · Post by **Tangsonghe** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:10 pm

Thanks Robles. Makes sense. I feel like Watson.
Its a tough job doing what Moog Music do and you can
never keep everybody happy!

Learning about the LP stage's reduced RAC set was a
bit ouchy for me as I always thought that the Real Analogue
Control compensated for the minimal features in the LP modulation
department. Not having my every desire scanned and shuffled
about by a CPU before reaching the desired target gave the LP
a very unique edge to it compared with, um any other synth with
presets available in todays market! A feature like RAC has more impact
when you can say the LP is 100% RAC!

No RAC on the stage Filter Env decay is a bummer. That and the attack are my favourites. Having it on the Filter Env sustain seems like it was an 'it was technically possible' choice. That parameter is not exactly the most popular
tweak is it?

For the LP Stage I would rather have the choice of turning RAC of the EGs
on and off like with the Tribute but Amos did say that there were cost
savings too. And people get angrier about noise than about forming
the special relationship with the EG circuits through RAC......

Anyway, I bet the LP stage is going to sound great anyway so I laid down a deposit for the LP stage in Turnkey (UK) where they apparently hit the shelves mid April. I am still very excited about this board.

If anybody from the 'Tribute = no 2nd mod dest' thread are here, the second mod dest didn't affect my decision. Only a second LFO, cycling EGs and the VCA as an additional destination would do it for me (why wasn't the VCA included as a destination in the first place?!). The fact that the only Tribute left for sale in the UK is a very well used (and now scratched) demo one in Turnkey was the deciding factor. I want new and want to buy new from the UK! The LP tributes in the UK sold out before I even knew they existed!

Amos · Post by **Amos** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 2:26 pm

Tangsonghe wrote:...I bet the LP stage is going to sound great anyway so I laid down a deposit for the LP stage in Turnkey (UK) where they apparently hit the shelves mid April.

Extra Special Bonus Feature: Moog Music has just regained the rights to the "Moog" name in the UK, so I expect your synth will sport the MOOG badge across the back, just like it ought to.

About time!

PS) a note about envelope parameters and RAC - while it could possibly makes a difference if you change the attack or decay parameters in the middle of holding a note, they make the most difference from note to note - you have to re-trigger the envelope to really hear it. This means that RAC isn't as important; the pots are being scanned so fast and hi-res that you aren't going to hear any artifacts or have latency when adjusting the attack or decay. When each note sounds, it will have the most-current envelope settings, and it should all be fairly transparent. The Sustain control works differently; this is the envelope phase that *is* active the whole time you are holding down a key... so for example if you're holding a key and you tweak the filter volume sustain, it's effectively just like tweaking the Filter Cutoff directly... which means that RAC is noticeable and very beneficial.
So, I hope that is a helpful explanation.

Tangsonghe · Post by **Tangsonghe** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:34 pm

Hi Amos,

Thanks! I am so pleased to hear that Moog Music now have
the right to use their name in the UK! That is fantastic news!
Any press releases planned to announce this important moment?
I'm sure Sound on Sound would want to report it. Will the first batch
your company plans to ship out to Turnkey have the iconic Moog logo?

I wasn't sure how much RAC was about giving what Bob Moog
called the special connection between musician and instrument,
and how much it was about reducing control response latency.
Or perhaps the two are one! If as you suggest we look at the
effectiveness of RAC on the attack/decay parameters in terms of latency/immediacy, it definitely makes sense to drop it there
and keep it on the sustain.

Massive ammounts of respect to you and your team. You must be
pretty busy at the moment!

Al the best,

Tang

p.s I read a post by an Amos at Oakley synths who had just bought himself
a TM3030. Was that the Moog Music Amos?

Amos · Post by **Amos** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:59 pm

Hi Tang,

Yes I believe there has recently been or will shortly be a press release... and I will request that a raft of our famous stickers be sent to Turnkey / Sound Control, to address the massive MOOG logo deficiency in the UK.

I think synthheads and musos of all sorts will appreciate it... paste 'em up all over! Right now this is just an idea of mine; I'll post back if it is approved.

Re: the Oakley synths Amos... no, amazingly that means there must be another Amos in the world who is into analogues and acid basslines... what're the odds?

[I don't have a 3030 but I own two x0xb0xen and have built/modded more of them]

denoiser · Post by **denoiser** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 7:23 am

I got the TE like a month ago or so and I'm relly impressed with the instrument. The sound and the interface are really good but I'm really annoyed with the digital noise.

Will there ever be a kind of hardware solution for this? Maybe a DIY mod or something? Is it possible? I really hate the EGR Matrix Swith OFF option.

If there is not a way to fix it I will replace mine with an SE, probably. I'm too picky, I know

simbadadred · Post by **simbadadred** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:29 am

The digital noise actually adds a real life SIGNATURE to the TE sound. Reminds me of the ring mod that you get when you playback samples on the EMU SP1200. Personally, I think the noise is HOT, it adds depth and personality.

robles · Post by **robles** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 3:10 am

dagargo wrote:I got the TE like a month ago or so and I'm relly impressed with the instrument. The sound and the interface are really good but I'm really annoyed with the digital noise.

Will there ever be a kind of hardware solution for this? Maybe a DIY mod or something? Is it possible? I really hate the EGR Matrix Swith OFF option.

If there is not a way to fix it I will replace mine with an SE, probably. I'm too picky, I know

I'm pretty sure the way they "fixed" it in the SE was to disconnect the RAC from the Amp EG entirely. I think it was the processor scanning the status of the EG levels for the Amp section that was causing the noise. So yeah, it's fixed in the SE to the extent that you're using midi control values for the Amp EG parameters and not direct analog control. Personally I'm hoping they make the EG Matrix switch On/Off part of the patch save, so you can set your eg and switch it off just for that patch, but if you really need to be moving EG values in real time you have the option of turning it on just to perform it with direct analog.

Just remember, even when the EG is switched to off you can still control all of those EG parameters through pot mapping or an outboard midi controller.

denoiser · Post by **denoiser** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:38 pm

Not sure if I've understood right but if possible, IMHO, the best solution would be to be able to switch between RAC/MIDI control for the envelopes per patch. This would be really cool, wouldn't it?

But maybe the hardware doesn't support this. What do you think?

robles · Post by **robles** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 1:08 pm

In fact I sent in a suggestion that they make EGR On/Off part of the patch settings instead of the global settings. I received an e-mail back from Amos thanking me for my suggestion. I'm sure it's possible and I hope it will happen in the next OS update.

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digital noise and stage edition

The digital noise issue