CA2600 clicking sound

[Yearofthegoat]

Hi, thanks for replying. Seems you do hear the same thing that I'm hearing, which is good.

I agree it does sound just like the bad-sample-cut type sound. The click only happens if the next note is different - does that mean it is actually loading another sample, which is clipped because the previous note is still sounding?

Re.the drawbar, yeah I've plenty of other instruments for that. Just want to find out if CA2600 has a defect. I don't have a real 2600 to compare with, but I'll demo a different Arp 2600 softsynth and see what that does with the same settings.

[Steve W]

. . . does that mean it is actually loading another sample, which is clipped because the previous note is still sounding?

I was under the impression the CA 2600 is not sample based but uses mathematical calculations to create sounds.

[UrbanCyborg]

In response to your request for my setup, on the stand-alone CA2600 I set to use Windows Audio, with output to Speakers (THX Spatial Audio), Output channel 1 + 2, Sample Rate 48 KHz, and Audio buffer size 480 samples. I usually set Oversampling to 4X for this synth, because my machine easily supports it, but I tried the other settings in trying to replicate this. No Joy. I did hear a faint pattering if I played fast in the C7 octave, but switching the delay off pretty much killed that, so I'm thinking it was a filtering artifact from the delay.

The THX Spatial Audio driver I had up was the driver for my Razer headphones. Switching to the driver for my monitor speakers didn't produce any clicks, though. If your problem isn't drivers, I'd suspect some hardware problem. Top of my head, I don't recall the specs on the Ryzen 5700. If you don't have an overriding reason to run at a different sample rate, it's usually best to run Cherry Audio synths at 48 KHz.

Reid

[Yearofthegoat]

Cool thanks for those details.

I don't believe there's a hardware issue here - especially as I tested it on Intel hardware as well as other different Ryzen hardware and got the same result - just a characteristic of the plugin and that preset in particular.

Overall it's a great plugin, especially for the low price. It lets me recreate a whole lot of vintage sounds, so in perspective this clicking is a minor thing. And even that can be worked around if need be.

[Yearofthegoat]

I was under the impression the CA 2600 is not sample based but uses mathematical calculations to create sounds.

Me too, hence the wondering how it happens! But, it's a minor thing overall and life's too short etc. Thanks for looking into it though.

[UrbanCyborg]

The CA2600 is indeed, not sample based.

Reid

[sekim]

The CA2600 is indeed, not sample based.

Reid

True, but in theory, it could create a "poor cutoff of a sample" type sound if some mechanism abruptly halts signal while an oscillator is not at zero crossing point. I've not encountered it myself and I'm having an absolute ball playing with CA2600. But if I run across it, I'll post accordingly.

[Steve W]

The CA2600 is indeed, not sample based.

True, but in theory, it could create a "poor cutoff of a sample" type sound if some mechanism abruptly halts signal while an oscillator is not at zero crossing point.

To my ear it's like when someone edits audio without paying attention to the amplitude of the end and beginning edit points (and is the reason why many of us do edits at zero-crossings). I've also heard that kind of "click" when the edit points of a sample loop are mismatched/not at zero-crossings.

In case it wasn't clear, when I said "To my ear it's like when someone edits audio . . . " I wasn't saying it was sample-based, but rather making a comment about the sound itself.

With Drawbar 1 and 2 I do get a clipping-like sound with rapidly played keypresses on different notes. It almost seems like when one note ends and another one starts, the waveforms of each note don't drop to zero before a subsequent note starts.

[sekim]

That is how I understood your original comment. Hence my comment to UrbanCyborg.

[UrbanCyborg]

I understood what you said. I just finished writing declicking code for some modules of my own, so I'm very aware of what abrupt switch toggles sound like; sudden discontinuities in the signal amount to abrupt, non-harmonically-related square waves mixed into the signal (and you can get the same effect in that way). If you happen to have my Gate Bundle you can easily see the effect by toggling between declicked and non-declicked operation while doing anything that toggles the gates open and closed with an audio sound being passed.

That said, there are certainly ways to get such abrupt departures by setting some of the CA2600 CV controls and patching in specific ways. I understood you to imply that the circumstances in which you were encountering discontinuities were not of that sort, but were due to some shortcoming of the synth. It would probably help were you to post a sample patch that demonstrates the problem, along with info on your CA2600 settings.

Reid