TL;DR: volume LFO always reduces volume to -inf dB but raises it only by the set amount, seems weird and not in the good way
Hey,
not sure if its a bug, but the volume LFO modulation behaviour makes no sense to me:
high values: blows ears out, exceeding instrument/track volume by a LOT
low values: kills volume, “0” effectively mutes the instrument
its usable at mid values but with a few mins of experimenting the problem became clear:
the LFO modulation amount is just setting the peak value of the modulation function (amplified by volume in some weird way), the lowest always being zero.
Actual peak volume seems a mix of instrument volume and modulation amount - the issue seems to be that “50%” volume represents 0 dB and “0%” -inf dB, making it act like sort of the upper limit for the modulation at most values below 50% and muting the instrument at 0% - which makes sense in a way, but not really useful.
Whats worse: the volume stage is apparently the last, making it impossible to use the distortion param to achieve low modulation at hearable volumes (kinda funny since distortion also affects volume disproportionally, making it first candidate when thinking of a workaround).
Point is, for all the power inside this box, just slightly modulating volume in real time (like you would for a typical soft tremolo effect) is literally impossible.
Sure, it still works for risers, speed goes to FM-territory and values above 50 easily clip the audio engine (idk, maybe some madman can use this) but I’m struggling to make the weird limitations work in a way that make them quirky and interesting. The relation between parameters is just limiting to the point of seeming broken.
Seems like the device could benefit a lot from more than one parameter controlling instrument volume. Separating instrument volume and velocity could be a great start - modulation could then affect the new, actual velocity. Not perfect but more versatile than currently.
Love the mini, lots of fun, but it sure looks like not all features were perfectly thought out, and with the fast growth of Polyends device catalog I have doubts they can be adressed soon. Tons of potential though!