FILTER HEAT! Elektron please put some love in the filter modulation!

[defex]

The Analog Heat is being marketed as: “Audio enhancer. Audio destroyer.”

Still it has a very good sounding and powerful stereo-filter - which is the main reason i bought it. And I find it a bit sad that Elektron seems not to see this potential and market.

On paper the AH has even almost every function other (now very expensive and hard to get) famous dedicated filters have, like for example the Mutronics Mutator, Akai MFC42, Schippmann Ebbe&Flut…

In reality sadly some of the functions ( esp Envelope Follower & LFO) miss a bit of musicality and sexyness of those dedicated filters…
The AH sounds more harsh and mechanic. The filter itself sounds really good (especially with “dirt” dialed in, i think it’s mainly the Follower that makes it so harsh.

And because the filter was just a side part for the AH’s development - I really think there could be realistic potential for big improvements via a software update.

@phil71, @sicijk and me have been discussing this in another thread and in PMs - and wanted to see if there are others who want more LOVE in the HEAT?

Also it’s fun to mangle some Disco Loops, get involved!

Shootout Time:

[defex]

BASE LOOP (from a future funk track - feel free to get mangling!):

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REFERENCE A:
MUTRONICS MUTATOR (sadly just the VST by Softube)

• the first 5 minutes is only one channel in mono (to keep it fair on the AH).
• first with the filter quite open and the follower closing it
• then the filter closed and the follower opening it.
• after a while also a bit of LFO
• sometimes i added a kickdrum for reference and fun

then from 5:10 onwards it’s the full thing:

• left and right seperate controls for everything (btw: somehow the right envelope still is connected to the left)
• kick, hihat and snare (without any groove, just quickly added with ableton push)

BTW: i have mapped it out on my Novation SL49 with automap.

[defex]

REFERENCE B:
ANALOG HEAT vs. Suftube MUTATOR

I recorded this a while ago and sent it to the Elektron Support, because I suspected the Follower having a bug. (“trig” has no function in follower mode)

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.

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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

[ZORDON]

would love to see some os updates for the heat. i agree about the follower needing some work. it’s a fantastic piece of gear tho and i can’t live without it

[sicijk]

In the posts we exchanged I realized that Follower can get a bit of swing or some drag/rush options…
I am not saying it can be enhanced in the detection stage (since I noobly believe is something related to hardware).
Mutator has this really precise and dynamic follower movement which imprints that sort of swing I hear in hose examples from @defex.
Anyway, it’d be super nice to get some more Elektron’s magic in it.

[phil71]

Here is my attempt of creating some filter modulations on this disco loop with the Analog Heat.

I have just updated the soundcloud audio (expanded it by 1 minute).

I don’t manage to create those bubble sound effects. Are those effects you are looking for @defex?

[anon64972012]

Here is my attempt of creating some filter modulations on this disco loop with the Analog Heat.

https://soundcloud.com/freemansel/filter-freak-on-a-disco-loop

I have just updated the soundcloud audio (expanded it by 1 minute).

I don’t manage to create those bubble sound effects. Are those effects you are looking for @defex?

Nice demo, i just ordered the ah and was hoping iy could do someting like this

[defex]

To say it clear: I’m a big fan of the AH!
I just see much more potential under the hood!

Here’s the follower-part of my little “first look test” when i received my AH.

[sicijk]

here the post from the thread where this has started

Bug? in FLW-mode the TRIG seems not to do much

So…since I cannot export presets from AH I attach only an audio with four variations of that loop through AH (under my taste of course). I feel the gap you hear between Mutator and AH about that "groovy swing"the Mutator has in its follower. But, fwiw, I do not think this gap is that bad…I mean: AH spits so many incredible and even groovier variations because of its many controllable parameters. I omitted other kind of variations I have stepped on while trying to modulate that disco loop. [th…

with the screenshot for the second modulation variation

[phil71]

And here is my Overbridge screenshot showing the parameters used for a segment of the audio posted just above.

