Posts made by Clint

@Peter-Ostry

Do not change the base note on the Sylphyo but rather at the destination

Great suggestion! But for latency reasons, I've gone down a route that prevents me from modifying the MIDI on the receiving side.

I am routing the Link directly to a VL70-m, and then mixing that dry signal in the RME interface direct monitoring facility directly to the output. This saves me the Round Trip Latency, which makes a noticeable difference in mhy playing.

By the way, the Link has an excellent and reliable MIDI-merge capability, so I can output messages from Cantabile through the Link that get merged with the MIDI stream going to the VL70-m ... an excellent setup.

I would use the push functions of encoders 1-11

Right! That'll work. I can easily allocate another bank just for this purpose ... Good one!!!

a string to set the base note on the current Link

That would be interesting! ... not sure if it exists ... Love to hear from @join or another core member if this is possible.

telling the software that the base note is coming

That's another thing I haven't through of ... Cool ...

I could actually potentially use these thing for the situations where I'm only using software synth ... typically when I do complex layering (as opposed to "just playin sax" when I use the VL70).

Cantabile is really good at generating whatever MIDI is needed and routing it to wherever it is needed ...

Peter ... Thanks for these suggestions ... they are gold (and will send me down an untold number of rabbit holes)!

@Paul-Flute Thanks Paul ...

I'm working in Cantabile and transposing various MIDI inputs to a set of drones. The transpositions (e.g. to the key switch that turns off a drone), change depending on the Base Key of the Sylphyo. I also keep the drones within the range of a specific 12 pitches, which requires more transpositions depending on the Base Key.

I have programmed my EC4 (a FaderFox MIDI controller with rotary encoders and lots of options) to send a CC to Cantabile whose value is one of the 12 keys. Cantabile is now programmed to install all the correct transpositions.

However, whenever I change the key of the Sylphyo on the back panel, I have to follow up with the corresponding knob-turning on the EC4. This is a pain, and prone to error (which would be a total head-scratcher during performance).

I have seen no info coming out of the Sylphyo whatsoever when I change Base Key ... Not shure where the Note On / Off messages are coming from ... Maybe there's a config option or mode I am missing??

I have a situation where I have a plugin that needs to know the Base Key setting of my Sylphyo. It also needs to adjust when I change the Base Key (which I do often between songs).

Is there any way to know this via MIDI? I see Program Change messages when I changed the selected Sylphyo sound, but not when I change Base Key.

Did some very long sessions (6+ hours) over the past few weeks and experienced some problems with notes that continued to play very softly after stopping all breath pressure into the Sylphyo.

I suspect that the side-tube that leads to the pressure sensor gets moisture in it or some such, leading to a false reading of "a little bit of breath pressure".

The problem resolves with overnight drying. I can also cure it very temporarily by breathing in on the mouthpiece (briefly and softly). Turning the Sylphyo off and on does not really cure the problem ...

Experimented with changing the [Breath / Minimum] parameter in the Sylphyo configure from the default of 20 to 80 and this greatly reduces the problem.

Does information point to a diagnosis?

Is it moisture in the side / pressure sensor tube?

Is there a reliable way to clear this problem, other than drying overnight?

Thanks for any thoughts and info ...

@StevieK Hi Stevie ... wondering if there was a resolution to this battery issue.

Might it be an issue with the Bagheera (sub-)model?

@wwoodard8 Thank you for your kind words!

I've just measured the current draw of my Sylphyo in 4 different states:

One thing to note:

When performing a 48-hour full charge, I believe that the Sylphyo is normally switched OFF.

My only 48hr recharge from a deep discharge state was when I initially received the Sylphyo. I am not sure of the battery state when I received the Sylphyo, but I suspect it may have to be depleted for shipping.

the instrument goes dark until the 48hr charge is up.

If you leave the Sylphyo switched on during this 48hr charge, I'm not sure if you will actually get a full charge.

There is an indicator on the Sylphyo screen that roughly shows the state of the battery charge. However, when I am charging it, I only turn on the Sylphyo briefly just to check that it is indeed charging (the little lightning bolt symbol).

I did a (required) 48 hour charge when I first received my Sylphyo 21 months ago, and only once since then. I did use the charger that came from Aodyo, but I'm not sure that was needed.

