The macro knob values for synth patches can change upon restart of the Play+. This has the effect of changing the patch sound in some notable instances.
From investigating it seems like the problem relates to notes that have been placed without macro values being set, since the problem doesn’t occur if i put the default value in manually (set all macros to 0 or whatever the value is when I turn the knobs slightly).
It seems the issue relates to macro value defaults not being recorded with placed notes, meaning that on restart these can change without notice since the data isn’t there on the note during playback.
This issue doesn’t exist on the 1.0.0 firmware.
Steps to Reproduce
The VAP/Sstrings patch is particularly susceptible to this:
Create a new project
Load the Sstrings patch
Place some notes (make sure not to change the macro values)
Listen to how it sounds
Restart the Play+
Play the pattern again, it should sound as though all macro knobs are turned up halfway instead of at zero like the patch default
Note that doing these same steps, except manually setting all macros to zero before placing notes (step 3) eliminates this issue.
I’ve noticed too that the Play+ has some issues with macros polarity. If you change a macro polarity from unipolar to bipolar or vice versa - either by programming your patch or by loading existing one - you have to restart the device in order to changes to make effect. That’s not an issue for steps where macro values are set explicitly through the knob, but for steps with unspecified macro value, a wrong ‘default’ value will be applied till you restart the device.
Ahh yeah, true - the patch in my repro steps have unipolar macros (ie. zero is far left instead of centre), and when restarting it seems to default to the middle (64 for unipolar, but zero location for bipolar macros)
I tried to make two almost identical patches. In one of them the Cutoff macro is unipolar and in the other it’s bipolar.
I set the macro value to 0 when the unipolar patch is selected (so the macro doesn’t affect sound at all), then I load the bipolar version, and now the macro shows -63, which means extreme negative amount and sound changes drastically. I set macro to 0 again, so there isn’t any effect, and switch back to the unipolar patch, and macro now shows 63 and it’s again an extreme change of the sound just by switching between two identical patches. The only difference is the cuttoff macro polarity.
I think macro value conversion doesn’t work properly when macro polarity changes. 0 unipolar should correspond to 0 bipolar. For now 0 unipolar translates to -63 bipolar and 0 bipolar to 63 unipolar.
Speaking of the case when macro value isn’t explicilty set by the user, it must behave as if it’s set to 0, but as I showed above there is an issue with 0.
Also, I suspect that this bug has the same root cause. Previewing patches with different macro polarity somehow corrupts macro behaviour.
@ameliagagarin this is almost exactly what caused me to start looking for this bug - could be that one of the macros on the patch in question controls pitch in some way?
@katzi I haven’t had that exact flavour of issue yet with macros but it seems to be related. I’ll test that on my unit and report back here.
Polyend devs: based on mine and other peoples issues it seems like there isn’t any code managing changes of macro values from bipolar to unipolar/vice versa, or setting default values for new notes without manual intervention. The impact here is that reloading a project doesn’t guarantee that it’s the same as when you saved it, which honestly is a pretty big problem. Looking forward to a fix.
@katzi forgot to update - I have the same issue, tested across numerous patches. There’s nothing managing the change from bipolar to unipolar, it’s clearly just storing the value and switching a flag internally.
Had any luck reproing this bug Polyend devs? Do you need more information?
As yet there hasn’t been any acknowledgement. This would be very much appreciated.
Hello. A feww days ago had a live performance. And learn how to solve this problem. It’s not ideal, but I think it works and you spend five seconds on fix it.
My initial settings for one synth patch in the play+ were different every time I loaded one project. It appeared completely out of tune.
Solution: once project is loaded, change that preset for another and load again the original one, the preset what you want. This reset the preset and works perfect.
As I said it’s not the ideal solution but it takes five seconds or less to fix it.
@ameliagagarin I came across that workaround too, as well as just making sure macros are recorded on all notes in a sequence - even if that value is just zero for everything. But they are just that - workarounds.
Loading and saving of files is a fundamental feature of computing, with the main requirement being that when you load your file, it takes you back to where you were when you saved. This is not the case here, which means I would class this as a major bug that needs to be treated as a priority.
Without looking at the code base, I’m going to guess the following is happening under the hood:
macro values are stored as int (possibly 8 bit int)
changing macros from unipolar to bipolar is flipping the unsigned bit to signed
the code that’s supposed to convert values so that 0 signed becomes the same as 0 unsigned is either broken, not being called or doesn’t exist
In any case, this needs to be looked at, and should be prioritised. Anywhere else, this sort of bug would be treated as an urgent hotfix.
Hi @lord.caldwell, Thank you for reporting this bug. We are sorry you’re experiencing issues while using Play+. We will do our best to resolve it and notify you when it’s ready.