The filter is modulated by both the Envelope Follower and the LFO. For this particular loop, I found it better to use the peak filter with the Mid Drive distortion circuit (Dirt set very high).
I also tend to mix the dry and wet signal around 50-50.

What’s cool about Overbridge is that you can :

• see and manipulate all your parameters at once and
• see how behave the modulators (sources) on the waveform screen and the destinations on their respective rotaries (see below)

[darenager]

MPasted in from other thread:

“I’m all for additions or improvements to the AH, I have just got one again after selling my first one, the reason I sold it before was that I felt other gear that I own can do similar stuff, whilst that is still true what I did not account for was the convenience and tidy package that the AH offers, and to be perfectly truthful I don’t think I gave it enough of a chance before. Time will tell I guess.

I think the envelope and trig settings need to be set very carefully to get the best out of it for sure, I have not gone too deep with it just yet, but I spent an hour yesterday running a multi instrument loop through it and experimenting with all of the various settings, I think like the Sherman FB it is much easier to make the sound worse than it is to improve it, but there are plenty of nice things to be found also.

I’d like to see the EQ section have a bit more in the way of customisation, as well as the envelope/follower, I think that I want to try using a CV envelope from the A4 to see if that yields anything interesting, and it could also be fun to do some crush/fm stuff with pitched CVs too.“

One thing that might be getting mixed up (or indeed it might not be, maybe its me! So feel free to correct!) envelope followers work on the amplitude of the input signal, so peaks impart more modulation (assuming positive depth), troughs impart less modulation, the attack and release parameters can be used to slew or glide between values to somewhat smooth it out - agreed? Right, so the trig parameter is not trig but threshold in flw mode, the follower does not require trig per se as it follows the amplitude of the audio.

To get the kind of choppy disco funk kind of vibe that the mutator is known for I’d be more inclined to use the envelope not in follower mode, and set the base and width and trigger appropriate to what aspect of the loop I want to act on the filter or whatever, then set attack and release as appropriate for the kind of swept filter sound desired.

Edit: I had a play with the loop posted above, using follower messing with the mode level, base and width and depth got fairly close to the mutator example, I guess the exact same sound would be impossible due to all the differences between the units, but I reckon a bit more experimenting with settings could get closer to that kind of sound.

Forgive me if this has all been discussed or is obvious!

[defex]

I would love nothing more than somebody showing me
that the AH already can be more sexy than i thought.

#sexytime #showuswhatyougot

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and for the “trig thing” (based on the original thread about a potential bug in the follower):
yes i get that technically “gain” can do it all.
but also I have to admit that i don’t understand the technical background of all this fully and still don’t get the logics why AD and AR modes “need” a dedicated Trig then - if FLW doesn’t?
input gain and trig are influencing each other there also and you can achieve a similar result by either more gain or trig, no?

In Follower Mode i find that if you use whole loops or tracks (that you then cut to loops after mangling with the AH):
it’s a very narrow window from “follower is not doing enough” to “ah now it’s distorting”.
that’s why i was suggesting the Trig as a fine tuning tool - while it’s already there: if you just want the follower to act more it could avoid the unwanted distortion.

[darenager]

Here is a little demo with that same loop, not sure if it is exactly what you are after, but I just tweaked attack, release, width and base and depth, filter was lowpass 1, resonance was about 50 and cutoff was about 30 iirc.

[d2ba]

AH = Future Classic.
its a poor seller my dealer told me (In USA compared to other products in their range) so if discontinued will have all the ingredients to become a sort after classic.

[defex]

thanks @darenager.
yeah! some parts are really nice!
it’s not that the Env Flw doesn’t work and is always ugly or so.
It does what it should - but it could be more musical i think.
it sounds somehow almost always mechanic to me… somehow german?

while the mutator has a groove and is sexy… well… i guess french?

