Chapter 6: Modulation and Envelopes
ANDROMEDA A6 REFERENCE MANUAL 163
Some Important Notes About Envelope Looping
• You can think of the Smooth parameter as another envelope “stage”. It has Time
(the SMOOTH parameter) and Slope (the SSHAPE parameter) properties just like the
other stages. Just keep in mind that smoothing is used strictly for the purpose of
linking two of the standard stages in order to form a loop. If SMOOTH is set to 2 M,
the Smoothing “stage” executes so quickly, it has the effect of linking the selected
START and END stages to each other directly.
But you should keep in mind that if the levels of the START and END stages are
different – as they are likely to be – you may hear a jump in levels every time the
loop cycles back to the START stage.
• When adjusting loop points, if a loop END value is selected that would be equal to
or before the loop START, the loop START will continue to step back to
accommodate the new loop end. The same would be true of adjusting the loop
START to be equal or greater than the END point.
• An envelope will start looping at the beginning of the stage you select for the END
parameter. As an example, if D2 is selected in the END parameter, the envelope
starts looping the moment D2 starts. Another way of looking at this is that the
envelope starts looping the moment D1 ends. Either way, once the envelope starts
looping, the remaining stages will not be available until looping is completed as set
by the COUNT parameter.
So when selecting START and END stages, the setting of the envelope’s MODE on the
TRIG page (see the description on page 144) must be taken into consideration.
Using the example above, if NORM 1 is the mode, the envelope will transition to
RELEASE 1 when the loop ends, bypassing the D2 and SUSTAIN. This is identical to
the response of NORM 1 mode when playing the keyboard: if a key is released prior
to the SUSTAIN stage, the envelope transitions immediately to R1.
If the mode is set to FRERUN, the envelope proceeds through the remaining stages
when looping ends. This is identical to the response of FRERUN mode when playing
the keyboard: if a key is released prior to the SUSTAIN stage, the envelope
proceeds through the remaining stages.
• If you select R1 to be the Loop END stage, the envelope will not begin looping
until the Sustain portion of the envelope is complete. Since an envelope’s Sustain
stage ends when a Note Off occurs, the envelope will not start looping until it gets
a Note Off.