I subsequently did some tests (see the post at https://community.aodyo.com/post/1896 with a cool little in-line current meter) and the Sylphyo appears to draw only 170 mAmp at most while charging. It appears that most 5V USB chargers would provide that without issues ...

I would really like to avoid battery issues, so I followed the recommendation of waiting a full 48 hours for a full recharge.

By the way, the one time I did a re-charge, it turned out not to be warranted ... what I really needed was to reset the Sylphyo to factory settings (and reconfigure all my custom settings).

@TheSongSystem said in Prospective user with questions:

no representative in Japan

I've always dealt directly with Aodyo in France (from the U.S.), and it has been a good and smooth experience.

The Sylphyo works for most folks directly out of the box, but as you play more and more you'll find that there are a lot of things you can alter to suit your particular style of playing. People come to this instrument from all backgrounds, and the settings you can control on the instrument I believe cover a wide range of playing styles.

Here are some enjoyable and educational Electronic Wind Instrument playlists I've come across:

• Marco Zagha's outstanding set of video playlists: https://www.youtube.com/c/MarcoZagha/playlists

• Frank Cinti's live-stream Funk video sessions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfa0R69kXiVrB1pW6S8Iw_c79kmSuWaE1

• Sam Davidson's 50+ video concert videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTZ7wKTb-FMsZu5Fe80KYId0GyqL2ebOf

• Jon Diercks' Open Spotify audio playlist of 250+ songs: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5vuIRIfLWYda40GT36oOvk

• Matt Montag's Open Spotify "The Art of the EWI" audio playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EhBWNSPM4c7ilUICZV1pL

And Matt Traum's discography page: https://www.patchmanmusic.com/WindControllerRecordings.html

Enjoy!

@Peter-Ostry said in Dual Sylphyo Setup:

Each time a player switches on his/her Sylphyo, it should connect to the same Link=Synth.

Yes, good point. That's the way it should be ...

@Laurent_AODYO said in Dual Sylphyo Setup:

I would have used Sylphyos on my side.

From my (American English) perspective, I'm liking "Sylphyo" as the plural of "Sylphyo". That would make it a linguistic "invariant" (or "invariable") like "fish" and "aircraft". To my eyes / ears, "Sylphyos" is a bit clumsy.

@Laurent_AODYO Thanks for the info ... that clears things up.

So it sounds like the warm standby setup would be two Sylphyo ... (what is the plural of Sylphyo ... Sylphyos? Sylphyo? Sylphyae?) ... two Sylphyo and two Links with a MIDI-merge downstream of the Links. This would provide as hot a standby as I would like. It also opens possibilities with potentially other players, students, and prospective purchasers (except for sanitization issues ... hmmm ... another topic).

One more question:

I am guessing a Link only remembers one pairing connection? Unlike other devices I have that remember some (small) number of paired devices and recognize whichever ones are in the vicinity ...

I am wondering what the setup would be for two Sylphyo instruments. Assuming both are paired with Link units:

• Does each Sylphyo and each Link need to be on separate channels?

• If they happened to pair on the same channel, what would be the symptoms? I imagine this could happen if I had to re-pair "under the gun" (i.e. at a performance) and they wound up on the same channel.

• Might there be a way to configure a Sylphyo / Link pair to use a specific channel?

Alternately, if I wanted to use a second Sylphyo as a "warm standby" (powered off, but ready to be turned on ...), I would like both the main and standby Sylphyo to be configured to talk to the same Link unit ... is that possible? Only one would be powered on at a time ...

I do find myself drawn mostly to the LUB (Less Updates are Better) camp, so @Peter-Ostry pretty much said it.

I had a well-meaning update by a developer of a hardware unit of mine cripple the unit for me (possibly irrevocably) and it is now out of my rig and garnering dust. Sad. Frustrating. Expensive. Such a fate cannot happen with the Sylphyo or I'll be totally SNAFU.

That said, critical bugs that prevent use or cause crashes need updates. Also, I would welcome additional fingerings, which are unlikely to disturb existing users.

For me, the question is more what we can do as a community to enhance the instrument. This forum does feel a bit thin compared with other vibrant message boards. Some things that come to mind ...