(…btw: i’m german. so whoever feels insulted now. i do too)

The other thing the AH can do,
but i feel another machine does more musical is the BPM Synced LFO, compared to the Akai MFC42… i think @sicijk mentioned that in a PM also…

I’m not trying to bash the AH, my central point is:
If we all agree maybe Elektron hears us and puts some love in the AH.

BTW: The Elektron support told me that it’s “actually an analog/digital hybrid envelope detector”.
So it should be very possible to adjust it by a software update.

[darenager]

You’re most welcome, I think it is cool to do this kind of thing because everyone will approach it differently so the results will always vary, so far I don’t have any problem with the env follower in the heat personally - I don’t find it particularly mechanical as you describe, but that is not to say that you are wrong, and I have not critically compared it directly to anything else, and I have not played with it as much yet. But I will say that it would be very handy to be able to adjust the response between say log and lin etc and the fact that it is digital means that this could be done in firmware.

[nutritional_zero]

The price of entry seems high.

But the target audience are—largely—electronic producers who are somewhat insulated from the batshittery that is outboard studio gear.

When someone tells me the Analog Heat is expensive, I point them to the price of studio “sound colouration” utilities: channel strips, compressors, exciters, mic preamps, and EQs, almost all of which do only one thing, do not integrate directly with the digital environment, and cannot be automated.

The value of many of these outboard devices is ultimately somewhat subjective—I recall an infamous shootout between high- and low-end mic preamps that was hilariously inconclusive—but at least Elektron brought theirs in under $1000, with an extensible feature set and generous interconnectivity. And you can’t say the Analog Heat “does nothing” whereas there are a lot of “premium studio preamps” and whatnot out there that arguably do do nothing.

I always do several passes of my drum tracks: clean, processed via Heat, and then totally obliterated by Heat in several random subgroups (occasionally with some melodic content left in the mix). I resample these or mix them back in parallel. Easy and painless. Sometimes completely unique and surprising if the harmonics line up…

I also monitor several devices through an active AH, and I’m continually surprised when I take my laptop away to do a mixdown and discover the tracks sound flat compared to how I heard them in the jam. “Oh, right, I was listening through the Enhance circuit on AH the whole time.” Cue me frantically adding saturator plugins and feeling like the moment is gone…

[sicijk]

BPM Synced LFO, compared to the Akai MFC42… i think @sicijk mentioned that in a PM also…

Actually I wrote something different: I was saying that I can put, for comparison purposes only, the Sherman and the Akai (since I own both).
Akai doesn’t have a follower only a triggered envelope (ADSR) synced or not to BPM (and the LFO of course, not both unfortunately).
Having these i can feel confident to say that AH dOes a great job with so many possible results.

I second @darenager when he suggests to use Att and Rel to slew between peaks and troughs plus adding the trig in use

i don’t understand the technical background of all this fully and still don’t get the logics why AD and AR modes “need” a dedicated Trig then - if FLW doesn’t?

Well, FLW has “already” its own trigs since they come from the signal amplitudes.
While AD and AR need a threshold to activate themselves.
But I do agree that a trig In FLW is beneficial, since it’s already there…
I just don’t get what you actually mean speaking of sudden distortion just above a point when using FLW

[darenager]

The price of entry seems high.

Indeed, until compared to other units then it actually seems reasonable as you said, probably a size thing too, but as we know it packs a lot in its compact chassis.

But I do agree that a trig In FLW is beneficial, since it’s already there…

I think that if the TRIG window showed when the amplitude was triggering the follower it would be handy, and essentially equivalent to the function of trig in the AD or AR modes.

It would also be nice if the CV ins could be used like a sidechain so that external audio input into them could be assigned to the chosen parameters, maybe setting the CV zero and max levels will allow this already - has anyone tried it?

[defex]

I was saying that I can put, for comparison purposes only, the Sherman and the Akai (since I own both).

ah sorry.
i forgot the envelope on the MFC, because i didn’t get much use from it yet.
find the synced LFO on the cutoff much sexier, hehe…