Recursive Envelope Modulation?

I found this method on another Super 6 Discussion Forum thread

I did some reading on it. I’ve tried it but I’m not very good at it. Has anyone here tried this method on the Super 6?

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Not tried it on my Super 6 yet, but used to do it on my Blacet modular ENVs all the time, I even installed a switch for it at one stage. You’d get really nice thwappy exponential envelope shapes that were great for percussive sounds. I’ll give it a go on the Super 6!

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Please share your results here! I’d love to see them. I was trying to get a logarithmic shape with tests on the attack stage of the Super 6, but I’m positive that I’m doing something wrong because I was failing lol

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I went back and tried again today and I got the hang of it. I sincerely wish that ENV 2 was available as a mod source for this kind of thing so that it can be routed to itself without needing to use ENV 1. It’d make for some really cool flexibility. @udo-audio

Normal Attack shape of the Super 6 appears to be a bit convex - is this considered normal for analog filter synths?
Normal ADSR Shape Super6

And these after recursive envelope modulation.

Exponential/Concave
Concave (- modulation)

Logarithmic/Convex

Convex (+ modulation)

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Depends on the synth. Envelopes can be tuned by the designer to have any sort of curve shape they desire. Still good to know what shapes we’re working with on the S6 though.

At least they’re not linear like some of Dave Smith’s recent synths. With linear (especially on decays) you need to do some messing around with the mod matrix in every patch, just to try and stop them sounding crap.

Thank you for the insight.

Agreed. All I had to go on was the depiction in the manual, which was probably just a generic ADSR for example’s sake.

I’ve never played a Dave Smith instrument ever, but I’m a little surprised to hear that, considering how much they are praised for being “more analog” lol.

After finally viewing the Super 6’s ADSR shape, I can say there’s no wonder it sounds so great to me. Though, I would still like to be able to manipulate the shape a bit more - if an editor is created and allows us to do this, that would be fine as well but I’d still like to do it directly on the hardware.

I found it a PITA on my (otherwise fab) Pro 2, given it has 5 envelopes, all straight and lifeless without some mod matrix work.

My sticking point on my Rev2 is that I’ve never gotten along with the envelopes on that one.

not on super 6, as i dont feel a need, but i do that almost as a template on my Pro 3 and other mono synths, Tempest, and REV2.
Recursive modulation allows you for many things, bust mostly to change defualt shapes of the envelopes and make them more or less snappy, so exponential vs logaritimic. No analogue envelope has straight attack and decay, so there must be one of the two that you can bend with applying modulation.
This is mostly for snappy tones that are not snappy enough, so percussion or bass or pluck, but there might be much more to it.

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The boring linear envelopes were the reason I eventually got rid of my Pro 2. Life’s too short to have to faff around in every patch trying to make them sound less naff.

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Yes I have PRO 2 too and envelopes are straight up flat lines.
Something Sequential changed in PRO 3 by default, plus, you can recursively modulate further every single stage of the envelope to your rtaste. Recently I needed a super snappy decay and default curve, although somewhat exponential, wasn’t fast enough. So, negative extra decay from aux envelope to filter decay modulation made it even more exponential and snappy.
There are some external adsr options for PRO 2 (too late for you I guess - I never wanted to get rid of it although it is far from perfect).

In fact, shaping envelopes to taste is probably the most important touch of the solid sound design.
Synths that have digital control over envelopes, should ALL offer exponential vs rlogarytmic parameters, just like Hydrasynth does.
Super 6 envelopes are to my taste by default, but i do have rec mod patch template (made it few mins ago).

I have a Hydrasynth too but never use it; its user interface doesn’t suit the way I work and I’m not madly keen on most of the filters. I quite liked the Pro 2 for its paraphony but I can’t say I’ve missed it since it went.
Some of my favourite envelopes were on the Alesis Ion and Korg Radias - YMMV. The Super is pretty good but the scaling of the attack over the first half of the sliders is somewhat quirky. :wink: