Midi Loops and how the Prologue reacts to them.

[Grokaknock]

I have a pretty extensive setup with 10 hardware synths and 2 midi interfaces all feeding into Nuendo and monitored through Nuendo in real time. For years I have been using Nuendo's Midi Thru and keeping local turned off on my controller. Works perfectly. Since getting the Prologue16 it has been in the controller position so I have hands on access while learning it's various functions. I do not even have the USB connected except for when I do updates.

Early on I noticed that having midi thru active, even with the Prologue's local control turned off caused some weirdness. Basically the Sub Layer was getting tied up with the Main layer while editing from the Prologue interface. If I made an edit to the Main layer, the Sub layer was getting changed as well. You might say "what about the edit layer switch, was it is the center position to edit both layers?" No, that was not the case.

So...I have been working with Midi Thru turned off and the Prologue's local control turned on. No more weirdness. The other day I accidentally had Midi Thru turned on and the local control turned on. Classic Midi Loop going on but I wasn't getting doubled notes or anything obvious. What was happening was that the oscillator shapes were getting modulated very slowly. I chased this around for about 10 minutes before realizing I had Midi Thru active. I turned Midi Thru off and bingo the oscillators stopped getting modulated. Everything was back to where it should be. The point being that if there is a midi loop present, it might show itself as modulation that might be mistaken for a flaw in the synth's oscillator stability. Playing single notes repeatedly sounded like the oscillator shapes weren't stable.

So if you are experiencing Oscillator weirdness, make sure you don't have a midi loop active. Try unplugging everything but the power cable and audio cables and see if it persists.

Wow, what a mouth full.

[rgarner]

On the other hand, this sounds like a way of getting more than one LFO...

<runs>

[Grokaknock]

On the other hand, this sounds like a way of getting more than one LFO...

That made me laugh, thanks.

I have figured out a way to do something sort of like that though. It involves using the Vibrato fx in the Chorus section. Set up a layered preset with exactly the same sound on both layers. One layer uses the mod wheel to control the Vibrato fx depth. You need to make the Vibrato only affect one layer. The other layer has the mod wheel pointing at the layer balance control. This will give you vibrato on the mod wheel and leave the LFOs for something else entirely. I'm about to try it out for the first time though so there maybe some gotchas I haven't thought of.

(Edit)

OK this works pretty good. It gives you vibrato on the mod wheel without using the LFOs. The layer that gets the vibrato needs to be slightly lower in volume because it gets a little louder going through the chorus vibrato fx. Just set the oscillators a little lower than the other layer. You will hear a tiny bit of the crossfade between the layers when you engage the mod wheel but I think this could be minimized even more if the settings are exactly the same on both layers. I set this up quickly so the settings weren't exact. But you could use the copy layer function to really get things exact. This is pretty cool.

(Edit 2)
I guess you don't even need to use a layered preset. Just send the mod wheel to the Mod FX Depth. Must sleep soon.

[rgarner]

Oh, this is a *good* tip, thanks.

While we're on the "mod effects can do modulation" tips, Phaser set to Twinkle can manage a passable tremolo...