@ark Welcome to the Club!

@ark said in Why can’t Note-off Delay be Zero?:

should be treated as a bug

Thanks @ark! I know understand the legato protocol better ... but I'd really hate to add a physical box to my rig and introduce latency just for this bug ...

Not sure if a bug fix at that low level is a possibility these day ... been quite a while since the last official firmware update ...

@Sylphoboe ... "enriching the original sound bank" (that's what Google Translate produced) would require a firmware update to the Sylphyo. The Sylphyo firmware has been stable for almost two years - no official updates - although there may be Beta versions (issued somewhat privately) for testing new features.

The most recent official firmware release - v1.4.8 - was dated 30Mar2021.

I have been working for several weeks now with some samples of a porous, hydrophilic material sent to me by flutemaker Edward Kort. They are custom cut from a 1/4" thick sheet with 10 micron pores supplied by Scientific Commodities (Cat #BB2062-10BL) that can be found on this page: https://scicominc.com/porous-plastics/porous-sheets/. Photos are shown in the earlier message in this thread.

My experience so far has be very positive. The material is easy to insert and remove from the standard Sylphyo mouthpiece. It does not cause a noticeable change in playing characteristics. The insert absorbs a substantial amount of moisture holds it, and dries out when removed (I typically dry it overnight).

The inside of my Sylphyo has gone from “large moisture droplets on the inside walls of the Sylphyo which coalesce and drip out the bottom” without the hydrophilic inserts to “light dew / haze on the inside walls” with the insert.

I am still on the road so can’t do a more detailed study (like weighing the insert before-and-after to determine the amount of moisture absorbed).

One concern is how oil (e.g. from handling the insert with fingers) might affect the long-term performance of the insert. There is apparently no remedy for hydrophilic material that gets clogged with oil. I am hoping that with reasonably careful handling (by the edges and just the area at the distal end of the insert), an insert might last a year or more. Edward Kort’s philosophy is (personal email) “make a pile and replace as necessary. It’s easy to check the condition of an insert: hold it to your lips and blow. If you can’t move any air, trash the insert.”

I was also concerned about possible shedding of fibers. Edward Kort’s feeling is that “I’ve never seen any fiber shedding; this would be a very bad characteristic in an industrial filter material. That said, the cut edges are feathery – probably due to the nature of the pore structure. With my NAF application (with the insert in the bird), I want the flue-exit end to be very smooth. I accomplish this by masking the surface of the plastic and apply CA glue just to the end. This end can then be smoothed and shaped. Works great, but it is an effort to implement. For the Sylphyo application, I don’t see any reason to seal the ends.”

He has also tried several variations:

I use two formulations of the plastic: the 10-micron pore style that I sent you, and a 30 micron pore size. The 30-micron product is much harder than the 10. It is not spongy at all and seems a bit more durable. However, it must be sawed rather than cut, and it contracts a bit when wet. This requires me to glue the insert into the bird channel, whereas the 10-micron product can just be press fit.

When I get back home (4 months on the road so far – great experience and somewhat exhausting. Just did a concert last night …) I hope to delve more into these inserts …

@mathiross It would be great to get a few photos of your setup ...

The lowest setting for [MIDI Mapping] => [Note-off delay] is 1ms. Wondering if there is a reason why it can’t be zero.

I'm running into an issue in legato situations where I change fingerings on the Sylphyo, but the "from" note and the "to" note are the same. This happens for me in situations where I am doing note translation – as for my harmonizer. The MIDI looks like this:

… with the [Note Off] occurring after the [Note On]. This causes many of my virtual instruments – the Turbo VL70, SWAM engines, etc. – to go silent indefinitely (i.e. until I change to another note that is not G4).

If [Note-off delay] could be 0ms, then the [Note Off] might occur before the [Note On]. Maybe?

I see no way to fix it at my end, other than a ReaJS script or some other gnarly solution that would probably introduce latency.

Any thoughts welcome!

@Peter-Ostry Sound great!

See This Post for a case that I use on the road.

It has performed well!

I have been contacted by a very experienced flute maker and Sylphyo owner - Edward Kort - who has been following this discussion (but cannot respond here because he has yet to be able to get his forum membership approved).

He has successfully experimented with using a porous, hydrophilic (water-loving) insert into the standard Sylphyo mouthpiece. The material is a specialized polyethylene, treated with a surfactant to absorb moisture up to about 40% of its volume.

He reports good results - reducing his usual time-to-first-drip out of the bottom of the Sylphyo from "a few minutes" to "nary a drop after 30 minutes".

He is sending me a sample (arriving in a week) for testing.

Here are some images he sent me:

He sourced the material from Scientific Commodities. The particular material he is sending me is from a 10 micron, 1/4" thick sheet (Cat #BB2062-10BL) that can be found on this page:

https://scicominc.com/porous-plastics/porous-sheets/

... however, for our purposes, I am looking at the possibility of using their porous tubes ... something like Cat #BB2062-5075A1L from this page:

https://scicominc.com/porous-plastics/porous-rods-tubes/

Just some rather substantial confusion with my rig setup (Sylphyo wind controller and SWAM flutes under Cantabile on a PC). Hoping this might shortcut the same issues for others ...

The symptom was that Main Volume in the SWAM instruments appeared to be corrupted, getting snapped down to -26.2 dB. This really messed up the balance in my set list from one instrument to another.

With assistance from Emanuele Parravicini at Audio Modeling, I was able to diagnose the cause:

The Sylphyo has a "Quick Set" for volume that I was not aware of (even after 2 years of playing it as my primary instrument). There is a little-known combination of keys (hold the Aodyo key and tap the pitch-bend slider) and you can adjust the internal volume of the instrument. This was not important to me, since I only use the internal sounds (and volume) of the Sylphyo as a disaster-fallback.

It is quite easy to accidentally hit this Quick Set combination when setting other things such as the Base Key or the MIDI channel.

Changing the Volume on the Sylphyo sends CC07, and the SWAM VSTs respond to that, setting Main Volume.

An accidental setting of 40% volume on the Sylphyo corresponds to a Master Volume of exactly -26.2 dB on the SWAM plugins.

Hope this helps!