Ableton Forum

Hi,

I wonder what kind of curve is used for the envelope generators in Live's build-in instruments. Although I very much like these intruments (and use them a lot), I'm not so pleased with the envelopes. To my ears they sound rather dull and my guess is that's because they have a lineair curve. A more exponential curve would sounds better I think. Of course envelopes don't have a sound themselves, but they do have a large impact on the sound of the things they're used on.

So could anybody eleborate about this and if the Ableton team also thinks there's still room for improvement?

cheers,
vincent

Hi zambal,
Attack is linear, Decay and Release are exponential.
Therefor the decay is how it would be in an analog synthesizer and in most "natural" processes. Attack is a common sense compromise which you will find in most digital / software synthesizers. I would be curious to know if there are instruments ( software / hardware ) out there where you especially like the envelopes.

Robert Henke / Ableton

i like kontakt's enveloppes (especially the multiple points).
i think that it would be nice if there was at least a "curve" control for the attack, like in kontakt's ADSR enveloppes.

but most of the time, drawing the enveloppes in the clips works fine, though it can be a little tedious.

Here comes the envelope of the Operator:

http://www.monolake.de/operator.jpg


Robert

Yes,
having an adjustable "slope" parameter for envelope segments would be fine. This goes for the envelopes as well as for automation. Well, some day in the future it should be in....

Robert Henke / Ableton

Hi Robert,

Thank you for your answers. I guess my ears fooled me, because I thought to hear a somewhat lineair decay and release slope. But maybe I should have added that to my original post that it ocured most to me with Impulse and Simpler. Although I also own Operator, I still haven't played enough with it to comment on it's envelopes, because I'm still so used to use my SY99 for FM sounds

The envelopes I like most are the ones in the Creamware Modular synth, especially the third-party Flexor modules ( you can check some Flexor sounds here: http://adern.com/home/modules.php?name= ... view&id=10 ). In VST world, I'm quite font of the envelopes in ASynth ( http://antti.smartelectronix.com/ ) and the before mentioned multi-segment envelopes in Kontakt.

cheers,
vincent

zambal wrote:Hi Robert,

Thank you for your answers. I guess my ears fooled me, because I thought to hear a somewhat lineair decay and release slope. But maybe I should have added that to my original post that it ocured most to me with Impulse and Simpler. Although I also own Operator, I still haven't played enough with it to comment on it's envelopes, because I'm still so used to use my SY99 for FM sounds

The envelopes I like most are the ones in the Creamware Modular synth, especially the third-party Flexor modules ( you can check some Flexor sounds here: http://adern.com/home/modules.php?name= ... view&id=10 ). In VST world, I'm quite font of the envelopes in ASynth ( http://antti.smartelectronix.com/ ) and the before mentioned multi-segment envelopes in Kontakt.

cheers,
vincent

One of the features I do use, but I should do so more is the flexibility in Andromeda's envelopes. Analogue synth with digital envelopes that you can set every stage of to be one of 9 or so slopes.

Yeah, variable slopes are cool, but I think that conflicts somewhat with Abletons K.I.S.S. paradigm.

cheers,
vincent