• Suggestions / experiences with cleaning
• Has anyone experienced the issues with salt on their fingers causing fingering issues.
• Experience interfacing with units X, Y, and Z.
• Experience with various settings and why you use them.
• Playing videos, educational videos, getting started videos.
• Routing possibilities with the Link (its a real goldmine, I have found).
• Latency discussions
• Rig setups
• What happens when the battery wears out

... and on and on and on.

I'm guessing that prospective purchasers visit this forum to check out the community activity and enthusiasm. If they see a thin message board, they may be turned off ...

@join Among the many forums I frequent, the system by Discourse.org does seem to me to be the best. It uses trust levels mete out posting capabilities to members based on the reactions of other members to their posts (which are initially very limited).

This is used by the Cantabile group, which is a single-developer project with a large and loyal following. The community provides almost all the user support, courtesy of its most experienced users / participants. Assistance from the developer regarding real issues is only occasional, and only in the most dire problems.

I believe that building a robust user community is a major component to a successful and long-lived product, and the forum software I think is a big part of that.

@peter-ostry I suspect that Robkoo is targeting seniors - folks with a history of playing wind instruments, but can no longer deal with the weight or the embouchure and mechanical issues of a physical instrument. At least that is the suggestion of Calvin Chong, the primary English-language demonstrator and commentator of the R1 on YouTube. It's worth a look at his (so far) three excellent videos on the instrument.

For the senior market, this might be an ideal instrument. As it has worked out, the workshops we host for Native American flute players largely attract an older crowd (avg age 63), probably because the instrument is very light and requires the same breath pressures as talking and novice singing (we did a full-blown study on intra-oral breath pressures across a wide range of ethnic wind instruments). Many of these folks are overjoyed at the opportunity to be musically creative without many of the physical challenges of more mainstream instruments.

Personally I think that the Sylphyo is also ideal for this elder-musician audience, albeit at a higher cost.

The latency of the R1 likely stems largely from the BLE link, which I have seen quoted as having typical latencies of 10-20 msec. (That quote also implies a 10msec jitter, which I think would be even worse than the latency).

@fanch35 From what I understand, the Sylphyo does not have the processing power to do the kind of sound generation that Respiro achieves. I recall that Johnathan commented once (somewhat off the cuff) that a CPU with 10x the processing power would be needed ...

@fanch35 Yes, typically when I plug in an audio interface on a USB port to my laptop or desktop and install the drivers, then the available audio channels - input and output - of the audio interface will shop up alongside the pre-configured audio channels in Windows. (I think that is what you are asking).

Full disclosure: I do not use a Focusrite interface. It is a popular unit that I found a nice picture for the diagram ... I typically use RME interfaces - Babyface and UCX, specifically.

@jjaylds At this point, fingerings can only be added / modified by Aodyo and distributed in a firmware update. The ability for users to add / modify fingerings has been requested and discussed, but there has been no action so far (that we know of).

Here's an image with some options ...

You can go Direct to Headphones to hear the Sylphyo on-board sounds.

You can also route the Sylphyo on-board sounds Direct to a Mixer.

Software Rendering is a more advanced setup. You route MIDI over a USB wire to a Host that runs some rendering software such as a Sampler (Kontakt, for example) or a Soft Synth, typically running in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). The digital audio output is typically routed to an audio interface and the resulting analog output is set to an output system - headphones, speakers, or an output mixer.

(The audio interface is technically optional: you could take the regular audio output from the laptop / host. However, you will likely not be happy with the latency - the lag in generated sound. Dedicated audio interfaces like the example Focusrite 2i2 are designed to reduce latency in a live sound setting.)

A fourth main option is not shown: Hardware Rendering. Routing the MIDI output to a hardware unit ("synth") that renders sound. Example hardware synths are a CraftSynth, a Yamaha VL70-m (a Patchman Turbo chip is recommended), or a DynaSample XpressO.

A hardware synth will typically take MIDI input over a DIN5 (serial) MIDI cable or a USB cable. If it takes input over a DIN5 cable, you will need an additional box to convert the USB to serial DIN5.

The Double Harmonic and Napolitan Minor fingerings seem to be the same.

They both produce scale steps 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 7 8 (intervals 1-2-2-2-1-3-1, pitch class set {0,1,3,5,7,8,11}).

