Afaik, the init patch doesn’t respond to velocity at all. You can control the velocity sensitivity in the envelope menus, for each envelope. A setting of around +25 on the amp env should be a good starting point
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This will depend both on the velocity curves of the midi keyboard used to play the Peak, and the settings on the Peak. Play around with the envelope velocity settings until you find something that works. I think the manual has some basic recommendations that should feel pretty natural.
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To test this you can try different velocity envelope settings on the 2 toggle modifiers buttons, it can be handy to have 3 different settings available.
I cant say for that speciific setup (digitakt clock source) but clocked over USB from bitwig, my screensaver still kicks in. Even sending midi in from a controller doesnt wake the screen.
I still have problems occasionally with the arp is not responding to transport and key sync not working…
I’m pretty convinced it’s a bug because it happens randomly
does anyone know of a good comprehensive in-depth sound design walkthrough for the Peak?
I have basically resigned myself to the fact that im going to sell it once second hand Take 5’s or UDO super 6 desktops start popping up used on Reverb, (or in the unlikely circumstance that a syntakt eliminates my need for another polysynth) but i still want to attempt to make it sound good. a lot of people like it but i just have such a difficult time making anything that sounds remotely pleasant.
there is so much going on & the modulation mapping is such a pain in the ass that its very hard to figure out the sweet spots and which small or large increments on a certain parameter are intended to yield musical results. the manual isnt very informative on practical uses for certain parameters or how to utilize them to achieve various desired outcomes. like has ring mod ON THIS SYNTH ever been useful? what would you use noise>fm filter freq ON THIS SYNTH for in a musical context? is there a certain waveshape and position ON THIS SYNTH that is best for certain types of sound replicating? do you use “rhodes” wavetables ON THIS SYNTH for rhodes patches? is it best to use one osc or layered oscs ON THIS SYNTH for certain patches? is there a good way of blending or animating the mixer section OF THIS SYNTHwith the mod matrix ON THIS SYNTH for nice results?
this is going to sound like a lot of complaining but i am trying very hard to like this synth. i like the filter, but i very rarely find the wavetables useful. i find that things get very muddy with more than one osc and the “feet” octave switches ON THIS SYNTH do not sound pleasant when combined. i’ve never had such a hard time blending oscillators with different pitches together. the oscillators ON THIS SYNTH sound too weak to make any sort of impact further down the signal chain for any sort of interesting synthesis methods to be applied, so you basically have to make any interesting timbres at the very beginning with your waves, which do not have a good core sound ON THIS SYNTH. the filter ON THIS SYNTH, while nice, is not flexible enough to fix the sound ON THIS SYNTH in any significant way. the fm function ON THIS SYNTH has a very narrow window for musicality and only seems to work with sine or triangle waves as modulators and only with subtle modulation. people seem to love this synth but i dont know what sounds those types of people are after, or if they are better than me at crafting sounds. im not a huge fan of long drawn out evolving pads. they’re cool but not as useful to me in a practical musical context. does anyone ever have any luck with strong mono lead sounds vs ambient digital blofeld pads ON THIS SYNTH?
there are usually tons of these little tips and tricks with other gear but the only ones I’ve found really with the Peak is modulating the envelopes with themselves for exponential and using some fm for rhodes-like piano sounds. i havent gotten a good grip on osc drift & diverge or filter diverge ON THIS SYNTH because i only notice them at extreme settings, but some people seem to say thats one thing they always crank up on every patch ON THIS SYNTH. which settings are tasteful ON THIS SYNTH when using those typically/how much is too much?
as far as i know, there hasn’t been anyone who has displayed a nice method for extracting very nice brassy sounds ON THIS SYNTH or even a decent pluck ON THIS SYNTH.
I would even just like to hear what others do when they start with a fresh initialized patch ON THIS SYNTH. do you start with a template which already has some modulations in place to save yourself the 5 minutes it takes to map basic things that should be knob-per function? what are your go to adjustments ON THIS SYNTH when starting out on a sound? how do you typically use the envelopes ON THIS SYNTH? are there any idiosyncrasies that you’ve found when adjusting certain elements ON THIS SYNTH? what are your favorite or most successful patch attempts ON THIS SYNTH?
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All great questions, I hear what you are saying. But I don’t have any answers I’m afraid except one trick I use is (if the filter closes) raise the vca level (in the menu) up at much as you can. If possible map it to a MIDI controller.
Also you can try other people’s patches on the novation site (you probably already knew).
Ricky Tinez has a few tips.
