Super 8 (and Gemini?) 1.2.4 bugs

Is anyone else on 1.2.4 and could check something?

On mine the PWM/Wave slider will seeming flip the source back to LFO 1 whenever the slider is moved. Moving the source switch doesn’t always work either, sometimes I have to move it there and back twice before it’ll engage. And then, it will occasionally jump back to LFO as source of its own accord, though this could be another instance of happening from the slider having been moved if the fading is itself a bit jittery.

Another thing is, if I turn sync on and route envelope 1 to the cross mod depth, then the cross mod is only being applied to every second voice when in non-binaural poly mode.

Also when performance control is set to “AT+trig” aftertouch only activates the LFO LED every fourth voice.

I’ve submitted support tickets for all of these things.

Just tried again. It seems that this buggy behaviour is only on the lower layer.

On the upper layer, the PWM slider in the “manual” setting seems to set the initial position of the wave morph; if you then switch it to “LFO 1” or “Env 1” then the modulation is applied from that morph position as opposed to from the lowest postion. (I guess this is expected behaviour and partly explains why it says “manual” as opposed to “off” or “none” in conjunction with there being a separate manual PW slider. If so, it would be useful to add an extra sentence or two in the manual stating that as it isn’t clear currently.)

@Quatschmacher yes the PWM source toggle doesn’t work as intended on lower layer on Super 8. I’ve resolved this morning for next update.

Also the LFO2 LED previously followed Voice 0 on selected layer as you observed.

A better implementation is for it to follow the most depressed key (not necessarily D minor!). Have also done this today ready for next update and feels natural. How one LED should respond to poly pressure is open to argument, but I think users will find the new scheme improved.

ENV1 to XMOD in non binaural mode yes this is every other note at present. Work around is to use binaural mode when using this mod routing until we resolve shortly.

Thanks,

George

1 Like

Thanks for the reply, George. Good to hear you’ve managed to resolve one of the issues already.

A clarifying note about the LFO LED, when I noticed this behaviour I was playing monophonic lines and so it was only applying to every fourth keypress (though I can’t recall if I was in solo or poly mode).

Is the behaviour of the WAVE slider when set to “manual” as expected? i.e. if you use it to adjust the morph position and then move the switch to LFO or envelope, does the LFO/envelope use as its starting point the position the slider was in at the point of moving the switch from “manual”? That is the behaviour I’m seeing on the upper layer and it’s not explicitly stated in the manual.

So to illustrate, if you have DDS 1 set to sine, set the switch to “manual” and move the Wave slider to maximum, then when you switch to LFO 1 and have a unipolar waveform, you get no modulation as the wave is fully in the sawtooth position. Setting LFO 1 to a bipolar shape does allow modulation downwards from saw back to halfway towards sine.

So in simpler terms, is the slider position when set to “manual” actually independent of its position when the switch is set to “LFO 1” or “ENV 1”?

Short answer yes. The MANUAL position is remembered after toggling to LFO or ENV mod modes. This is a subtle workaround to adjust the starting point (initial value) for the modulation. Subtle but useful.

1 Like

Thanks. That makes sense now.

It would be nice if there could be some way to separate out modulation of DDS1 morph from pulse width of DDS 2 so that, for instance, one could have a static sawtooth on DD1 and a PWM pulse on DDS2.

Since the slider with the switch set to the “manual” position only controls DDS 1, this function could perhaps be achieved by holding shift while adjusting the wave slider (when switch is in manual). Then whatever position the slider is at when moving the switch to one of the other two positions would be the “locked” position of DDS 1’s morph, so that LFO/Envelope modulation is only directed at DDS 2.

To disable it again and return to current functionality, flick the switch back to “manual” and move the slider.

As a workaround it is possible to load the same wave into WAVE A and WAVE B to do this.

This is already possible with all the waves on disk, but there is no sawtooth wave there

1 Like

Thanks, that’s good to know. I had thought that would likely work but haven’t got round to loading in any waveshapes yet.

This might be user error, but the split point in split mode isn’t respected when sending midi to the Super 8. For example, I have two identical patches, except the upper layer has portamento and the lower doesn’t. When I send midi to the S8 from the computer, all notes are playing with portamento applied. I have the portamento switch set to upper NOT both. Also, is portamento stored at the patch or performance level or not at all? I tried two separate but identical patches loaded into lower and upper respectively, and that didn’t work either. When I play the physical keyboard the sound is correctly divided by the split point. It’s only when sending midi to the S8.

@Feelingthin portamento is saved with the patch, and by extension also the performance.

The split point is ignored for incoming midi because the two layers are on different midi channels. Base channel is Upper layer, and Base channel+1 is lower layer.

Notes pressed above the split point are transmitted on base channel (upper layer). Notes played below the split point are transmitted on base channel+1 (lower layer)

Enjoy!

Cool, I thought maybe they were on different midi channels. I’ll have to split my bass and chord parts for proper playback, or just practice more and play them in real time! I’m enjoying the the Super 8, thanks!

1 Like

It would be nice if when switching between performance and patch modes the patches recalled by the performance were ready for edit. Right now, it shows the last place I was editing in patch mode. So if I navigate to a performance and select patch it doesn’t take me to the patches stored /nested within the performance.

I really like that the performances do not reference the patches that were used to populate them, but become their own thing that can be edited independently. Though perhaps what you are suggesting is that they remain independent but that the performance is still able to point back to the patch slot that was used to populate it. In practice this could create confusion: under the current system, one can delete the source patches from the synth entirely without affecting the saved performances, so the performance could end up pointing back to a patch location which no longer contains the patch that was used to populate the performance. I guess that could be overcome by coding such that the link to the source patch slot be deleted in the case where the original source patch is overwritten with a new one.

The Novation Summit handles this in quite a nice way: its “multi” patches are populated by two patches from the “single” patches. Much like the S8’s performances, the Summit’s multi exists as its own thing and can be edited without altering the original patches that were used to populate it. However, one of the pages of the “multi” menu shows the names and patch location of the original source patches so that, if they are still present on the synth, one can manually navigate to them again. Obviously this is isn’t possible to this degree in the S8 due to not having a screen.

Yep, you were right. I just read the manual. Copies of the patches are created unique to the performance. Okay, I’m cool with that choice and I’ll keep that in mind as I build my own sounds! I’m starting with init patches in performance mode and that is working just fine. No bugs here or changes needed. @udoaudio feel free to delete my ignorant posts. I should have read the manual more carefully!

@Quatschmacher 1.25 is now up addressing the non-binaural mod routings and lower layer PWM source toggle

2 Likes

Brilliant, thanks, George. I’ll give that a whirl tonight.

@udo-audio much improved, thank you very much!

Though now I’m hearing artefacts when applying vibrato when envelope is directed to cross mod and binaural is on.