OSC/Filter buzziness/fizziness?

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

i’ve had my A4mk2 for about 6 months and i love it. I have created so many amazing, warm and complex sounds from it, i find i excels especially at Boards of Canada style pads and atmospherics.

But lately i have been trying for some back-to-basics sort of raw OSC sounds, and i am finding a certain…buzziness, or crackly character to the waveforms that doesnt sound great. mostly in the high end of the filter, when its open. a certain amount of buzziness is normal for a synth, especially with a saw wave for example. but when i turn the filter down and set a high envelope depth, for example, the stab/sweep just sounds kinda crackly/dirty/clippy?

noise is turned off, no OVR settings, no effects, i’ve tried turning the OSC volume down, AMP vol down… i dont think anything is actually clipping, but it sounds very similar to the digital clipping that can happen when you drive the reverb too hard with bad gain staging.

but it just sounds like a dusty circuit or something. but all the 4 voices do it, so it really seems like its in the character of the oscillators. maybe its in my head, cause i’m away from my other synths, but the OSCs just don’t sound very clean. i’ve tried turning res boost on and off, tried filter 2 as well… it doesnt make much of a difference, i still hear this fizzy character come thru any time the filter opens.

is this just the character of the A4/AK oscillators? or is there a chance i have a bad unit? its very very subtle. its just a slight crunchiness, but not a nice smooth crunchiness; a digital crunch maybe, most easily heard with low filter and high env depth.

or is it in my head?

#2

That’s normal on most of my synths. What you should try next is turn each OSC level down until the high end stops fizzing out.
There’s tweaking need in OSC levels when you want to dial up that LPF ENV level.

Also, you can turn keyboard tracking down on the LPF to keep it uniform

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#3

i have indeed tried that, from original post:

and also this is with no keytracking on the LPF.

i feel like i dont hear this on my SH-01a. but i dont have it with me at the moment (extended travel).

#4

here is an example of the buzzy/fizzy sound. this first thing you hear, single osc bassline:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aqx0XqtQgeHYrXYKdj2CbcjWGB1coiKX

granted this does have overdrive on it. but i still feel it is indicative of the sound i am hearing.

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#5

Just listened to that, on the iPhone7 with B&W P7’s, and it sounds pretty smooth to me.
Do you think it’s distortion in your speakers or cans?

#6

It is what it is unfortunately

#7

It’s fair to say that the AF1 AF2 & AK share the same oscillators (DCOs) as each other but they all have differences elsewhere … the AK polishes the sound a bit whereas the AF2 has new filter/drive circuits

I will point to a thread with some thoughts on tailoring the original filter settings to make the source oscillators sound more open

With the benefit of hindsight (having now heard the AF2) I might add that the vanilla sound still sounds quite similar (in character) to me, but it’s evidently easier to refine it, so despite the filter overhaul, there’s a similar vanilla sound (i.e. it’s not that open/raw … it begs for a tweak)

In the thoughts discussed on the Mk1 below the impression was that the filter was the main reason why the sound took on this character - there’s also the fact that the default value settings for filter are not neutral (there’s e.g. a resonance bump) - adjusting the filter more can really change the character leading to the perception of a more open sound

Whether the filter is the only contributor (to this character) is not so clear … I suspect there’s just something about the source oscillators (especially defaults) which contributes to the impression

There is no doubt the AF1 can produce incredible sounds with, on occasion, too much bass (for my tastes) so it’s all there to be tweaked

Firing other synths through the AF makes you realise sometimes that the sweet spots of the other analogs are broader

Even compared to the AR (even before DVCO) you do get the impression that a simpler VCO oscillator can sound lovely with much less fiddling even through a broadly similar filter to the second AF one (not the ladder tweaked on Mk2)

The price you pay for the astonishing versatility of the AF designs is that you need to put in a bit more time tweaking - a good starter sound saved as your vanilla patch will help, I like the Triangle saved with 32 iirc ‘pulsewidth’ it sounds like a more juicy saw imho

Here’s the thread at the point of discussing filter tweaks and other aspects to do with oscillators - there are other aspects on this aspect of the AF, the bottom line is the sound is in there and it’s clear that the AF2 is a step forward (whilst retaining significant overlaps with the earlier models)

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#8

if you did a update make sure you calibrate it after and mess with the filter/env to control noise

#9

thanks for the evaluation @JamesM, and no i dont think its speaker/can distortion because i get it at very low volumes as well. i have tried everything i can think of in gain staging. after @avantronica’s detailed reply, i am inclined to believe this is just part of the character of the A4, and that i can live with. after 6 months i am still getting to know this beast, and i guess one synth cant do EVERYthing perfect. The A4 shines in its versatility and deeply complex patches, and maybe just has a tiny bit of a “crunchy” sound on the osc’s high end. I can deal with that. I only really hear it when i have a pattern running over and over, late at night, the “neurosis danger zone” for me. what was driving me nuts is the thought that i had a faulty unit somehow…that everyone else’s had a perfect clean 101 sound to the oscillators… yeah yeah i know, that’s neurosis.

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