Yoshimi extras

[Folderol]

For those Yoshimi-cally challenged, this is what that AddSynth Organ sounds like, with the following extra tweaks:
Voice 3 moved up an octave (but still with voice 1 sound)
The main AddSynth Amplitude A.dt moved up to 41.4mS
The part effects Reverb D/W set to it's mid position.
http://www.musically.me.uk/themainevent/Test_Organ.wav

[Folderol]

Been doing 'stuff'. However this is what the chimes sound like. The only change I made here was dropping the Amplitude envelope S.val (sustain value) to zero. Otherwise if you hold on to the note, it doesn't sound very chime-like.

I can imagine this would make a nice doorbell sound for Arpangel

http://www.musically.me.uk/themainevent/Test_Chimes.wav

[Martin Walker]

Impressive!

Toccato could do with a little more bottom end on the pedals though

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

That is a fine organ sound.

[Martin Walker]

That is a fine organ sound.

It's a stunning organ sound. I still think the really low notes need a bit more welly though

Martin

[Folderol]

Thank you both
Please don't forget this is just a quick and dirty version and only one rank of... errr... pipes. Look how few steps it took.

For a more detailed full organ (from my Collection) I would use '64ft Organ' for the pedals, as it has a real 'rumble' component, and 'Great Organ' for the main console. For other pipe ranks I would use 'Thin Pipe', and (from Companion) 'Stopped Pipe' and 'Cathedral Pipe Organ'. At a push 'Post Horn' can work quite well with the others.

PS.
64ft should really be 32ft - I got mixed up with the pipe ranks

What did you think of the chimes?

[Folderol]

LFO {no that's not flatulence}
Yoshimi has a slightly odd characteristic with these. The depth control actually goes to 200%.

If you have a sinewave shape, it doubles the LFO frequency in exactly the same way as a fullwave rectifer does to ordinary AC, at the same time the shape of the modulation is changed in an interesting way - especially if you just go to 150%

If it's a saw wave, it just doubles the frequency but with varying amplitude and mark-space ratio. A ramp becomes a sort of glitchy saw, and a square is a sort of glitch with a reducing square component as you increase amplitude.

I haven't put a 'scope on the other shapes

[Martin Walker]

Fascinating - I should you should start a Yoshimi blog Will.

I'd certainly follow it!

Martin

[Folderol]

It's a nice idea Martin, but once you start something like that, you have to keep it up - there's nothing sadder than an abandoned blog. Besides which, I barely have enough time for all the things I'm already trying to do

[Drew Stephenson]

Doesn't have to be just you though, a Yoshimi community blog might be worth a thought?

[Martin Walker]

Indeed - I'd love to find out more about the community and all the different things they are doing with Yoshimi.

Martin

[Folderol]

Well, I must say I haven't thought of that, but surely it still needs someone to manage the forum, dispose of spammers etc. and that's not going to be me. Indeed, I'm so saturated with this stuff, that from Wednesday through to the following Monday, I will be taking a sabbatical from all things technological, meandering around the New Forest.

[Drew Stephenson]

Depends how you set it up and what you want it to do really. The world is very much your mollusc.

[Folderol]

Well, after my break from all things tech and a mental reset, I've decided that this is yet another thing I simply can't get involved in. I've put a post on the Yoshimi email list, asking if people are interested, and for someone to to take it on. If someone does, then I'll probably contribute from time to time but that's all.

Currently, this is what I'm already involved in:
Yoshimi development (the biggie)
Yoshimi Advanced User Manual
Yoshimi Website
Yoshimi Users list
Yoshimi Pi development
New Yoshimi Pi website
Preparation for November Linux Audio Conference (assuming it takes place).

[Drew Stephenson]

And what do you do in your spare time?


I would suggest that with the blog the first thing is to keep it simple, the second is to encourage your contributors to pace themselves.

