After spending a few more hours with the Mac editor off-an-on over the weekend creating patches I have the following questions, comments, etc. Editor specific comments should be considered against whatever newer editor is being developed as opposed to changes against the current placeholder editors.
* The VCO in this box are really great sounding with a lot of excellent sounds just by themselves before you even factor in the VCF and effects. You can have one doing a sharp attack only, the others managing the sustain. Lots of options.
* VCA Release seems non-functional, it seems to do nothing audible. In a normal synth if you set a long release then the VCO continues to fade out after you physically stop triggering the VCO. You can hear a trailing release in the Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough track I posted in the "sound challenge" post linked around in here. In my dream world that's exactly what VCA Release would do. Though I guess without VCO Release it has nothing audible to work with.
* Segue from that, it would be super, duper, DUPER awesome if we could have a true Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release for each VCO block. I would be fine with a volume for each voice, which feeds into this ADSR, then out to a master overall VCO volume. That still gives us four VCO blocks to blend/pitch shift and set unique ADSR for.
* Then we'd need a matching set of Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release in order for us to fully leverage the VCO Release.
* Vintage Freq has a significantly different attack/decay performance than the alternative Freq. Set the same attack/decay/envelope/AD and then try to pick a similar frequency point. Observe the playing feel for the attack/decay feels different. Is this just due to the scaling between the two frequency implementations or is there something else at play? I do like that they have a different sound, its kind of like giving us two different primary filters to choose from and the filters are a huge sound of a synth.
* In the editor I would suggest renaming "Freq" to "Modern Freq" so it's visibly clear there's a difference but relationship between the two frequency implementations so you end up with "Vintage Freq" and "Modern Freq"
* In the editor I would suggest having a radio button to enable either Vintage Freq / Modern Freq and have them each have their own frequency slider. That way we can quickly toggle between the two frequency implementations rather than having to drag the Vintage slider to -1 to enable the Modern Freq.
* In the editor it would be excellent if I could double-click any slider parameter and have it instantly reset to the default value, typically 0. Would save me a lot of click-n-slide action.
* In the editor it would be excellent if I could hove my mouse cursor over a parameter then use mouse wheel / two-finger-scroll to move the slider up and down. Would save me from having to specifically click-n-hold. My carpal tunnel will thank you.
* Wishful thinking, it would be great if there was a dedicated multiband EQ block so we could still use the drive/modulation and then EQ all of that. I find myself looking to the EQ quite often, but when I want to add overdrive to soften or distort the synth the tone changes a lot with no way to re-shape the tonal balance.
* I'd love a dry/wet blend in the Overdrive section.
* In the Overdrive section the naming scheme "BASS_BLEND" and "OVERDRIVE_BLEND" are kind of a misnomer since they're not blending but instead are turning an input to the drive completely on/off.
From a sound sculpting standpoint don't forget to consider effects AFTER the Future Impact. Putting stereo modulation like a chorus effect afterwards can really help to give you that wide, lush synth sound like you hear in studio recordings.
