Pulsar, do smother random lfo's

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bengtbengtsson
Posts: 5
Joined: 21 Jun 2017

23 Mar 2018

Hello, I have tried to figure out how to make Pulsar produce smooth random lfo's. I want pulsar to randomly control filter knobs on other synths and there fore I pick the random waveform in Pulsar. I realized that it jumps directly from the different values and that I could smooth it out a little by turning up the lag at max but it still jumps pretty much... I thought that maybe if I connected lfo 2 to lfo 1 in some way I could get the result that I wanted but I couldn't... It does not have to be with the pulsar if there is a nother way to make random smooth lfo's to control knobs.

best regards: Bengt.

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Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11170
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

23 Mar 2018

bengtbengtsson wrote:
23 Mar 2018
Hello, I have tried to figure out how to make Pulsar produce smooth random lfo's. I want pulsar to randomly control filter knobs on other synths and there fore I pick the random waveform in Pulsar. I realized that it jumps directly from the different values and that I could smooth it out a little by turning up the lag at max but it still jumps pretty much... I thought that maybe if I connected lfo 2 to lfo 1 in some way I could get the result that I wanted but I couldn't... It does not have to be with the pulsar if there is a nother way to make random smooth lfo's to control knobs.

best regards: Bengt.
Try this one:
https://shop.propellerheads.se/rack-ext ... cv-shaper/

You can also use the Pulverizer Follower for it or just use Thor's LP filter ;)
Reason12, Win10

bengtbengtsson
Posts: 5
Joined: 21 Jun 2017

23 Mar 2018

Hello I did not figure out how to do it with the pulverizer or thor but cv-shaper was excellent!! Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a lot!

best regards: Bengt!

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MattiasHG
Reason Studios
Posts: 488
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

23 Mar 2018

There's a great one in Europa you can patch out via the mod madrix. That was actually a specific and egotistical request from me, few things I like more than smooth random ;)

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selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

23 Mar 2018

MattiasHG wrote:There's a great one in Europa you can patch out via the mod madrix. That was actually a specific and egotistical request from me, few things I like more than smooth random ;)
I was just going to suggest Thor’s slow random waveform - seems very similar to Europa’s, and quite different from Pulsar’s which I’ve never been able to come to grips with. Can’t get enough of the old “slow random”!

I still gotta say there’s something about Thor’s slow random, even compared to Europa’s, that I still prefer.

So I decided to get all scientific and see what was up (if anything)!
(Skip to the bottom to see the results)

For each minute, I checked the min/max, then reset for the next minute. At the same time, I kept a separate running total of the min/max to see what happens over a longer period of time.

Here’s the results:

Minute 0-1
Thor -126 +112
Europa -119 +103

Minute 1-2
Thor -115 +127
Europa -100 +077

Minute 2-3
Thor -121 +114
Europa -113 +083

Minute 3-4
Thor -126 +126
Europa -088 +102

Minute 4-5
Thor -111 +126
Europa -094 +091

Minute 5-6
Thor -122 +118
Europa -107+096

Minute 6-7
Thor -126 +119
Europa -079 +082

Minute 7-8
Thor -121 +123
Europa -082 +091

Minute 8-9
Thor -117 +124
Europa -106 +085

Minute 9-10
Thor -117 +124
Europa -082 +105

After 15 min total time:
Thor -127 +127
Europa -119 +105

After 30 min total time:
Thor -127 +127
Europa -119 +109

And so, while Thor got to ±127 within 15 minutes, Europa never went past -119 +105, however, after 30 minutes it hit -119 +109 , and managed to make it to -119 +112 after over 45 minutes (after which I decided it was time to post the results)!

The average per any single minute:
Thor -120.2 +121.3
Europa -085.1 +091.5

That is to say, for any given minute of run time, Thor covers a wider range overall. FWIW - who cares? I don’t know, I just wanted to find out why I still preferred Thor’s slow random to Europa’s!

Does any of this really matter? Probably not, but there is is. [emoji6]


Sent from some crappy device using Tapatalk
Selig Audio, LLC

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emilng
Posts: 99
Joined: 03 Oct 2017

23 Mar 2018

Little LFO has smooth random. It's a great free tool to have in your toolbox in general. https://shop.propellerheads.se/rack-ext ... ittle-lfo/

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TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

24 Mar 2018

Loque wrote:
23 Mar 2018
bengtbengtsson wrote:
23 Mar 2018
Hello, I have tried to figure out how to make Pulsar produce smooth random lfo's. I want pulsar to randomly control filter knobs on other synths and there fore I pick the random waveform in Pulsar. I realized that it jumps directly from the different values and that I could smooth it out a little by turning up the lag at max but it still jumps pretty much... I thought that maybe if I connected lfo 2 to lfo 1 in some way I could get the result that I wanted but I couldn't... It does not have to be with the pulsar if there is a nother way to make random smooth lfo's to control knobs.

best regards: Bengt.
Try this one:
https://shop.propellerheads.se/rack-ext ... cv-shaper/

You can also use the Pulverizer Follower for it or just use Thor's LP filter ;)
This is a great tip. After struggling to find ways to smooth out the rigid random LFO on Pulsar, I somehow managed to figure out the the Janitor was a great way to kind of deal with it.

