SynthMaster 2 issues

@accorman

My guess is that SynthMaster, like many commercial synth plug-ins, simply outputs too high a level for most patches. Try turning down its master level and see if this fixes the distortion.

I'm not sure what you mean about "the inbuilt reverb". Are you talking about SynthMaster's internal reverb, or one of Unify's reverbs?

@getdunne

Hi, I mean the inbuilt reverb in SynthMaster.

I've tried lowering the output volume on but that makes no difference (just quieter distortion).

It definitely is some issue wit the inbuilt reverb. I've made test patches where I move the reverb to different parts of the signal chain and it still exists. As SynthMaster 2 is pretty flexible with these kind of things I've tried reverb at the "Voice" level and on the main output bus and find the main output bus is even worse. Other inbuilt Synthmaster 2 effects don't appear to be an issue and as I said, the VST in Reason and Reaper does not display this issue.

@accorman

This is a very interesting and unexpected result. I would like to contact KV331 Audio for help tracking this down.

Could you zip and post one or two .unify patch files, so I can reproduce this issue?

Also, are you using Mac or Windows?

I created a simple test patch which is SynthMaster 2 with a single Sine wave followed by the inbuilt reverb.

The digital distortion is evident even here.

I am using Windows 10

My first post here. The newest version of SM 2 is 2.9.9 so could this be part of the problem? Is there some reason you don’t want to update? 

@EdDrake

I'm not sure where I got the version number from as I can't reproduce it.

In any case I did the "check for updates" and was informed I have the latest version.

By the way, do you have SM? If so, if you do not have the issue I do then it would be an interesting piece of info.

I’m happy to check if you give me specific presets to look at since there are so many of them.

@eddrake

I’ve posted a Sine patch with reverb above.

If you download that one and load it into Unify (assuming you have SM vst in your Unify) then you could check it out. As it is only a single Sine oscillator with a reverb you can turn the reverb on and off and see if it distorts. 

@accorman

The distortion you're hearing is happening because Unify's Transport is set to its default "MIDI / Quick Stop" mode, and SynthMaster is quenching the reverb tail every time it sees the Transport stop. Serum does this by default as well, but it can be turned off with a user setting. I wasn't able to find a corresponding setting for SynthMaster.

If you open Unify's Transport view and set the Trigger mode to e.g. "Manual start/stop", you won't hear the distortion anymore.

I'll write to the folks at KV331 Audio and explain this issue.

I’m glad Shane had an answer because when I opened your patch I didn’t see Synthmaster inside it anywhere. The sine patch is loaded but no SM2 and I do have the VST installed. I can manually open SM2 inside Unify so I’m not sure what’s going on.

@getdunne

Hi. Indeed changing the trigger mode to something other than "MIDI/Quick stop" solved the problem.

The quenching of the reverb tail had me fooled as it sounded like a distortion.

This is the second problem solved by the same solution for me.

Looks like the trigger mode is complex issue. Is this perhaps a subject worth discussing in one of John's video's?

@eddrake

Interesting that my test patch was not loaded.

I have added another more interesting patch below.

I tested it with a second installation I have on my old laptop that I use when I am not at home.

Simply copy it into your user library, browse and refresh the database. It should be visible and load two instances of SynthMaster. 

@accorman

John is planning to talk about Transport trigger modes in a future video.

One reason why we are waiting is because it IS very complex, and we also hope to make it simpler in future.

Many issues are discussed in the manual at https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=transport