Electribe2 - Clicky?

roblabs · Post by **roblabs** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 6:37 am

I'm finding the electribe to be clicky when sounds are used with certain filter/amp combinations. are any of you dealing with this as well, and if so what are your workarounds? Boosting the attack doesn't really work. It'll be a shame if its just in the nature of it, because the filters actually sound good but as soon as I start to tweak things these clicks start popping up ruining everything!

neeth · Post by **neeth** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 6:48 am

I notice this too. It usually seems to happen with poly sounds. Shifting the filter cutoff usually seems to take the worst of it away. This is not a good workaround, because your sound will change too much.

Spheric El · Post by **Spheric El** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 7:55 am

Try turning down the volume on your part.
It's been suggested before on this forum ,that this is a good work method due to headroom.

dutchcow · Post by **dutchcow** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 8:33 am

It can get very clicky once you start messing with the sound, specially if you want to add some dirt/grit. This is I think mainly due to the anti aliasing. It can get so worse it only applies a parameter for a few seconds then quits. Some of the VPM waveforms do this very quickly once you add a lot of resonance. Sometimes the resonance will only sound a few seconds after messing with it. Then the sound loses the resonance all together until you turn the knob again. This happens with just 1 pad in use, so it's not due to maxing out the poly/para-phony.

DrHoo · Post by **DrHoo** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 9:11 am

That click at the attack of certain waves is a common electribe trait, only certain waves isn't it. I don't think there's anything you can do about it except edit out as much as you can but that then defeats the object of the sound you want to create. It works when the attack is on the down beat of a kick haha because it gets masked.

apapdop · Post by **apapdop** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 9:37 am

Yep, I get clicks. I can't nail it down completely but i'm guessing its an envelope or mod source LFO resetting on each new note. It seems less noticeable when the mod source is a free running LFO, but yep, it's kind of annoying. Another addition to the list of "endearing quirks".

dutchcow · Post by **dutchcow** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 10:23 am

^ Haha, indeed. Korg has a great chance to show what they're worth by sorting out these issues professionally and properly.

And after my short experience with their product support team I am very disappointed. I hope my disappointment will fade away after a new firmware has been released.

I think Korg should be happy that customers take their time to contribute to a forum and provide feedback and bug reports. But please do not use your customers as beta testers for a rushed out product.

apapdop · Post by **apapdop** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 11:36 am

apapdop wrote:Yep, I get clicks. I can't nail it down completely but i'm guessing its an envelope or mod source LFO resetting on each new note. It seems less noticeable when the mod source is a free running LFO, but yep, it's kind of annoying. Another addition to the list of "endearing quirks".

If you set the part to Poly 1, the clicks pretty much go away, but that means that the envelopes aren't retrigged on every key press, only when you release a note and then play another. This may not be the way you want the part to behave though...

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:19 pm

Usually it seems to be an issue when you start running out of headroom internally I find. Filter modulation when you have a higher resonance can eat into the headroom pretty quick, so I tend to keep pattern volume around 100 and part volumes closer to 64 initially.

SMK · Post by **SMK** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 9:42 pm

Yeah, clicky clicky clicky...

The first solution, Gods damn HEADROOM!!!! You have to pay attention to your headroom.

I Laugh because way before I got this box DrHoo remembers my comments on headroom and I was like

"whatever", "I want everything LOUD!".
You're either a DJ or used to having haul a serious amount of out board gear to jam into your Mackie Mixer. I was the latter.

So, with a good quality "All in One" (as I have been learning) balancing your volumes is the most crucial as everyone has pointed out. Imagine that the first row of pad / parts are 8 different synthesizers and the bottom row are your drum kit. Now add to that you have an internal mixer balancing all of the volumes.

The other issue is that while there are no analog synths in the box...there is nothing analog about the E2...the digital emulation still follows all the rules of synthesis. Clicks in your sound could be an example of a poorly made patch. Things that could give anyone grief are a multitude of things but the first part to start with is your EG or Envelope Generator intensity, balanced with your Attack, and your Decay / Release. So for example if your settings are allowing for a long release of a sound / note yet your attack for the next key is instant, then the next note you hit is cutting off the trail of the previous dissipating note. This is just one example of how these clicks can happen in sculpting your sound. You can hear this effect a lot more by using the E2's Kaoss pad with the Arp Gate on...in fact it is pretty much on every synth sound from the start and you have to "subtract" parts of the sound through filters to get the right feel of the sound.