[Folderol]

Unfortunately a bug has been discovered concerning detune. This gives the wrong detune degrees for both fine and coarse detuning. However it only affects AddSynth Global. The individual voices, modulators, SubSynth and PadSynth are fine.

This has been present for over a year, so affects all Yoshimi Pi units out there. It is corrected in the current 'master' for those wanting to fetch it.

[Folderol]

For those diving into the instrument editors...

I had someone rather puzzled by the fact that he didn't seem to get much response from the frequency envelope controls. The reason was that he had a very short amplitude envelope.

An excerpt from the notes!

"
The first thing to keep in mind is that amplitude envelopes (particularly release time) set the point at which a note ceases. Frequency/filter envelopes can be shorter, so their effect stops part way, but if they are longer, the last part will be ineffective.

Across all three engines, and kits (if kit mode is active) it is whichever is the longest that sets the overall time of the note, and you may well hear other sections stop if the times are sufficiently different.

Also, within AddSynth itself, it is which ever voice has the longest envelope that sets the overall voice time, and if you set voices with very different characteristics you can hear the shorter ones finish before the overall sound stops. Bear in mind, that each voice can also have a start delay set, so you can get a late sound pickup that is then the last bit you hear, even if it's quite short. However, if the start time of one voice is after all the others have finished it will never sound.

This sort of idea works best with 'Forced Release' disabled.

An unexpected twist to this, is that taking the combined voice envelope time against the main (global) AddSynth envelope, although attack and decay times follow the above pattern, it is which ever (the voice group or the global value) has the shortest release that sets the AddSynth time as a whole. This can really catch you out!

With regard to the modulator amplitude envelopes. They don't change the overall time, but if they are shorter than their voice length (or any voice that the modulator is slaved to) the modulation may end a bit strangely. If they are longer, then part of their action will be missed. Also, when using the Morph type, you must have an envelope set, as this is what controls the way the sound morphs between the voice oscillator and the modulator one.

Finally, there is what I believe to be a bug that goes back to Zyn 2.2.1 - original Zyn

If an AddSynth voice is enabled, it's amplitude envelope time is active, even if the envelope is apparently deactivated and not editable. Oh, and by default all the voice times are quite long, so again you could be puzzled as to why a sound is longer than you expected. Because this has always been there I don't propose to change it. To do so would quite likely alter many existing instrument patches, but do keep it in mind.
"

[Martin Walker]

Thanks Will - there's a huge amount to take in with Yoshimi Pi, so your gentle remainders and clarifications are most welcome!

Martin

[Folderol]

I've been looking at aftertouch again (although I can only test channel A/T here).

First there is a bug which I need to sort out.
If you change the A/T settings while it is active (note presses reasonably hard) it will mess up the settings until you do a reset.

Moving on from that, currently the settings aren't saved anywhere, and I actually wondering if they should be. It's very much a performance issue, and dependent on both having an appropriate keyboard as well as the selected instrument patch. Presumably if it was saved it should be to the patch rather than the more general settings.

Also, as A/T is not currently part of anything it won't be cleared by changing to another instrument patch - which has some interesting consequences! I should probably alter that

Finally, a couple of points about the Mod wheel generally. This has no effect on the SubSynth engine as there are no LFOs for it to change. On AddSynth it is the global frequency LFO it changes, not the individual voice ones. It also works between zero and the current LFO level setting - so set at zero (the default for a basic sound) = no modulation.

P.S.
Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

[Folderol]

Yoshimi's little band of helpers (TM) have been busy again.
One of them has just completed a very nice extension to LFOs.
Within a few hours of us notifying the users list that it was in the current 'master' another 'helper' ran with it and produced a youtube vid of his first experiments with it and Yoshimi being controlled by Pure Data.
I recommend watching it full screen. The image is still unfortunately a bit fuzzy, but at lest you can see what controls he is playing with.
It's here:
https://youtu.be/BKbQ6QgQogg

Oh, and he's also been using the new window resize feature