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TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

24 Mar 2018

selig wrote:
23 Mar 2018
MattiasHG wrote:There's a great one in Europa you can patch out via the mod madrix. That was actually a specific and egotistical request from me, few things I like more than smooth random ;)
I was just going to suggest Thor’s slow random waveform - seems very similar to Europa’s, and quite different from Pulsar’s which I’ve never been able to come to grips with. Can’t get enough of the old “slow random”!

I still gotta say there’s something about Thor’s slow random, even compared to Europa’s, that I still prefer.

So I decided to get all scientific and see what was up (if anything)!
(Skip to the bottom to see the results)

For each minute, I checked the min/max, then reset for the next minute. At the same time, I kept a separate running total of the min/max to see what happens over a longer period of time.

Here’s the results:

Minute 0-1
Thor -126 +112
Europa -119 +103

Minute 1-2
Thor -115 +127
Europa -100 +077

Minute 2-3
Thor -121 +114
Europa -113 +083

Minute 3-4
Thor -126 +126
Europa -088 +102

Minute 4-5
Thor -111 +126
Europa -094 +091

Minute 5-6
Thor -122 +118
Europa -107+096

Minute 6-7
Thor -126 +119
Europa -079 +082

Minute 7-8
Thor -121 +123
Europa -082 +091

Minute 8-9
Thor -117 +124
Europa -106 +085

Minute 9-10
Thor -117 +124
Europa -082 +105

After 15 min total time:
Thor -127 +127
Europa -119 +105

After 30 min total time:
Thor -127 +127
Europa -119 +109

And so, while Thor got to ±127 within 15 minutes, Europa never went past -119 +105, however, after 30 minutes it hit -119 +109 , and managed to make it to -119 +112 after over 45 minutes (after which I decided it was time to post the results)!

The average per any single minute:
Thor -120.2 +121.3
Europa -085.1 +091.5

That is to say, for any given minute of run time, Thor covers a wider range overall. FWIW - who cares? I don’t know, I just wanted to find out why I still preferred Thor’s slow random to Europa’s!

Does any of this really matter? Probably not, but there is is. [emoji6]


Sent from some crappy device using Tapatalk
Thanks for being so scientific Selig. I'm really glad this thread popped up because it has always baffled me why Pulsar, a dedicated LFO unit, doesn't have more shapes to choose from, especially the good old smooth/slow random. I'm really glad I'm not the only one who is affected by this issue. Why would Propellerheads not include a much longer list of waveforms to choose from in Pulsar?

Anyway, look like I'll be going back to using Thor just for it's LFO, when I would rather just use Pulsar.

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MannequinRaces
Posts: 1543
Joined: 18 Jan 2015

24 Mar 2018

Gonna have to give smooth random waveforms a shot. I've grown quite accustomed to the abrupt changes using Pulsar. For those of you who want more waveforms than Pulsar look no further than Lectric Panda's ZFO-2: https://shop.propellerheads.se/rack-ext ... cillators/.

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Reasonable man
Posts: 589
Joined: 14 Jul 2016

25 Mar 2018

If you take the random lfo wave through pulveriser's envelope follower it does the 'smooth' part like cv shaper or janitor etc also

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selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

26 Mar 2018

Reasonable man wrote:If you take the random lfo wave through pulveriser's envelope follower it does the 'smooth' part like cv shaper or janitor etc also
Keep in mind this is a time based smoothing, so a bigger step/jump gets smoothed the same as a smaller one. So you can either use slow attack/release times and loose some of the smaller movements, or use faster attack/release times and get less desirable amounts of smoothing for the big jumps.

Also consider this can further restrict the total range of any waveform you feed it, again depending on the attack/release times.

What I’d ultimately like to have is more control over slow random movements, so that you can have a constant rate or a constant time between steps. Would also be nice to have control over how big a step was allowed to be, so you could achieve effects more like a random walk (where steps are smaller), all the way to a true random (where any value can be followed by any other value). Add to that the ability to define the smallest step allowed (to prevent two steps from being the same or similar), which is sort of the opposite of the random walk concept.

Would love to see things like using an LFO or sequencer as a ‘guide’ for the randomization, where the random values fall within a certain percent away from the input value (such as a Gaussian variation), or any number of other ways to give a little guidance to how likely certain values or ranges are likely/not likely to occur. And also rule based random generation where the previous value had some bearing on the next value (a more flexible version of a random walk).

Been trying to figure out how to make these ideas work as a device for years now - maybe one day it will ‘click’ for me, or maybe someone else can do it sooner!


Sent from some crappy device using Tapatalk
Selig Audio, LLC

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Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11170
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

26 Mar 2018

You can always mix a random signal with some other random stuff or a controlled signal like a sine with random. This is what i do if i want some random noise along a defined curve.
Reason12, Win10

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