Scala (as of 12-Nov-2018) lists this scale with the names: Neapolitan Minor, Mela Dhenuka, Raga Bhinnasadjam, Dhunibinnashadjam, Kirvanti, Takka, Maqam Shahnaz Kurdi, and Hungarian Gipsy. The Wiki page is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_scale.

So ... the Napolitan Minor name that the Sylphyo uses seems to fit this scale well.

I am scratching my head as to the intended scale for the Sylphyo fingering named Double Harmonic.

Wikipedia lists Double Harmonic Major (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_harmonic_scale#Modes) with scale steps 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 7 8 (intervals 1-3-1-2-1-3-1), which is the same as the Harmonic Major scale on the Sylphyo, and a wide range of names from various sources (Byzantine; Double Harmonic; Hungarian Gypsy Persian; Theta, Bhairav, etc etc).

@steviek I've been developing and collecting tracks for quite a while, and this has really enhanced my practice and performance.

• For our primary community - Native American flute players - we've developed a series of commercial backing tracks projects (4 CDs and one USB thumb-drive product with 508 tracks) and I use some of those.

• I often download YouTube videos where the music is under a Public Domain (PD) or Creative Commons (CC) license, extract the audio, edit it (Reaper is my current audio hacking tool for this) and curate it as described below.

• There is an entire niche world of composers who develop volumes of CC-BY material, essentially for promotional purposes. Kevin MacLeod is prominent in this area (thousands of great tracks) as well as Alexander Nakarada, Michael Rizk, Scott Buckley, Scott Holmes, Serjo De Lua, Tim Beek, and many others. Check how many composer credits Kevin MacLeod in the IMDB database (!!). The payoff for these composers seems to be the custom work that they get hired to do as a result of the use of the CC licensed tracks.

• I also maintain a few backing tracks with stories tied to them that I use in performance - things tied to my history: A cello ostinato I recorded by David Darling and similar pieces from other departed friends ...

** Curating Backing Tracks **

This has become a bit of a project for me. I play in a lot of different settings. We lead music workshops, as well as various sized gigs and jams.

I run tracks from iPods, from a PC, or backing videos that I play to. I also need to keep the usage rights straight: PD vs the various CC licenses vs Copyrighted. I can use copyrighted material in some settings (workshops under Fair Use statues or public venues that pay performance royalties to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC) and others where I can only use PD or CC material - and I have to credit the author for most CC tracks.

One gotcha has been the display provided for iPod devices: the cover art has to tell me the title and key that the track is in. I also have multiple lengths of some tracks (iPods are terrible at looping a song), so the cover also has to tell me length and usage rights. For this reason, I develop my own cover art in CorelDraw and change the ID-Tags of the MP3 files to use those cover images. A bit of work, but it pays off when playing live. I also change the title of the song to show these items in compact format.

When I play acoustic Native American flutes (more and more rare these days with the Sylphyo) one of the challanges is pitch-matching. If I have to play softly (e.g. a yoga session) I can easily be 50 cents flat. No way around it. I typically use PC-based backing tracks played by an excellent pitch-shifting player app called "The Amazing Slow Downer". It lets me adjust pitch in cents as well as tempo (independently of pitch) in micro-percents. This has been a real help.

Packed light for a one month tour of Scandinavia – Sylphyo, Link, an RME Babyface, and a laptop (For everything from sound generation to live looping to effects). And then…

The laptop died. Yikes!

I never really had a Plan B and never explored the Sylphyo onboard sounds very much. Now, that’s all I had.

Quickly found some sounds that worked for me (SynthBrass turned out to be really useful, and Braveheart for an Irish air). Hooked into a DJ rig for one set. Then managed to get some backing tracks onto an iPod touch, and mix them through … The Link! The line-in mix capability worked pretty well. Later I got the RME running in class – compliant mode, and was able to do more controlled mixing.

Lessons learned: cozy up to the on-board sounds of the Sylphyo, and try out your Plan B set up before your gear fails.

... and maybe take a second laptop!

@join OK, this is excellent. More than the details, it gives me a whole new perspective on latency ... (but the details are cool too!)

Thank you !!!

(and thanks @Peter-Ostry as well)

It also explains why I saw significantly different MIDI coming out of the Link vs. the Sylphyo USB port for the same input ...

@peter-ostry Excellent analysis. I now understand this much better.

