Can someone exemplify when/how a fixed hold time (as opposed to note time) in the AHD envelope is useful? I’m trying to understand this!
Also, am I understanding things right that AHD note hold time is identical to ADSR sustain time with decay set to 0?
i thought it was yet another thread about autism but apparently is about dyslexia
Hold time is good if you want something that behaves like a gated drum, e.g. a snare that is more like a “pshht” sound where it’s on for a given amount of time before decaying, rather than starting the decay phase immediately.
As for how it’s different to ADSR and using note lengths, ultimately it’s not, it’s just simpler. You can also modulate hold time with an LFO, or velocity.
Next week: ADD vs ASD 
Sustain is not a duration/time but a level, contrary to the other parameters in ADSR.
Hold time can be either fixed (e.g. for drums) or can be maintained for the note duration.
You’re right, I’m comparing apples and oranges! Howeverrrrr, there’s still is a time period between note on and note off messages in an ADSR envelope, so the time factor is still at play in a sense, no?
That’s the key to understand the difference between the two envelopes. Sustain duration being more or less the note duration (minus A+D time).
Ahd is usually used for drums, also good on samplers. Adsr usually for synths, it is good to have both options for variety but the defaults are well suited so no need to switch unless you want to. Hold acts as if sustain were a time instead of a level and at max setting (maintains peak volume).
Note setting is more for live played in vs programed in
Ahd can be good for synth sounds that are gated, arp like sliced kind of sounds, this can also be done with trig legnth, but as stated hold is a modulatable parm and trig legnth is not
Adsr on drums can give some unusual env responses which could be interesting and you may get some odd but potentially usefull results on some engines; tones on snare, double trigger type sounds on clap etc
Some synths even have more complex envelopes like ahdsr etc
One big difference with the syntakt is that the AHD envelope makes the decay time on the synth page start immediately upon triggering the sound, whereas the adsr will wait until you release the key before the decay parameter on the syn page kicks in.
Are you sure about this? This doesn’t match my experience. I don’t see this behaviour described in the manual. It would make a mess of the two oscillator Machines when you want one part of the tone to act like an transient. From what I can tell, the Decay on the SYN page always starts immediately after NOTE ON, regardless of which envelope you pick on the AMP page.
I also noticed that.
In AHD mode, Synth Decay is applied after note on. Amp Decay is applied after Hold time (or note off).
In ADSR mode, Synth Decay is applied after note off, Amp Release is applied over it.
I tried it on three different Machines (a clap, TOY and CHORD) earlier and couldn’t repeat it. SYN-page DEC worked to decay a transient in every case, regardless which envelope mode I picked.
But you’re more thorough than me @sezare56 so I suspect I’m missing something.
Try with a SY machine, continuous sound setting, 4 steps LENgth note. I edited above post. The behavior is not obvious at first.
Here’s a little video demonstrating what I mean. It’s basically like pressing the button on model cycles that lets you hold a note down. One thing is that certain machines, like the clap machine, behave quite differently that this though, and is actually something I dislike about the clap machine.
I did a bit more testing. It seems to me that when an AMP envelope is set to allow infinite sustain (either with AHR or ADSR), then the SYN Dec happens with NOTE OFF. I tried SY SAWRM, SY TOY, CP VINTAGE, BD MODERN. In the case of CP VINTAGE, it “loops” the clap, rather than sustaining noise.
Interesting!
And so, I was wrong. AMP settings can affect SYN Dec placement. @warpigs330 & @sezare56 you have taught me something.
I think the analog tracks might also have slightly different behavior. But yeah, lots of little details on there that can be tweaked to get certain effects.
Yeah… I started to check the analog tracks but I got distracted by a good bassline and wound up making a beat…
With an ADHD envelope. 
Or ADSDR envelope. 
