Moog Music Forum

Hi All,

Somewhat of an analog synthesis noob here...

I really dig the tone of the bass patch in Bank 02, Preset 09 (B A S S), however I want to edit the release to function more 'normally.'
Currently, holding a key down causes the note to decay quickly and releasing the key quickly causes it too sustain.

I had a play around with the EG settings and poked around in the 'Controllers' menu to see if after touch had a part to play in the decay but I couldn't figure it out!

Any suggestions?

Hi Daniel!

Try the following settings:

- Filter envelope sustain at 12 o'clock
- Amplifier envelope sustain at 3 o'clock
- Amplifier envelope release at 12 o'clock

Now, playing with the filter envelope sustain, you can get a brighter or darker sustained sound. Also tweak the amplifier sustain and release to taste.

The reason it plays as it does is because of the interplay between decay time, sustain level, and release time in the filter envelope.

Decay is the time it takes to go from peak level to the sustain level. This phase runs only whilst the key is held.

Release is the time it takes to go from the level when the key is released to zero.

So if you press a key and hold it, it gets to run the whole of the decay time going from peak to the sustain level.

If sustain level is zero, that means that if you hold the key it goes from peak to zero in the time set by the decay knob.

If the key has been held for the whole decay time with a zero sustain level, the level is at zero when you let go of the key - so release is going from zero (current) to zero ie no effect.

If the key is let go faster than the decay time is set to, it is not at zero when the release phase kicks in, and it gets to go from the current level to zero over the release time.

So with this specific preset, the shorter filter decay time vs release time means that if you hold the key the filter gets to zero faster via decay/zero sustain than if you release the key and the release time handles the fade to zero.

If you want it to play the same whether you hold a key or not, then you could set the Filter decay and release to the same level - eg both set to 1 (there's actually a little bit more going on with the envelopes than that, but you'll hear what I mean).

Thanks for your thorough explanation! That helps me to understand what's going on as well as edit it to my liking!

Just realised that I made a typo - which I've changed:

If you want it to play the same whether you hold a key or not, then you could set the Filter decay and release to the same level