The Sylphyo is my only wind controller. I chose it because of compatibility with Native American flutes ... now I understand why!!

I am wondering if the developers of the Sylphyo (@join ?) could provide some info on the latency of the on-board sounds.

I am wondering how it might compare with wind synths that are not based on MIDI. I have not had the opportunity to play a Lyricon or a CV-based controller tied into a modular synth, but the reports my Matt Traum and Pedro Eustache are that the experience is in another realm (the sound "coming directly out of my mouth" and all that).

Wondering how synth sounds from the Sylphyo compare with those setups ...

Maybe you could briefly describe the signal path internal to the Sylphyo??

@peter-ostry said in The sound of silence...:

Aodyo needs to sell the Anyma Phi. ... ... ...

Well said!!

Just a guess here (I don't own an Anyma Phi) but it may be possible that the stream of MIDI CC commands from the Sylphyo are overloading the Anyma Phi.

Maybe try adjusting the settings on the Sylphyo ... in particular MIDI Mapping => Breath Rate (try Low) and turn off CC transmission for MIDI Mapping => Elevation, Roll, and Compass Control and see if the problem clears up ...

One thing that may help is getting more exposure for the instrument. More sales ==> Better focus and support.

And the best way to get exposure I think is to post videos. I did a basic YouTube show-and-tell on the instrument for the Native American flute crowd. I feared they might revolt ("Not traditional!!"), but there was no backlash, and at least half a dozen folks followed me down this path. Surprise!

Have you tried a full reset on the Sylphyo?

I would suggest, before doing so, writing down each and every setting you have. We currently have to restore those settings by hand since there is no SYSEX save / restore capability.

You might consider a document that shows which settings differ from the defaults so that you only have to set those settings which change from the Reset / Default values.

Yes, this is concern of mine as well. The Sylphyo has been my entre into electronic music that has opened a whole world for me.

I do suspect (and hope) that this hiatus in development - likely caused by the energy spent launching the Anyma Phi - will not be permanent.

I will say that they have been quickly responsive to a request for one additional finger pattern in a finger I authored earlier (Native American Flute), and the Beta firmware they sent me for testing did have other updates, although I do not know what or how large they were.

I had this issue as well ... I think nothing intentional is going on here - just a moderator not keeping up with the membership requests. Maxence used to handle this, but that task may have been taken over by someone else at Aodyo ... I hope this message will get you some action!

J'ai également eu ce problème ... Je pense que rien d'intentionnel ne se passe ici - juste un modérateur qui ne suit pas les demandes d'adhésion. Maxence s'en occupait, mais cette tâche a peut-être été reprise par quelqu'un d'autre chez Aodyo... J'espère que ce message vous fera passer à l'action !

I am not surprised at your "high-pitched whistles" ... I think the problem has to do with the routing of signals on the Link.

The link turns out to be pretty complex and it took me a while to figure it out. However, once I did, I found that the routing can be useful in some situations.

Here is my rendition of the routing:

The phones port (and the Line out ports) are a combination of "A" and "L". "A" is the synthesized sound produced from all the MIDI inputs on 4 different paths. "L" is the Line In port - the one you are feeding back from your PC.

Having two different feeds of the same sound can produce a number of issues: clipping because of too high a combined signal, echo or phase cancellation due to slightly out-of-phase sounds that result from different latencies on the two paths, etc.

Wondering how Sylphyo folks handle portamento on SWAM.

Their virtual instruments respond to multiple keyboard notes and concoct an appropriate glide based on the crossover time between two notes ... not an option for an EWI. Their instruments also respond to CC5 (or any other configured CC) ...

Maybe you map a motion (eg. Roll or Elevation) to CC5?

By the way, here's an updated version of the Laptop Rig ... with a more understandable depiction of the RME interface:

@fanch35 said in Link and PC:

why do you use Babyface AND Mix5?

Because I need knobs. The Mix5 is not strictly necessary, but to balance my sound with a backing track - frequently needed - I really do feel more comfortable with a physical knob. An RME ARC USB unit would provide the same functionality (by allowing me to have a physical knob to control RME's TotalMix software) ... have to consider that ...

Thanks @Fanch35 !!

@gromit said in Link and PC:

This connection is MIDI data only (and power over USB). No audio over USB.

