I've now got the Swello on my board, and this thing is amazing. Even though it's function-set is fairly limited, it is an incredibly useful few-trix-pony.
For one thing, it really is polyphonic, in the sense that it does the swell thing without my having to worry about putting any spaces between notes, or really change anything about my melodic playing. For another thing, the implementation of the filter is clever because I was able to sort of counteract the natural decay of harmonics and make a note that sounds very stable (a la arco). It's not a realistic simulation of arco, but it is a natural sustain sound which doesn't seem too synthy to me.
The lack of a wet/dry mix is my only frustration. My board has a parallel routing around the Swello, but I haven't done a detailed check to see if there's any phase issues against the swello's wet signal. I'll post back if I learn anything useful. I might be able to measure the latency, but it'll be tricky since the attack is gone. Maybe I have to measure between the ends of the dry/wet notes?
For one thing, it really is polyphonic, in the sense that it does the swell thing without my having to worry about putting any spaces between notes, or really change anything about my melodic playing. For another thing, the implementation of the filter is clever because I was able to sort of counteract the natural decay of harmonics and make a note that sounds very stable (a la arco). It's not a realistic simulation of arco, but it is a natural sustain sound which doesn't seem too synthy to me.
The lack of a wet/dry mix is my only frustration. My board has a parallel routing around the Swello, but I haven't done a detailed check to see if there's any phase issues against the swello's wet signal. I'll post back if I learn anything useful. I might be able to measure the latency, but it'll be tricky since the attack is gone. Maybe I have to measure between the ends of the dry/wet notes?
