Envelope behaviour changes over time

#1

I’ve created a very basic patch where Envelope 2 has an attack of 0.267 seconds, and is connected to osc 1’s pitch. At first, it works fine and as you’d expect, but after around 20 seconds (where a section in Reaper has been looped and a MIDI note triggered maybe 30-40 times), the envelope’s depth suddenly becomes almost 0. Where before there was a change in pitch of around an octave, it is now less than a semitone. If I use envelope 3 instead, the same thing happens after a similar amount of time, and I can just sit and wait for it to happen – I’m not touching any other parameters while it loops, until the envelope breaks.

The envelope looks fine, and the dot follows it normally, but the vertical line indicators on the left of the env 2 tab and the osc 1 pitch control show the tiny amount of modulation, not the full amount they did at the start.

If I start playing with other envelope parameters, it has other unexpected behaviour – every other loop sounds different. For example, one loop has the less-than-one-semitone amount of modulation, and the next has the full range – this then alternates. Or, the range of pitch modulation is just different every time. Other strange behaviour is found by continuing to play with the envelope, but it is all inconsistent and wrong. There is nothing else going on in the patch.

I have a feeling it’s something to do with Reaper’s time selection looping, as I haven’t recreated the problem by using my phone and Touch OSC as a MIDI input in either the standalone or VST versions.

I’m on Windows 10, running Vital 1.0.5 in Reaper 6.23.

#2

would try to unconect all midi assignments from pitch.
or check if reaper is sending some unwanted cc message.
but not sure what this is.

solution can probably be found in reaper settings, as it´s not happening with other midi input.

#3

Turns out it’s now happening now with the standalone version as well. After triggering the sound a few times, the envelope modulation just stops working as it should. I’m using Touch OSC, but can’t see how that would be a problem – I can see the actual envelope is being followed, but something is being lost when it gets applied to a parameter.

#4

I’m continuing to play with it, but it seems that sending a very long release time has something to do with it. I want env 1 to cut the sound off immediately, and envelope 2 (controlling the pitch) to not follow env 1 and suddenly drop down on key release, so I’ve got env 2’s release set as long as possible. This seems to make the envelope modulation inconsistent, and fiddling with the release a bit temporarily fixes the problem (I think).

#5

is the patch created with 1.0.5 or earlier version? there was some problem with envelopes on earlier versions.

the case i quoted it was also with rather long envelopes. rebuilding preset with 1.0.5 solved the problem.

#6

It was with 1.0.5. but I’ve just updated to 1.0.7 (Windows) and I have the same problem. In the standalone version, even if I set the release to be short and give it enough time to go back to 0 before triggering a new note, it still seemingly randomly decides whether or not to do the full range of the envelope’s attack. I’m syncing the sound to video, so I’m currently testing the sound until it breaks, then I save the preset, close the instance of Vital, reopen it, and reload the preset. This gives me a few more MIDI trigger attempts before it starts to play up again. Changing presets doesn’t help – only closing and restarting Vital resets the envelope behaviour.

I saw that post, but thought it wasn’t quite the same problem and so started my own thread. Cheers for the suggestions though!

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#7

I am observing a similar behaviour on Vital 1.0.7 on Mac OS Big Sur - where it seems that the envelope does not reset to 0 as it should or max point drifts a bit.

I guess this could also be that the phase/starting point varies a bit on the Osc or sample, even if this is set to 0?

The simplest demonstration I could come up with was a single oscillator with envelope 1 set to short attack and decay. The result is more noticeable if modulating a filter, but this example is probably closest to the root issue. The result in this case is that the volume of the sound drifts noticeably towards the end of the sequence in a repeatable predictable way.

https://vitalpublic.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/original/2X/9/9cd827acb585fb2c851665bb02703062381cbc1e.wav BA Envelope Issue.vital (131.7 KB)

#9

I have also created a post that exposes this same problem … But it is not completely solvable yet but I have done some experiments that I have described in my post. I really hope the developer solves these very annoying problems regarding making short sounds (Kick, Hihats, etc…). (Forgive my bad English!).
https://forum.vital.audio/t/envelope-behaviour-changes-over-time/5422/7