Beads Wet/Dry Volume Issue

Eurorack
#1

Hi all, first post!

Having a strange issue with Beads. Have searched this forum but not found a mention of it, and updated the firmware also, but the problem persists. Here’s a screenshot:

Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 13.54.47
Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 13.54.473678×1268 346 KB

Trying to use Beads as a transition effect whilst I alter sequences and drop it back in. As you can see after going 100% Wet, the volume is drastically lower, and recovers over time.

Tried with manual input gain at minimum - no change. Doesn’t make sense for it to be the limiter either - the recovery is too slow.

Is anyone able to advise? Thanks!

Tom

#2

This is the output limiter.

The grain density or overlap must be high, so the output limiter applies gain reduction, and when going back to the dry level the gain reduction is still applied and takes time to recover.

#3

Thank you! The grain density in this example was high, although trying again with density at approx 1 or 2 oclock…

Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 14.04.37
Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 14.04.372778×1476 180 KB

I’m grateful for the limiter so I don’t damage people / things on a big system but the slow recovery is strange. Is there a workaround, or perhaps in future a release time control? It’s weird that dry is not dry.

#4

I can confirm that this is silly and definitely need to get sorted!

#5

Maybe? Or like have some chill and if you have requests for changes to firmware be more polite?

If it’s a really big issue for your use case, there are other ways around this with your patch routing. You can cross fade between your dry signal and the wet beads signal with a mixer for example.

@pichenettes is one person, all of mutable is one person. She makes herself very available to answer questions and trouble shoot here. Its modular, its all about creative patching and finding interesting solutions with the tools you have. Assuming that your use case is THE use case and therefore a module’s creator better hurry up and fix it and rather rudely telling them it “needs to get sorted!” is not going to help anyone.

8 Likes
#6

Hey you’re quite right! Sorry if my comment was ill considered and maybe a little inflammatory, it was made without consideration and has made me look a bit of a tit. Didn’t mean to be a dick, my most humble apologies!

4 Likes
#7

Sorry my post created agro.

@pichenettes, given that the behaviour seems similar even with low density, is this interesting to you as a candidate for future changes or should I expect this to stay as is? I guess an external wet/dry would get me where I want to be but a bit of a pain to do in stereo.

Thanks!

#8

I might give it a try but the current combination of gain and limiter settings are already the result of many compromises.

A “fix” might create a new unexpected problem in different circumstances.

#9

Totally. Avoided the word fix, I get that it’s just another way to use it. Thanks!

#10

In fact, for my own understanding, if you don’t mind, for what scenario was the long release time chosen?

#11

To avoid distorting the shape of the grain envelope.

The release time was chosen to exceed the duration of a single grain.

#12

Right, so a grain could be compressed in amplitude such that it sounds like it’s not doing the envelope shape at all? Makes sense.

I’m wondering whether a dynamic release time, related to the size control and wet level might avoid squashing the envelope, but allow faster release times when the output amplitude is low. But I don’t understand the nuts and bolts, I’m guessing.

Thanks for the info, do let me know if you tinker.

#13

Hello there! first post here too.

Has there been any updates on this? I think this is particularly harmful in Beat Repeat mode, where you normally want to switch between the dry signal and the repeat signal.

@pichenettes , could a solution be disabling the limiter only in beat repeat mode?

cheers!

#14

Not yet. I’ll be back to work at full capacity within 5-6 weeks.

#15

nice, thanks for answering Emilie!

good to know that at least is planned to address it :slight_smile:

#16

Interesting that I’ve never run into issues from internal compression from any other granular processor.I have always been able to run any signal through something like hologram microcosm or any of the MAX granular synths in ableton and not have the output compression pick up the noise floor or squash the output levels the way you have shown. Why is this module so different? Is there a fix to these issues? Due to these issues beads is all but unusable for me, I feel like I need to tip-toe around this module not to get noise artifacts due to the compression settings. Haven’t been able to trust beads enough to make a single recording of its output.

#17

Can’t you just turn off the auto-gain?

I find I have similar problems and this usually remedies them. In my use-case I would prefer if auto-gain was not the default, but rather so you turned on if you wanted. But, it’s far from being the end of the world.

#18

I never use the auto gain, I too wish it wasn’t set as the default.