dusan.cani wrote: ↑30 May 2019
JiggeryPokery wrote: ↑30 Apr 2019
Ironically, the "obvious" Parsec is the one you mention that
isn't additive
... from the GUI: you have no direct control over harmonic selection, they're only presets you can modulate in ways that, let's be honest, are faintly unpredicatable. So, under the hood it may be genuinely additive, but my view would be since the user has no access to the harmonics in order to shape them, it sort of isn't.
In Parsec you have direct control over individual partials. For example, "Partial envelopes" modifier enables you to draw attack and decay for individual partial of the selected spectrum. And there are also other modifiers which enable you to select a custom subset of partials and apply various cool modifications to them. And nearly all of the modifiers are predictable if you understand what is their function. But it's really easy to understand this, since you see on the modifier display what is happening. Which of those modifiers caused you the problem that you can't expect predictable results ?
Ah, OK, I stand corrected to an extent - yes, I see what you mean now. I think that's a v2 feature and while I do have v2, I've not really used it since v1.
That noted, I don't think it's doing what you think it's doing, so my comment likely stands: aside from the practical issue that the modifier window is tiny and it's hard to select individual "partials", I'd still suggest you don't have direct control over setting the
level of individual partials as you're talking about the
modifiers, "partial
envelopes", the clue's rather in the name
. So which
Generator offers you the setting of individual partials? Well, as far as I can see, none of them. You have preset partial groups, then some resynthesis options.
And then many of the generated sounds of Parsec are via the repurposed Thor "PPG" wavetables, i.e., they're not individually phase-locked sinewaves you can select. At this point I'll note I don't know what it's doing that it could
envelope modulate individual partials of a fixed wavetable. So it can,
presumably, generate sounds from preset groups of partials, which you can individually
envelope modulate, but given those apply to the WTs too the partial envelope seems to be some kind spectral "partial frequency filter", for want of a term (unless again there's some kind resynthesis going on and the partial envelopes are individual amp envelopes rather than filter envelopes), rather than an amp level per partial, which if the case means you're
not setting partial levels. But regardless of whether it's the original v1 presets or the v2 WTs, for example, if you set all the "partial envelopes" to zero, there's
still a click. Well, if there's no partials, there should be no sound, right? But there is.
In terms of the preset partial groups, modulating them is cool, but I'd still say the results aren't entirely as predictable as simply adding or removing an individual partial as you can do in Harmonic Synth, Nocxious or Spectre, because it seems to me you're filtering them, rather than appying gain to them.
Please don't mistake observations, which may or may not be entirely correct
, or opinions for criticism, as the approach taken by PH there is not a bad thing, merely a different approach that has its own pros and cons: tens or hundreds of partials
are tough to work with, with hence why additive synthesis—perhaps even more than FM—tends to be overlooked in terms of sound design, and has tended to be something of a relative failure in terms of commerciality.
Spectre has a superb custom gui, and looks to be based on Kawai's synths (I've got both the K5m and K5000W). The trick, though, is that 256+ partial synths
are (and with twice as many sub-menu pages of controls (
)) bastard hard to program, and sadly that kind of showed through in many of the thin and derivative patches presented in the launch video, as if most of the designers being showcased didn't really understand or take the time to learn how to program it, rather banged out a few quick patches to quality for a free license. I do keep meaning to trial Spectre, it's right up my alley, but something that deep needs a deep dive, and I've never quite found the time I think it probably deserves to really dig in to.