Dave Smith Instruments SYNTHESIZERS

I notice a problem using Evolver, more of an annoyance than something
serious.  I'd be interested if anyone has any feelings about this or another
work around.

The Evolver's architecture begs to be synchronized at all times to a clock
source.  Much of the instrument is designed to work in a BPM-synchronous
fashion.  Examples are LFOs, delays, and of course the sequencer.

So it is only natural that one would want to have the Evolver synched to a
external MIDI clock source like a sequencer.  But there is a problem.

Whenever the Evolver is in external clock sync mode it also responses to
MIDI Start and MIDI Stop commands (and I would hazard to guess MIDI Continue
also).  Again this makes sense most of the time because you want the
sequencer starting when you "roll the tape".

But what if you are just using the Evolver as a "simple" sound source with
no sequencer being used?  LFO sync is still something nice to have.

It was pretty annoying while using the Evolver in a multi-track recording
session with the DAW being the master clock because every time the DAW
"rolled" the sequencer would start.

I searched for an obvious setting in the Evolver to defeat this behavior but
came up dry.

Eventually I hit upon a work around.  I defined a sequence on the Evolver
where line 1, step 1 was a rest and line 1, step 2 was the reset.  So you
get a "no-op" sequence which does not trigger envelopes.  Not a bad work
around.  You still need to neuter the assignments for each of the four lines
though.

I have mixed feelings about this work-around.  I think it does the job fine
but its a bit obscure and requires you to either have this type of sequence
saved with each patch where you don't want a sequence, or using the Sequence
Lock mode.

So I am hesitant to say that Evolver needs a new setting to inhibit its
sequencer from responding to Start/Stop/Continue.  I'm interested what
others think and if there is a simpler way to do this that I just flat out
missed.

Thanks,


drk

www.delora.com/music
www.mp3.com/zdrk
drk.iuma.com