Actually, I think @Fanch35 is referring to the "L" input to the Line In of the Link, which is an audio input. I don't recall how I tested this, but I had some configuration with a line-level stereo signal going into the Link's Line In port, and it was transferred to the Line Out port. However, I think there is no opportunity for mixing the levels of the A audio signal (coming out of the "Synth" section of the Link) and the L audio signal (from the Line In port).

@Fanch35 ... it sounds like you are well beyond the "beginner" stage with this stuff. If you can figure all this out, you're doing great! Yes, if you want the audio to come out from the Link (I'm not sure why ...), then you'll need an audio out from your sound card, audio interface, or other PC output audio port into the Link. However, I think that most folks at this point would route their output from their PC into some audio mixer for better control. I often use a little Mackie Mix5 for this purpose - as an "output mixer" - to let me mix my Sylphyo sound with, for example, a backing track.

One thing to watch out for is latency. If you have (the wonderful) Respiro App / VST rendering sound, how fast you will hear that sound depends on the speed (latency) of the audio output system on your PC. If you are relying on a "generic" sound card or low-end audio interface, you will likely notice a substantial delay between the note you play and the note you hear. Many musician find latency over a certain amount (maybe 20 or 30 or 40 ms (milliseconds)) to be unusable.

Here's a setup I use in small gigs. It is based on the VL70-m hardware sound module - a dedicated box that converts MIDI to (some pretty realistic) sounds (with the help of Matt Traum's Turbo Chip). The output of the VL70-m goes directly into the Mixer (blue wires) and my backing tracks playing off an iPod go into another channel on the Mixer (brown wires). I can monitor my sound on headphones and send it to the house system (whatever speaker system the venue has) at the same time.

And here is a small, laptop-based setup. The Link is MIDI to my PC, which renders sound (the green wires going to the mixer) and also plays my backing tracks (the brown wires going to the mixer). I've got a (very) low-latency RME audio interface - the Babyface Pro FS - that output both of these into my mixer.

I hope this helps!

@wx-is-dead Very cool!! Thanks for posting ... wondering what would the genre of this music would be called??

@laurent_aodyo said in Sylphyo Link wireless with another hardware synth/midi controller ?:

doesn't use Bluetooth

Thank heavens!! The Link radio interface is far superior to Bluetooth ...

Note that the Link unit has a rather complex routing setup that opens up a lot of possibilities. I have used it in a number of cases to reduce the number of boxes I need for certain live setups. Here is a map I've done of the routings (using Aodyo documentation and my own testing). The MIDI section is on the right, the audio section is on the left, and the middle "Synth" section converts incoming MIDI (on four input channels) to Audio (using the same internal sounds as the Sylphyo, as long as you've installed the same firmware on both your Sylphyo and Link):

@fanch35 Personally, I think that some kind of breath adjustment is a requirement for the Sylphyo. I cannot imagine not playing without some restriction in the Bell Port.

If you surf around this forum, you will find numerous schemes for controlling breath volume and back pressure. I've posted a set of 3D printer files on Thingiverse. You can see all things related to the Sylphyo (by myself and others) with a search: https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=sylphyo&type=things&sort=relevant

However, I think your initial issue is still valid: there is a notable difference in volume across the internal sounds ... even with a breath restrictor ...

@join Thanks for that!

Been playing with Reaction Time and Reaction Time Octaves and I'm getting the feeling that Reaction Time Octaves only comes in to play when I move from one thumb pad to another. My issue seems to occur mostly when I lift my thumb (and simultaneously change fingering on the front side).

In the fingering I'm using, lifting the thumb goes up an octave ... but this seems to use the Reaction Time delay and not the Reaction Time Octaves delay. Is that correct??

One solution is to introduce a very slight articulation to interrupt the airflow. I've started doing this subconsciously and this reduces artifacts (pops and beeps) substantially.

Any advice on how to achieve smooth transitions between octaves (registers) during legato play?

My register breaks are beset with the usual POPs and BEEPs you might expect from not all fingers arriving on their pads at the same time. Mostly the thumb, of course ... I don't have these issues when planting or removing multiple fingers on the front of the instrument.

I've set Reaction Time to 1ms, primarily because it (seems to) globally affect latency, and I'm a bit (bit??) of a latency minimizing fanatic. But even at 10ms I'm getting POPs and BEEPs.