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Dont expect to save anything by doing this.
i appreciate that. this also reminds me that there is one really cool trick, i think from ricky tinez about using the vca or the filter as a sort of lpg by closing it and pinging it with velocity or something. nice one, thanks
@sabana good point, forgot about the insane fees
Tim Shoebridge gets pretty in depth on some aspects of the synth: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL77ZB-ze8ZFgmbXTSGGjJfDJdARW5u5r3
Calc goes in depth with the basics on the Novation YouTube channel, but he’s also got a "Hacks’ series where he shows off the weirder possibilities of the synth.
there are plenty of pleasant presets built in and available on the Components app.
this is always dependent upon the particular patch. maybe looking for some presets you like that are utilizing various things might give some examples of how wildly this can vary.
definitely.
this, and everything else you’re asking, is all dependent upon the patch and the context in which you’ll be using it.
they’re definitely not as powerful as Serum or even other hardware synths, but imo they’re not trying to be that, that’s not what the synth is going for. they’re definitely useful for giving particular color and movement in almost any patch, but can be the highlight of a sound sometimes.
maybe work with the gain staging and/or separating the oscillators in the frequency range using the range divisors. gain staging the oscillators is particularly important on this synth.
many of the oscillators seem weak when listening solo and from an init state, agreed. i disagree that they ‘do not have a good core sound’ just because they’re not strong/overpowering in their sound. imo a lot of the personality and strength of the synth as a whole is where the synth becomes outstanding and impressing: because the core oscillators are not overwhelming, the patch can go in literally any direction you choose based upon the many options for filter, modulations, effects, etc. this is key to making useable synth sounds for use in music of all sorts. it’s generally not instantly impressive for showing off demos for the synth alone on Instagram, but that’s the way it should be as far as i’m concerned.
you’re pretty correct here, but i’ve used the FM for some ‘non-musical’ sounds that are pretty great imo. this is a synth that can do FM. it’s not an FM synth, it’s going to be limited compared to a DX7.
i’m not terribly talented at crafting sounds, i’m just endlessly curious and like to explore and modify again and again and again. i’ve created and modded plenty of stock sounds into many useful bits and pieces in the ~2 years i’ve had it, and i’ve really grown to love the synth for what it is. the sounds i’m after are sounds that can used in tracks, that mix well and still hold their own, but can stand out and be the centerpiece of a composition at times. i’ve used it for plenty of flavors of ambient pads and pad-adjacent things, and plenty of plucky goodness, from subtle to harsh.
same here, but the Peak can do them.
i’ve rarely used the Peak for mono leads because it gets so beefy and strong when doing stacking the voices. i don’t tend towards big strong lead synth lines in my music anyway, tho. digital pads are possible for sure, but it doesn’t get that brittle highly digital sound i’m guessing you’re talking about with the Blofeld. (i’ve got a Modal Argon8 for that!)
i bet most of their music sounds the same. 
but really both are useful, but particularly so when using subtly and as needed.
i believe there are a couple of brassy-leaning sounds in the presets that are decent? i’m a big fan of brassy sounds in synths and the Peak doesn’t excel here from what i’ve found. would be glad to be proven wrong tho.
Peak can do some nice synth plucks for days. absolutely love them, especially filtered and effected just right? love it, unashamedly. if you can’t get a good pluck on the Peak that’s your problem man 
jk but really, it plucks. it plucks hard.
nope. either start by modifying a preset, a previous sound i’ve created, or from straight init.
as to the rest of the questions after, all of that is 100% dependent upon the song it’s being used for, and whatever catches my ear as i’m designing for that song.
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Fm with harmonic rich waveforms are difficult to get musical. It can get too wild fast. But sine in combination with a wavetable can be cool. And I use the filter to tame the sound further.
If you have some examples of brassy sounds I can try to make something similar. I find the peak extremely versatile and good sounding. But using lower levels on the osc’s is important. I seldom have osc level higher than 12 o’clock.
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A lot of these questions sound like you won’t fix your problems by changing synth. Sounds like you need to figure out all these synthesis techniques, which will then hold you in good stead across most decent synths. Just swapping for a UDO or something isn’t going to change whether or not you know how to make a brassy sound, or why you’d use a ringmod. As mentioned above, components has hundreds and hundreds of presets if you prefer to go that route, and reverse engineer stuff.
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I would echo what @esq said, sounds like you’d benefit from learning more techniques.
The Peak was my first proper knob-per-function synth that I’ve had since I wanted to properly understand synthesis, and it’s great for this.
I now have Moogs, a Prophet and various other synths… most of which I approached having figured out how to use the Peak, and it translated great.
Sound wise, I’d say the Peak is quite distinct, but I like how it can work with pretty much any other sound sources I put it with… I think it’s quite modern sounding (when selecting presets), but it can be ‘toned’ down… plus I really like the Reverbs on it, it’s great for not having to use any other external FX, it’s nicely self-contained.
