Something like this would have been cool. I almost never use the mod matrix because I hate to menu dive, even though it would open lots of sonic avenues. I’m grateful for the few front panel LFO options, though.
Yesh for me i use maybe 2 or 3 mods usually because i really like noise as source so I’ve been putting that on everything. For my uses, a few slots and the front panel is plenty and not too menu dievy
1 Like
People say it’s menu divy, but I found the Take5 and Teo5 to be more menu divy, and the bad kind of menu divy, too. The program parameters menu is full of stuff that’s irksome to scroll through - just like the Rev2. And all of those sequentials have some situations where the “press button and wiggle” to set source or destination fails and you have to turn an encoder - frustratingly those bugs are different model to model, too.
The Peak/Summit has pages, not unlike an Elektron, but the button presses to get to a page are simple, and the fact you can modulate modulations right there in the mod matrix UI without using another slot is amazing (and they did it far more simply than Moog did with the Muse).
The Summit has a few more front panel controls, though, and that’s what I use.
5 Likes
Peak and T5 are my favorite polysynths I’ve used. I 100% agree on this and I’ve never understood the complaints about its menus. It takes me considerably more time to go into T5’s menu to change something than it would to make the same change on Peak. Most menus are just a couple pages deep and it’s the menu system I compare other synths to. You really can’t make a shallower menu that gives as much control as Peak has, unless you give it a bigger screen, which wouldn’t feel great. Yes it’s a bit slower to make some traditional routing options on the Peak, but if you’ve spent more than a couple hours with the Peak the difference will be more or less negligible. I wouldn’t say either of them is “menu divey” though. “Menu diving” makes me think of any Roland, my MPC, or even my beloved Typhon.
2 Likes
yeah the T5 isn’t (aren’t? there are two of them) terrible, but some things default to stupid values and require the menu, like unison detune. I can live with unison defaulting to one voice but detune ought to default to a usable amount - like the Peak does!
Even if you play around with panel mode you’ll have to change this. It could be worse, of course - at least it has a usable unison detune range, unlike the P6/T6/OB6.
Speaking of the peak/summit, why on earth don’t more synths have poly unison voice assignment?
2 Likes
It may be a matter of personal taste, or how you use the synth.
The Peak “spends” nearly all its front panel real estate on its subtractive synth engine, which for me is useful but not the most distinctive aspect of the synth. Once I want to use the FM, or the wavetables, or the extra LFOs, or the advanced FX features, I am doomed to fumble from screen to screen (and a cheap little low-rez screen it is too, straight from 1987), navigating with 2 page buttons, 3 line buttons, and one knob to do almost everything worth doing.
I know some of the advanced features were generously added in updates, so I don’t expect for the UI to account for them. But there isn’t an FM button to jump to that screen … why? There isn’t a third set of envelope sliders … why? (Are we forgetting that envelope sliders are a graphic representation, to see the current state of each envelope at a glance?)
Just my own feeling, obviously.
A desktop and keyboard Summit 2, with a modern, Microkorg 2-style colored screen and knobs, would be a wonderful thing, though I don’t expect ever to see one.
I still love the Peak as-is. A good friend with a few quirks.
2 Likes
I don’t think Peak’s menus are particularly bad, but using the mod matrix requires a lot of clicks and scrolling. I’m thinking of pairing it with an nrpn-capable controller.
On the flip, the sequential and arturia approaches take two arms - and I guess that just bugs me. At least sequentials can be used with one hand if you like, skipping the hold-to-assign buttons.
1 Like
Awesome track, love it!
1 Like
I came across this issue where the reverb only kicks in after the first echo of the delay when i set the FX routing to anything other than Parallel.
This sounds very weird, especially with higher delay times.
I just want to have reverb applied to both the dry sound and the delayed sound (which is pretty common, right?). It seems that it is only possible to have one or the other: only on your dry sound (parallel) or only on the delayed sound…
Any ideas how to work around this issue?
Ok I found out that this only happens with delay level at max, which suggests it acts as a dry/wet control instead of a send amount. So by setting it at max 50%, the issue is gone.
I do think Novation made some weird design choices regarding the FX routing. Another example: On other synts, I also like to route aftertouch to reverb send amount, but this isn’t possible on Peak either. Only reverb level is possible, which cuts down the whole reverb tail after you release the aftertouch, which makes it useless for that…
3 Likes
Agreed, this is a weird choice. But if it’s not actually a send, that explains why I guess.
I was watching a prophet 5/10 video and the vintage knob affects the amp envelopes. Playing chords, when released for example, some notes randomly sustain longer than others.
Is there a way to modulate the envelope randomly per note on the peak in matrix?
Yes, using either LFO 1 or LFO 2 in sample and hold mode as the source. route to envelope attack or decay as you like. These LFOs are polyphonic.
4 Likes
4 Likes
i’m not sure i’ve noticed this before, will have to try it out this weekend & see if it can be exploited for some interesting sounds
If I remember correctly there is an extra step involved… you might need to make shure every key starts differently by assigning a very low modulation amount to the amount of LFO. I think Ricky Tinez made a video about this, and uses a little velocity mod for this. I’m not sure anymore but the proces involved just enough steps that I made a template preset for myself with this already in place.
That’s possible, it has been a while since I tried it.
You can test it with slower envelopes and high resonance in unison mode. Just don’t call it Tom Sawyer.
Maybe you are referring to this technic highlighted in those videos.
1 Like