Tried searching the site to find out about this but couldn’t find anything but apologies if it’s really well known. Example of the problem:
I’ve got 3 note chords playing on a track. I add free running LFO to sweep the filter cutoff and lock 3 voices to the track. Sounds great but if I go to another pattern and then switch back it sounds wrong, more like 3 different LFOs on the individual notes of the chords all out of sync. This can be fixed by switching to LFO Trig mode then back to Free mode.
So a workaround is to parameter lock the first chord to LFO trig mode but this means that it always starts at the same point so to workaround that I copy the pattern and remove the LFO trig param lock from the second pattern. Then play the 1st pattern once to get the LFOs in sync then the 2nd pattern all the time after that.
Is this normal and if so, is there a better workaround that doesn’t need to use 2 patterns?
I just checked this behaviour on my Analog 4 in poly mode and it’s the same so is this actually a feature or quirk of Elektron devices rather than a bug? If so, what are the benefits?
Well, it’s not a quirk but expected standard behaviour with free running LFOs.
Free running LFOs are not sync’ed to anything and may run complete unsync’ed from device start until you turn the device off. Each note uses its own voice and therefore uses also an own LFO. By switching to another pattern the phases in between the LFOs will probably drift (due to, for example, different/other speed settings).
But why then use a different free running LFO for each voice rather than one for all the voices in poly mode? Or if this isn’t possible, have the different LFOs automatically sync together in poly mode to mimic being just one as on other poly synths?
Having different LFOs for individual chord voices could be good in some ways but with no way to individually control them (unless I’m missing something?), makes the results too haphazard to be useful.
Is this behaviour the same across all Elektron boxes? I haven’t got a Monomachine any more so can’t check if it does the same but I don’t remember it doing it…