Glide isn't working with the Drift synth

[shigglyboo]

So I'm using the preset "Game Console" for a simple staccato melody. It's a pretty basic little sound so I haven't altered it really. It's got two oscillators, mode is set to mono. Engaging legato makes no difference. The glide amount has zero effect. All I want is for different pitches to have the "zip" effect (used to be called portamento).

I could think setting the glide amount to anything other than zero would cause the pitch to take that amount of time to reach a new pitch. I found a post from 2015 where someone said Ableton can't do two oscillators at the same time which sounds silly. I've tried disabling one osc., still no results. Glide just doesn't work. What's the deal? I like the sound, but I want portamento on it.

[spacepluk]

That works for me.

[spacepluk]

I just needed to bump the glide amount. Are you sure you're overlapping the notes?

[shigglyboo]

No. The notes aren't overlapping. It's a staccato part. Little accents. What I'm wanting is for when the next note plucks the pitch should start at the old pitch and take the glide amount time to reach the new note. I made a patch in serum and all I have to do is increate the 'porta' amount under 'voicing'. Then every time you hit a new note it starts at the last note that was triggered and "glides" to the new note. It's really crazy to me that glide isn't gliding. Or that it would only work if my notes overlap.

[pottering]

Glide/portamento don't work the same in every synth or instrument (software or hardware).

[shigglyboo]

I get that it might not work the same. But evidently it doesn't work at all unless the notes are being held and overlapping. That seems like a bug to me. Like, if you don't want it to glide. Turn glide off. But if you do want it to glide you shouldn't be forced to do legato.

I tried turning sustain all the way down and using decay to force the notes to be staccato while still overlapping... that didn't work.

My only other though is to make it legato even though that's not what I want. And then once it's an audio waveform I go in and manually edit out the parts of the notes I don't want... but that seems awfully silly.

Ultimately my question is how do you get glide to make notes glide? I feel stupid even asking. It should work. This is a super basic feature of every synth I've ever worked with, going back to the Alesis QS8 in the late 90's.

I'm about to submit a support ticket, because if you ask me it simply doesn't work. There's no way this is a feature. Like I said, if you don't want glide you can turn it all the way down. How is glide not working on staccato notes just some sort of difference in operation?

[spacepluk]

why do you care if the notes are legato or not if it sounds right?

[pottering]

The Info Panel and manual clearly say Drift's Glide is only available if the Voice Mode is Mono and the notes are played legato.

Drift is not Serum, your expectation Drift's Glide will work like Serum (or any other synth) is completely wrong.

[yur2die4]

I feel like Glide’s handling of this is unconventional in contrast to how most synths operate in this regard, and unfortunately it is a kind of boring choice on behalf of the dev to not take advantage of that particular quality. But I guess that is how it is.

A workaround would probably require a whole lot of ghost-note or mpe tinkering. But would be very unnatural in contrast to other synths which can do this simply by playing them by hand.

[spacepluk]

I don’t think it’s such a big deal but if you hate it so much just use a different synth

[[jur]]

How is glide not working on staccato notes just some sort of difference in operation?

As Pottering said, glide/portamento works differently in different synths and Drift is working how it's supposed to.
You could use Analog instead to achieve what you're after (or use a pitch envelope, but I of course each new note won't start at the pitch of the previous one but at a fixed interval).

[spacepluk]

I haven't tried but maybe another option is to program a sustain pedal press for these parts?

[yur2die4]

I haven't tried but maybe another option is to program a sustain pedal press for these parts?

The problem is that any alternative involves the possibility of the envelope playing out for a long extended duration rather than the option to have short staccato notes that bend each time you trigger them.

The closest thing I can think of conceptually would be if you had a device that ‘remembered’ the previously played note and triggered it just a split second before the note you personally triggered is triggered. But really that is messy and might still not give the desired results.

It’s either present or it’s not. I think originally the concept is that an oscillator is always running and if your portamento amount is high enough you hear the osc catching up as it comes to the new frequency, but while the amp gate has already opened back up. That’s why it makes a lot of sense for analog to have this. But it’d be nice if most synths had this ability because it makes for a very playable and dynamic sound.

[spacepluk]

I mean the easiest solution is to make the notes overlap. But if that's a problem the next easiest solution is to use a synth that behaves like you want/like, there's no right/wrong here imo.

[yur2die4]

I mean the easiest solution is to make the notes overlap. But if that's a problem the next easiest solution is to use a synth that behaves like you want/like, there's no right/wrong here imo.

Again. Overlap also affects envelope just like sustain does. Have you ever used a synth that behaves like this? It really is a big difference. If it isn’t in the synth then you just don’t have that feature, period.