K5synth

Since I've been working with the K5 tonight, just thought I'd share 
some observations.

Man, the one thing I wish the K5 had more than anything else is rate 
scaled envelopes. The main amplitude envelope can be rate scaled but 
not the envelopes controlling the individual partials. This can be 
frustrating when you are creating something like an electric piano 
sound, something that decays at a faster rate the higher you go up 
in pitch. Bascially you have two approaches to this problem: 

1) Create several single patches to cover different ranges on the 
keyboard, kinda like multisampling. Then set the rate of the 
envelopes for each patch to the appropriate value for the range each 
one covers respectively.

or...

2) Try to get the rates right for the lower range of the keyboard. 
Many of the harmonics won't be audible in the upper ranges, so it's 
more important to get the rates right for the lower range. Then use 
the main amplitude envelope to control the overall decay of the 
sound and rate scale it. This seems to be a good compromise, and 
it's the one I used for the picked electric bass patch.

On a different topic, one thing I've known for a long time is that 
you can just set up a harmonic spectrum and expect it to magically 
sound like the instrument you're trying to immitate. You gotta coax 
the K5 into mimicing the sound you're after. This was true tonight 
with the picked bass sound. 

With picked instruments, the onset of the sound is sharp. This is 
the result of the pick displacing the string. You can immitate this 
with the pitch envelope. It's also nice to have one source being 
modulated with the pitch envelope while the other is not. Played 
against each other this way, you can get a really nice crunch at the 
attack. Of course, having a second source for a solo instrument like 
the bass isn't entirely accurate, but you can pass it off as a 
chorused instrument. :-)

Anyway, just some random thoughts.