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i know many techniques and have used modular and many other polysynths. i know how to use them on the peak, it just sounds bad, in my opinion when used. worse than other synths. i am asking what in particular sounds good on this synth. i thought that was clear, but maybe not. i prefer other synths i’ve had but i want to like the peak because of it’s ambitious feature-set. it is versatile, but lacking in certain areas. im am (maybe naively) attempting to find a reason to keep it by asking the community which aspects of the peak stand out to them and if they’ve learned of any counter-intuitive techniques that make this unique synth worth using in a hardware setup.
i have tried everything i can think of. i don’t think that reflects poorly on me. i can make plucks, they sound good, particularly when using the arp gate and 24db lpf with low cutoff and like 11 'clock env depth, but they arent as rich and transient-heavy as they were on synths i’ve used in the past. but then again, i admittedly am not an expert on wavetables. i have yet to find any resource that explains how using particular wavetables can expand a synth’s timbre aside from evolving pad sounds that scrub the table via lfos/envelopes.
i understand the point. buying new gear will not help someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, but these things should go without saying at this point. we all swap out gear for new things, we all have preferences when it comes to certain sounds and workflows. i dont feel like qualifying all of these “givens” should be necessary to avoid comments like this
im well versed in synthesis and sound design
maybe you guys really think the peak sounds good? i cant tell. but the answer is certainly not “its only bad if you dont understand synthesis”. you’ve honestly never thought one synth sounded better or worse than another? i never said i dont know how to synthesize brass or use certain synthesis components
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i know how to make brassy sounds. i know how to use a ring mod. i was asking how do people use this particular ring mod effectively, because you cant adjust it. and its fixed between osc 1 and 2 i believe. its not like the ring mod on an arp or mutable warps. here’s the extent of utilizing the ring mod on the peak: turning the knob to the right. thats it. like most things on the peak, its half-assed and useless. i cant imagine you’ve actually interpreted my question this way
im describing the techniques because im trying to explain that i know how to use them. i am actually pretty good at sound design, but this particular synth sounds bad no matter what, so the question is: what does it do well and how?
i mention other synths, not because i think that new gear will solve all of my problems but because gear is different, synths sound different, no matter how much you know about synthesis. you’ve never preferred one synth over the other? which synthesis methods am i missing that will make the peak shine? i cant even modulate the sustain parameter. its not like its too complex for an idiot like me who never touched a synth before
I didnt know how much you knew about synthesis.
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i find it extremely hard to look at that guy’s face for more than 1 minute
there are some, i have found and reverse engineered some, which is how i found that i can use fm to get a rhodes sound. i also learned that just using “direct” as a mod source with certain pitch variation is a simple way to get carrier ratios more precise
i know these are kind of ambiguous questions, but i assume that people who use these instruments might be more helpful and less trying to lay down a good burn when it comes to figuring out which instruments are lacking in places and where their strong points are. if i wanted “use your ears” style advice, i would ask an ableton facebook group
thanks. glad you took the time
this is probably true, but combining oscillators, no matter how well you gain stage does not create a pleasant summed tone. i dont know how else to articulate that. i also agree that its flexible and the reason im trying to hold onto the peak and learn to like it is because it has certain options that dont exist in other poly analogues in the same price range. i like that i can use flexible sine waves to create a fundamentals and blend harmonics by saturating or waveshaping/pwm. i like that the envelopes can get snappy, i like the filter somewhat. i like the versatility of the wavetables but i now im not the first person to call them essentially useless/“an afterthought”
i understand that but using the peak for whatever you’re using atonal sounds for seems pointless. you can get much more organic physical modelling type variation from much cheaper synths. i assume there is a use for the fm function aside from non-musical things. just asking how people accomplish them. i know one use, which is modeling piano sounds, that works pretty well on the peak but its a very particular sound. there is a patch somewhere in Components called “wompet” or something. that one uses pitch modulation and extra almost audio rate vibrato on lfo2 for one of the oscillators in a very peculiar way which ive tried reverse engineering but its hard to grasp what is doing what there, so i am actually interested in how people might be achieving more complex timbres with less traditional synthesis methods. this sort of subtractive fm is not typical to dx synths or subtractive synths, and the peak does have a very peculiar way of implementing modulation and interaction between its components. the question is: which techniques work best to get good results from its unusual and seemingly garbage design
ill take your word for it
i think there’s something to the diverge control, i just havent found it very useful. but maybe im not using it properly. thats why im asking. sometimes specific synths have different reactions and temperaments. that what my post was designed to figure out
i think a template might seriously be a good idea. its not very intuitive to do on the peak because of the way its laid out, but it could save a lot of time if you’re using exponential envelopes. i know that it helps to use an existing patch and working backwards, thank you for the advice.i hope to one day see this style of response less in music forums
i maybe could have been more clear in my question but let me try to clarify: what techniques DO YOU USE for THIS PARTICULAR synth, even for us synthesis GENIUSES out here, to make THIS SYNTH sound better than a korg volca?
yeah dont assume. nothing about that is helpful. im not bitching at you though. what about my post indicates i dont know what im doing? im new to this synth but i understand synthesis. im asking people to share what particular techniques are useful here. i already explained that certain synths have their own idiosyncrasies and i have yet to tap into this one’s if any exist
you seem pleasant.
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i just dont understand why someone would respond with answers like that
“maybe learn synth” thanks
@ecthroi i apologize. i didnt mean to lash out at you. that was wrong
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