I thought it might be that I am using a fingering (NAF+) that goes up an octave when you lift the thumb. However, switching to the NAF fingering, which does not respond to lifting the thumb, shows no improvement.

Any suggestions welcome ...

I would like to request an addition to the two Native Flute fingerings for the next firmware release. I had previously made these requests directly though Maxence ... hope it is OK to post these on the forum ...

The updated YML file has tags for 15Mar22 to identify the updates. There are a total of 3 additions which really consist of a single additional fingering. The YML file (containing both Native Flute and Native Flute+ fingerings) is available at: https://Goss.com/yml/naf.sylphyomap.yml

The details are: 15Mar22 CG Add <xxo|xxo (previously unused) to play the perfect fifth above <xxx|xxx. This was suggested by flutemaker Rick Svitzer, to avoid a two-handed fingering "swap" when going between <xxo|xoo and <xxx|ooo when playing in Mode 4. Rick tunes his flutes with this cross-fingerings. This also make sense for Mode 4 fingering in, for example, the descending scale sequence:

<ooo|xoo <xoo|xoo <xxo|xoo <xxo|xxo <xxo|xxx <xxx|xxo <xxx|xxx
 octave     b7       b6        5        4       b3        1

@fanch35 I agree that the volume deviations between the voices / patches are as you described (generally), given the voices / patches you mentioned.

@peter-ostry Well, maybe @Meo is talking about micro-tuning ... i.e. what the pitch standard is (A4=440 Hz, 432, 444, etc) ...

Could you give us more information @Meo??

Any idea ? Normal ?

I find this common in collections of sounds ... such as Matt Traum's Turbo chip for the Yamaha VL70-m. Matt explains it in the FAQ for that chip:

From https://www.patchmanmusic.com/turboVLFAQ.html

Q.) Some TURBO VL sounds are louder than others. Why is this and is there anything I can do about it?

A.) When programming these Voices we decided to generally try to get the very best possible dynamic range out of each individual Voice. This helps to reduce the noise level of the VL70-m (which was a frequent complaint with the stock VL70-m.) ... All of the Voices were very carefully programmed to play as loud and dynamically as possible. A small number of Voices simply could not be boosted as loud as the others without distorting. So instead of compromising the dynamic range of ALL the other Voices to match the few that had lower volumes, we decided to make each Voice as dynamic as possible. We did balance the volumes slightly but opted towards maximum punch in general. ...

... and I am guessing that the story is similar for the internal voices of the Sylphyo.

Thanks all for calming my FOMU (Fear of Messing Up) fears.

Coincidentally, had a significant gig last night for an audience of mostly "analog" musicians, which I turned into a showcase for electronic wind instruments. Sound check, AOK. Then 45 seconds before starting, my Link stopped responding. YIKES!

Unplugged and re-inserted the USB connection to my computer and all was immediately restored ... whew!

Thankfully, this hiccup was pretty much the only hint of a hiccup in a string of 23 gigs over the past 10 weeks. I can maybe chalk it up to the unusual (excessive?) amount of on-stage gear and wireless signals (various iPad connecting to sound systems and a venue full audience with WiFi-active devices in their pockets). Is that a reasonable explanation??

@join I'm curious what the resolution is ... in case it happens to others (gulp) ... during the sound check before a performance (double gulp).

Might it involve missing Note Off MIDI commands ... possibly because of a MIDI buffering issue??

@bo2 Here is another configuration that I use when I am programming the VL70-m from an editor on my laptop:

(click on the image for a larger / more detailed version)

@join I've been working with the Sylphyo almost exclusively for the last 3 months, and for me the stand-out feature I would love to see improved is Key Bend.

The issues are discussed in this post.

The primary items (for me) are:

• The range of the bending should happen according to the actual fingering setup. If opening a hole would raise pitch a semitone, the Key Bend range should be a semitone, If opening a hole would raise pitch a whole tone or a minor third, then the Key Bend should be a whole tone or a minor third.

• Key Bending needs to work with cross-fingerings. For example, Key Bend from <xxx|ooo to <xox|ooo currently does nothing.

• There should be a finger velocity sensitivity adjustment to filter out unwanted bending while normal playing.

Thanks for anything you could do in these areas!