Anyone knows why on most if not all third party (or maybe even factory) presets, the modwheel does not come back to initial settings after moving it?
The sound then changes completely and I find this very annoying compared to my other soft synths (Diva, Hive, Spire, Omnisphere, Avenger, etc.) which have a defined starting and ending position of the modwheel which is way easier to use.
I have to change preset then come back to the one I just used to retreive the initial sound. Frustrating…
For me it’s the worst thing while using Vital. I really love the synth and the sounds are great but this makes me not use it as much as I would like.
Please tell me there is a work around or fix this in next update…
as far as i can see (just tested it) the position of the modwheel is saved with the preset
i.e.: if you have your modwheel set at 0.6 upon saving it will be recalled at that state
other than hive where the modwheel position remains the same upon preset change
p.s.:
just had a major crash on preset change in logic (mac, mojave)
in case of interest, i’ve saved a crashlog
I mean just choosing a preset, then playing it without touching the modwheel, that initial sound plays, then I use modwheel to change it or see whatever it does to the sound, then when I release modwheel, the sound is not like it was at the beginning. Kind of like it was saved halfway through the modwheel position that could have been linked to say filter cutoff. Sometimes there is no more sound since the filter cutoff is too closed. Like WTF… I just hate that.
I much prefer if the sound is always the same at modwheel zero position. Much easier to use and to come back to the original sound. I don’t want to guess where the modwheel was to get back the original sound. So I have to change preset just to get back to the one I was playing so it goes back to the original position and sound. Not cool nor intuitive.
Well modwheel is not supposed to snap back (at least not on a hardware synth) it is supposed to stay in the position it is last set to. So for me it works totally as expected. Did you try this with a hardware controller attached or playing with it on screen? The pitchwheel otoh should snap back to zero (middle) position.
Hi @lokki,
I use a MIDI controller, it’s a Roland A800 Pro and the modwheel on it is a joystick style with both pitch wheel and modwheel functions.
So it does have a spring to go back to zero position when I let it go. Not your typical modwheel sepsrsted from the pitchwheel.
But even then with a “regular” design, between each presets, you would never have the same sound as originaly saved by the sound designer. That still makes no sense to me as a reference point for the intended original sound… why no other soft synth does that… there must be a logic reason I guess.
The expected behaviour for me (with a hardware modwheel that does not spring back), would be that a sounddesigner creates a preset so that a change in modwheel modulates the sound in the desired fashion. it is then users responsibility to have the mod wheel set to minimum if he wants to hear the “nomod” sound of the preset. for me the modwheel position really is not part of a preset, the desired modulation is part of the preset.
but maybe i am misunderstanding what you mean/want…
what midi value does your joystick modwheel output in the springback position? if it is the middle value it would be a nonstandard 63 or 64, and not the zero position… only pitch is a pipolar control…
I see your point @lokki, it makes sense in a way. Yes the modulation is the main feature of the preset indeed.
But as a sound designer myself, I always make sure that the zero position (no mod) of the modwheel has a purposely inteded and wanted sound from the go. Same thing for the maximum value of the modwheel, you choose when to stop the modulation say of the cutoff. If it sound too hars wide open, I will limit the range to maybe 3/4 of thr way for instance.
That way you decide of the whole range of the modulation and guarantee it’s repeatability when comming back to this same preset time and time again for another project.
If the “default” sound is somewhere in the middle of the modwheel range, then as soon as you touch it you loose that default position, then for me it’s a big waste of time trying to get back to this “default”. And if then the modwheel at position zero makes no noise at all, then I feel like the range was not use to it’s full capacity and therefore it’s a big turn off for me to use that synth.
As far as I know it’s zero since in any other soft synth it repeats at the same value between each preset change. There is no negavitve position on my modwheel. It is blocked from zero to maximum position. https://equipboard.com/items/roland-a-800-pro
Yeah I get that about modulation not being negative. I just didn’t know if it snaps back to zero or middle value.
I get your point as well, although I would argue it is the sound designers fault for not saving the preset with correct modulation depths and modwheel at zero…
hmm…
i don’t have a springback behaviour on the modwheel
works as expected here
i’ve tried it now with different DAWs, their onboard virtual keyboards and different physical keyboards (keystep, microbrute)
all stay put at the position i’ve released the modwheel
i strongly suspect that it’s the roland a800
reading the manual, i now remember:
roland keyboards do not have modwheel, but socalled “bender lever”
a mixture of pitchbend and mod-leveler in one
it is supposed to spring back
have you tired:
detaching the roland - see if the problem persists
using another keyboard ?
maybe there is a setting in the roland to prevent springback/sending values of springback ?
I see your point @lokki, it makes sense in a way. Yes the modulation is the main feature of the preset indeed.
But as a sound designer myself, I always make sure that the zero position (no mod) of the modwheel has a purposely inteded and wanted sound from the go. Same thing for the maximum value of the modwheel, you choose when to stop the modulation say of the cutoff. If it sound too hars wide open, I will limit the range to maybe 3/4 of thr way for instance.
That way you decide of the whole range of the modulation and guarantee it’s repeatability when comming back to this same preset time and time again for another project.
If the “default” sound is somewhere in the middle of the modwheel range, then as soon as you touch it you loose that default position, then for me it’s a big waste of time trying to get back to this “default”. And if then the modwheel at position zero makes no noise at all, then I feel like the range was not use to it’s full capacity and therefore it’s a big turn off for me to use that synth.
Yeah you are totall totally correct about that being the responsability of the sound designer.
That’s why I was shocked to see many big names out there that had also this issue on their commercial releases for Vital… But it would be nice if the synth would limit this issue from the get go like other synth do. That’s why I posted this here. Maybe Matt will do something about it.
Thanks for you vision on the subject, always interesting to discuss with fellow sounds enthousiasts that are passionate about music.
