FX Parameter Glide

[thx1200]

What is the problem?

Currently, when you set an FX parameter, the tracker “jumps” to the value you set immediately, which does not allow for smooth transition between step points. There is no way to have the parameter smoothly transition to the new value, unless using LFO or envelope.

Example: if you want to do a filter cutoff sweep, you would use Fill to create a transition of cutoff steps. However, it will only transition when the next step is played, leading to a choppy/staircase transition effect.

This wish applies to all Tracker devices, but I own a Mini.

What should this feature achieve?

The Parameter Glide would work like the Note Glide effect. It would be a two-slot effect, similar to how Arp requires both a chord to be set and the arp value to be set. In one FX slot, you would set the effect whose value you want to change (e.g., pan), and in the second FX slot, you’d set the Parameter Glide effect and the value would indicate the time it would take to smoothly transition to that value, just like the Note Glide.

This effect would modify the behavior of any other effect that could benefit from a smooth transition, such as volume, pan, filter cutoff, MIDI cc, overdrive, delay/reverb send, bit depth, etc.

Are there any workarounds?

There are no workarounds that provide an arbitrary smooth transition for parameters. The closest option is to use LFO or envelope to control some values, but those are tied to the LFO cycle time and note on/off for envelope, so they are not the same.

Any links to related discussions?

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Any references to other products?

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[Dann]

Thanks for the wish @thx1200!

Could you give this wish a read please as it sounds pretty similar to what you are looking to achieve

Glide without Sample retrigger

What is the problem? The Glide Step FX currently retriggers the affected sample, which can be undesirable when dealing with longer samples. What do you want to achieve? This proposes either expanding the possibilities for Glide or adding another Glide FX without Sample retrigger. One way would be to use negative numbers on the existing Glide FX to indicate that the sample should not retrigger Another way would be to introduce a new Glide FX that makes it clear that it won’t retrigger a sample…

[thx1200]

Hey @Dann ! Nope, this is a different request. The existing request is asking for the normal glide to not retrigger the sample. My request is that there is a new “parameter glide” that will “glide” other fx parameter values, for example, if there is 10 steps between a Pan hard left and a Pan hard right, currently it will move only at the step locations where a Pan value is set and will move immediately to the step value, whereas a “parameter glide” which do a gradual/smooth transition of the Pan parameter (or any other FX).

[Sandroid]

If i understand this correctly, what you are looking for is smooth value interpolation between step fx values, right?

Are you looking for it to:

• Always interpolate between values?
• Or should this be something you can activate when required?

I’m imagining something like a step fx that tells the system: “i want all following values to interpolate” until i turn it off again. Unless having it always on is preferable anyway.

For example:

...
00 00 I ON
C3 01 -V 5
00 00 ----    <- a interpolation happens here
...
00 01 V 10 
00 00 IOFF
...

versus:

...
00 00 ----
C3 01 -V 5
00 00 ----    <- nothing happens here
...
00 01 V 10    <- value jumps directly to 10
00 00 ----
...

Curious to see if this would even be possible.

[thx1200]

Having a switch to turn the parameter glide on and off would work too. I structured my request such that it felt like a “tracker” style workflow – that is to say the data needed to perform the action was included on the entire row of the event. Also I was borrowing workflow from an existing feature, the Glide feature. This would just bring the ability to have a smooth transition to parameters in addition to notes.

Just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, I’m not so much interested in having the interpolated values automatically at each step, because that’s possible already with the Fill command. What I’m looking for is for the values to smoothly transition between steps, like how the frequency of the note smoothly transitions between steps with glide.

Probably the easiest to “hear” is with filter cutoff. If you use Fill, you get stepped transition, where the value changes at each event, which is whatever resolution the step grid is set at with the Tempo setting. So if you tempo is 120BPM, that’s two steps per second, or a transition resolution of 500ms between each filter step change. My feature request would give a smooth transition at the same resolution as an LFO oscilation or envelope.

So, in short, I would take this feature any way I can get it – the generalized request being smooth transition of parameter values – if that’s a “switch” FX that turns smooth transition on and off, that’s great and would definitely use less FX slot space which can come at a premium sometimes. Or, my original request which was borrowing heavily from existing workflow, but definitely uses more FX slot space. I’ll take either one.

[vincentwerewolf]

This would be a really great feature. I’m not sure how it can be implemented on a tracker, but it would give the device possibilities that are close to the desktop DAW automation