One of the cool things about the E2's pad control is that it's set properly to play at the right speed to cause the least amount of click in your playing. I play pad controllers like most 80's guitarists play their necks...fast and showy figure tapping. The E2's for the most part can handle most of that but, then it will slightly glitch or you won't hear the next sound because it is preventing the on coming click. Now when hook up my PadKontrol and play...oh yeah I can play as fast as I want, but guess what?...the clicks are there; exposing my poor sound shaping laziness and that means I need to get back in the E2 and adjust some of that extra crap. Now sometimes I just don't feel like doing that extra work and I make the clicks work with what I am doing...thats when I pull out the "NIN Noize" part, to kind of cover it up a bit. If you go over some of the good sounding demos, you will notice that these top artists will do the same thing...bring in some white noize. When you turn that noise off you can hear their clicks.

So I hope this long essey helps in some way to understand what you are running into and maybe a solution can be discovered from this.

Best of luck!

DrHoo · Post by **DrHoo** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 10:30 pm

When i was talking about headroom in that other thread, i was referring to a general overall rule of thumb & within it there is room for manuvre. It's not a text book must do.
I also believe that the click at the start of certain waves, triangle, sine types mostly, has nothing to do with the subject, nothing !

The truth is that those waves have a click when actuated & i can turn the volume up & down as much i like & the click is still exactly the same except either louder or quieter. Doesn't matter how much headroom you leave, the click is there in the patch & i havn't found a way to eleminate it in three electribe models. I always just selected a different wave without the click & then re-edited it, a compromise. Headroom & click = two seperate subjects unless you use the click as a sound...Which of course you could if you wanted.

That headroom is just how much space is left in the digital frequency ranges before they clip.

SMK · Post by **SMK** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 10:45 pm

DrHoo wrote:When i was talking about headroom in that other thread, i was referring to a general overall rule of thumb & within it there is room for manuvre. It's not a text book must do.
I also believe that the click at the start of certain waves, triangle, sine types mostly, has nothing to do with the subject, nothing !

The truth is that those waves have a click when actuated & i can turn the volume up & down as much i like & the click is still exactly the same except either louder or quieter. Doesn't matter how much headroom you leave, the click is there in the patch & i havn't found a way to eleminate it in three electribe models. I always just selected a different wave without the click & then re-edited it, a compromise. Headroom & click = two seperate subjects unless you use the click as a sound...Which of course you could if you wanted.

That headroom is just how much space is left in the digital frequency ranges before they clip.

That is why I talked about the other solutions to the click problem. Yes, there are obvious synth sounds that have their own natural click but there are ways to make sure that click sound is not so dominant in the pattern.

So in order of importance as far as trouble shooting the click you don't want:

1. EG and EG/AMP settings

2. Arp Gate settings

3. External controller (if using)

4. Headroom

DrHoo · Post by **DrHoo** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:20 am

I use those kinds of wave for subby stuff anyway & if the click is no good in the mix (Normally i don't desire it) i just pick something like the boost saw & apply heavy filtering, or just the saw, whatever works really.

roblabs · Post by **roblabs** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:46 am

I'm hoping Korg can improve this with the next update. I've been screwing around with it trying to figure out why the clicks persist even when you adjust the filter and envelope (you would expect this to pertain to normal synthesis rules, somewhat) and it looks like it happens when the tail is cut.

I selected the OSC String Ensemble (389) and hit and held a chord for the whole 4 bars (recorded this). Then I set the decay/release to 127. Clicks happened every time the loop cycled back to the 1st bar. the only way around this was to shorten the decay time to 122!

Ok, so there's a workaround...but if you're trying to do live stuff that's horrible that you'd have to fiddle with it to get a smooth sound. It seems that if Korg was able to improve the pattern transitions, they should be able to fix this too. And they really should because otherwise it limits functionality, like how much use you can get out of step jump as well as Shift+Play (to return to the first bar).

SMK · Post by **SMK** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 3:46 am

roblabs wrote:... it happens when the tail is cut.

I selected the OSC String Ensemble (389) and hit and held a chord for the whole 4 bars (recorded this). Then I set the decay/release to 127. Clicks happened every time the loop cycled back to the 1st bar. the only way around this was to shorten the decay time to 122!

Ok, so there's a workaround...

Well, I really do wish these words can be helpful, I understand the frustration but this example is what I have been trying to explain. What you have done is exactly how it all works. Cutting your decay time from 127 to 122, was not a work around, it's how synthesis works.