New OP-Z OS 1.2.31 😌

[gattart]

“At this point I’m thinking of just sampling the USB noise and making it into a track.”

Excellent, and hard sync the on/off of the USB charging noise to an LFO to get that modern '90s beatbox sound…
Yes, constructive cynical criticism (BTW, AKA as CCC 2 u n me) is fine, but, please, is there any way of charging while playing without being drowned out with that horrible noise? I even tried setting up a few meters away from the monitors I had on nearby, and it wasn’t the monitors… Tried various different chargers, USB and the one powering my Organelle, and it wasn’t the chargers. Is it just a ground loop??? I honestly didn’t find the USB noise on the update to be worse, but it certainly didn’t get any better. Anybody try a simple in-line stereo ground loop filter on the audio out? I’d try soldering one up, but I’m afraid of burning my house down…

another BTW… this OP-Z’s f’n awesome… I’ve never used a drum machine before (as I actually have friends who can play drums n percs…), but this thing is just so direct and fluid to use even while I’m playing guitar, that the rest of my group hasn’t, as yet, threatened to stick up where the sun don’t shine, like with most of the other synths and samplers I’ve tried to pry into our jam sessions… Even trying to recoup the Organelle now, somehow, as ORAC is a dream that just keeps me waking up in a cold sweat… Just that charger/USB noise thing is driving me crazy…

[fallen_lassen]

Have you tried an apple adapter, i use my iphone adapter and i have never experienced any usb noise.
And it can also be because of how you wired your studio.
When i had all my Roland boutiques on my mixer i had a horible usb noise once, it was because i made a mistake with the connection with all these adapters. I rewirered it and never had a problem with it again.
I use one powersocket for the whole studio.

[docshermsticks]

ground loop isolator will most likely cure that noise

[Mistercharlie]

Yes, I have one of these and it fixes everything.

Ground Loop Isolator - Retrokits

Cheap fix. I didn’t buy the retrokits one. I got one off Amazon that looks exactly the same.

[MatthewAshmore]

Only thing I haven’t tried is an Apple brand adapter. Interesting. Those noise isolated devices can be ok but with my experience theY clip super easy and distort. I’ve dealt with it sometime now but for some reason it seems a little louder than normal. Nothing crazy but caught my attention.

[docshermsticks]

i haven’t noticed any clipping on mine
but if u don’t like the audio ones
try a usb ground loop isolator.
results are the same but you’re not putting anything in the audio path

[Davnak]

So Jonas from TE actually reached out to me about this issue and ran some tests of some of my project files.

@tngjonas

It’s definitively the CPU overload protection that is kicking in and causing the dropouts. The most common situation is that the pad switches chords and in the transition there are 3+3 notes playing. Here’s where the “generous chords” setting shows it’s ugly rear.

Some sound engines are more CPU intense than others and your patterns happens to use one or more the more expensive ones. Good news is that several ones of them (volt, bow, electric) have not been heavily optimized yet, there’s still room for improvement.

The note stealing logic tries to kill the least significant note, usually a note that is short and close to the end of it’s release tail. Arpeggio notes are a common victim, for better or worse. However, on your third pattern it kills the sustained bass notes, that doesn’t make sense to be and suggests that the logic is flawed. I’ll have to look into that.

FYI, the reason 1.2.26 works better is that 1.2.28 actually fixed a bug in the CPU overload logic. It’s wasn’t quite doing it’s job, basically not kicking in when it should. This wasn’t a problem during normal operation, but wouldn’t leave enough CPU to perform other heavy duty tasks such as USB audio. Fixing this was a step to improve the noisy USB audio that some people were experiencing.

I’ll try to improve you situation for the next firmware update by:

• optimizing volt, bow and electric
• revisiting/refining the note stealing logic
• refining the cpu usage thesholds, there might be room for allowing higher CPU usage during very short periods

I know it seems like I might be the only one with this issue, but if anyone else is experiencing this issue as well, be on the lookout for the next firmware.

It also looks like it should help with using USB audio because I know some people have been experiencing (what I would call) CPU clipping when recording over USB (as have I).

Really encouraged by TE’s updates on the OP-Z.

[Uniquenospacesshort]

Thanks a lot, @Davnak for checking with TE and posting this here! And thanks to Jonas for looking into this.
Just wanted to confirm that exact same behaviour with some of my patterns on OP-Z. Good to know that at least this time the problem is not sitting in front of the device

[bresk]

cool, what a detailed answer

[michaeljrocks]

Glad to hear that’s being looked into, I had the exact same problem with one of my projects (bass note stealing). Thanks for contacting them.

[ghoder]

Hmm, I also have the impression that the OP-Z sounds generally better than before. Hard to describe, more presence and bass in the sound? A bit like the loudness switch on old stereo amplfiers? The new reverb sounds also very good.

Some month ago I found it hard to use the old synth engines, but now I find it interesting to explore what kinds of unusual sounds one can get out of them.

There are still so many ways of how to use the OP-Z creatively which I have not explored yet. Great little device! Thanks!