This echoes what I’ve experienced, I was a little confused with regards to the use of Trig in FLW mode, so tried a little experiment with a drum break.
Using a heavy amount of distortion, and the Envelope destination set to negative Drive, I slowly raised the FLW amount from 0 until the transients of the kick display inside the threshold display.
This was enough to hear the drive get sucked down as it followed the envelope. Changing the Trig level appeared to have no additional effect.
sorry @sicijk and @dustmotes i had missed this.
i had messaged Elektron back then - and they confirmed that the behavior was intended for FLW mode.
that there only the gain is deciding how much it gets triggered.
This was their answer:
Trig threshold only adjusts at what level the detector will sense a trigger, to for example reset the LFO, or in AD mode trigger the generation of the envelope itself.
Follower mode does not generate an envelope in the same way as the AD/AR mode. Instead, it follows the incoming amplitude and generates a contour of that signal. Attack/Decay becomes rise and fall for a more classic terminology of envelope followers.
(For example, to smooth out the followed signal, adjust attack and release for a higher value)
Gain should be applied to accentuate the incoming signal.
i still don’t really understand the logic of why they are not making use of the parameter, as it’s very hard to adjust with gain only.
thanks for this.
still i don’t understand why in follower mode they don’t use the Trigger Level for fine tuning.
Because they could use a fixed trigger based on the input volume in the other two modes also. (would be a worse solution obvsl)
Which is how it works in Follow Mode as far as I understand, no?
find it quite fiddely, especially as the Follower itself is not too smooth and creamy either, but rather rough and bold.
i like it, but it could do with the extra control IMHO.
Well i will still have to dream of a Mutator then…
Did back then.
Also suggested a performance mode (with possibilty to limit amounts of for example resonance. to not blow up ears by chance)
A bit more focus on such things would make it much more than a distortion unit with extras.
There is a real need on the market for good stereo filters. There’s pretty much nothing that’s available second hand cheaper than a new AH.
But since we still don’t have a stable Overbridge and 6 new products (if you count the MK2s) since my hopes are quite limited.
I tried to show the AH with Overbridge to a mate who’s on Cubase a few months ago. Embarrassing audio dropouts… I emailed Elektron about it and the answer was: yeah Cubase still does not work well with overbridge…
But well it’s February now. Let’s see what the new version will bring…
Sorry for venting my feelings, I love the AH, but it could be so much more (that i want) so easy…
Yeah Attack/Release can help, but also those i find quite unpredictable and with a narrow sweet spot.
to give you an idea what i mean,
i wrote this a year ago to the elektron support to suggest to give “trig” a function:
…Still don’t not really understand why the gain is being trigger also when there is a separate Trig-pot, because i find with gain it distorts short after getting “in the zone”.
I gave the Heat a bit of a shootout against the Softube “Mutronics Mutator” Plugin with some disco-loops.
The Heat’s filter sounds a million times better - but the Mutator grooves pretty much in any setting as soon as i dial in the ENV Follower.
With the Heat I hardly get to similar results.
In AR mode the results are somehow too drastic & not funky.
in FLW mode i was closest (as you can hear on the MP3 attached),
but seem not to be able to adjust to get the effect really grooving.
Was hoping the TRIG could be the missing link here…
Obviously I was only using one side of the Mutator and without the VCA being active, even without LFO for now.
Sound example:
0:00-0:04: Mutator Filtered Loop, no ENV
0:04-0:08: Heat Filtered Loop, no ENV
0:08-0:24: Mutator not touching Freq or Res, ENV sweep down to -5, adjusting Sens, A+R
0:24-1:02: Heat FLW-Mode, not touching Freq, turing Filter ENV down to -90, adjusting Gain, A+R, Resonance
…they both do similar things, but the Mutator sounds smooth, the Heat somehow mechanic.
If you have any suggestions on better settings i would be very thankful.
their answer was quite surprising:
This sounds pretty on par with what you can expect to get out of more complex material when
using the follower. It works much better on less layered sounds. The only thing I could
recommend is to try adjust the follower filter a bit to change how it responds to the incoming signal.
[…]
In all honesty, I think it is a bit unfair to compare the Heat to a plugin that can smooth out the
resulting follower curve in a much higher resolution that what we are technically able to do with our platform.
(And also have a look-ahead)
Perhaps the original Mutator has a much more in-depth envelope follower as well.
Ours is quite brutal in a way, but does the trick well anyway. It’s actually an analog/digital
hybrid envelope detector which is quite interesting in itself.
…if you have any suggestions how to get smoother results you are very welcome. #PresetSwap ?
PS: Listening back now: I think I had too much Resonance on the AH.
but I think it still demonstrates the different sound/feel of the 2 Followers
Premise: I have not tried the Mutator (SW neither HW) ever.
But I do believe an enormous difference is made by the ENV SWEEP which misses in AH.
Might you try using the LFO (in TRIG mode) to alter a bit the Follower’s depth on cutoff or the cutoff itself?
Or other combinations…I strongly feel that AH is far more flexible than Mutator…
on LFO you still have Fade and Start parameters to play with.
I know what you say, even if AH and Mutator have different “topology” and AH has different Env Depths (please, pass me on this) since we can choose Envelope’s destinations (which doesn’t happen on Mutator).
If I was requested to compare the two though…I would say that SENS on Mutator is our incoming Gain in AH’s Envelope and ENV SWEEP something related to a swung matter-----boh?!
I should read Mutator’s specs…
they are different machines obviously.
what’s more flexible on the mutator is:
that it’s really 2 mono filters with their own settings - and also you can let the 2 LFOs talk to each other.
Instant French Filter Sexyness.
Obviously there is a lot more to the AH that i don’t want to knock.
And if you look at it’s marketing the filter seemed to be only a side factor for Elektron.
(which i find sad, as Stereo Filters go a lot more expensive second hand than things that can distort)
Anyway - my main thing:
I can’t get it to sound as smooth on whole loops. If you can, please let’s exchange presets
