I’m still learning basic synthesis lingo and technique etc. The amp envelope on my AK kind of confuses me. Today I was trying to roughly mimic a sound from a mother 32 video I watched recently. During programming I noticed that I don’t really understand how the a4/ak envelope works. It seems that the longer I hold a note, the longer the release is? And also seems like once the envelope ‘opens’ it stays open? So I’m not getting that kind of ‘reversed’ feel from a slow attack on notes after the first one played. Pretty sure this is all ‘synth 101’ user error/ignorance etc but if anyone feels like writing out a quick ‘idiots guide’ that would be great. Or poss link to some online text that’ll help explain it. Thanks!
Pretty sure too 
There are (from memory) 10 or 12 envelopes
All are paired, one has a restart from zero (the dotted ones), the neighbouring one is start from where you are currently (i.e. Amp Level)
Most are variations of the same, but have different slope profiles exponential or linear for different envelope feels during the attack and decay/release stages
Sometimes, depending on how long you trig or press a note, you may go straight from the Attack to the Release phase, generally if you hold a note longer it’ll go into the decay, then sustain, then release phase - so even with identical envelope settings it is possible to play the envelope two different ways, depending on the brevity of the input note (set sustain to zero)
The more unusual envelopes are nominally for percussive type usage cases, these are the latter ones, they use no attack phase as such, but translate the attack value into a sorta hold value at the start phase of the envelope (very useful)
the best thing you could do is experiment, maybe even just record the output of the same env values through different shapes to see the basic profiles in a DAW or editor
To explore the subtleties of the dotted envs, you need to have longer envelopes and try to play before the last note finishes, note the difference to the attack if the previous env has not decayed
Have a peek here for geek talk
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Thanks a lot dude. Makes way more sense to me now. I’ll load up an init patch and get a feel for the different types. Was confusing me today cos I just wanted that kind of ‘reversed’ attack and a uniform release length on each ‘note off’ but it was all sounding pretty random, maxed reverb probably didn’t help me out This explains it, I should be able to steer things a little more knowingly now
Something I’ve just noted that is very odd
There may be differing Amp profiles across the three Envelopes
Take an init sound
Set the amp Envelope to ADSR 0 64 0 32 , bump level to 127
Now do the same Profile/type for ENV2 , set dest to Amp Level and Depth set to Max
(after setting amp level to 0)
Very different in the time domain !!
How much is very different? 
Without testing or asking anyone, (a day off today!) I’m thinking it’s different because the Amp envelope is controlling a VCA while the ENVF/2 is modulation envelopes.
Very different in the time domain, it seemed (in earlier thread linked, as i recall it) that all envelopes shared the same values (i.e. relationship between value and time); it’s like the ENV2 is twice as fast perhaps
There is obviously nothing wrong with these auxiliary enveloped being configured differently, may be deliberate and my recollection may have been flawed … i was just curious if you had overheard anything about this (or perhaps could ask a busy dev if it was normal that the profiles were not the same) No big deal, just curious, especially given that the envelopes are already so far reaching time-wise, there doesn’t seem to be any sense in making one ‘shorter’
Do you have Len set to Auto for both envelopes when testing this?
Could be a tweak for some reason, haven’t heard anything about it though.
Not given it any thought when using the machine either.
Well, the reason i went in to tinker was to expand on the amp-env options discussions above and i completely got sidetracked when the same values produced differing shapes … clean forgot to experiment with Len (the reason i switched it over to ENV2) No Len for Amp Env afaicr … will have a play soon and see, but i started from a clear patch, so it would not have been adjusted
It’s inconsequential assuming it’s not a bug, but if you developed a feel for how envelopes felt based on numbers it could be handy if they were at least consistent (perhaps the issue is that the shape is fine but the modulation amount is not getting through properly)
EDIT: Everything like for like they are really quite different fwiw, Len for ENV2 does default to auto/0
Thinking about this, I’m wondering if the ‘perceived’ effect is that the volume is decaying quicker and that therefore the envelope is ‘shorter’ … when I tried modulating (with ENV2) another param it seemed to follow the same time profile as the Amp envelope … I think the modulation may be arriving as a linear quantity and is being taken as an exponential one (or vice versa … and thus the above confusion)
How does that stack up in the office @Ess ?
Marking this for later #A4tip
Just tested this myself. The Amp volume parameter is exponential, and the modulation envelope modulates the parameter. Hence, this behavior is to be expected.
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