Interpole - where's the beef?

medway · Post by **medway** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 4:42 pm

Hi,

Just tried out the demo and compared it side by side to my
Mutator. Ran some tests (sweeps with varying amounts of resonance
etc..) identical on both devices. Interpole kept up very well except
for one part, the very low end sub freqs. One of the coolest things
to do with the mutator is to set moderate resonance and then sweep
very low to get a very full subby tone. Interpole starts to fade
away as soon as you reach the area below 50 hz. I also notice a
bigger drop in overall level when cranking the resonance up. I don't
have this problem with my hardware filters (they do it a little bit
but not nearly as much). The level drop in Interpole when it is just
on and no settings was annoying too although I guess that can me made
up for easily (I could have been doing somethign wrong too, the Drive
setting helps here).

I have noticed similar behavior with the filter input on the Pro
One. Its all fine and dandy until you sweep really low.

This seems like there is a headroom issue, probably part of the
reason Interpole drops the level as soon as you turn it on. I did
notice that if I turned the switch to bypass in the Envelope setting
this cleared pu the volume issue but then it seemed to disable the
filter. Is this bypass for the Env section or the whole unit itself,
kidna confusing the way its labeled.

All in all though I'm impressed. I was hoping to resolve the sub
tone issue though. Then I could sell my mutator and buy another Luna
card along with interpole. Its certainly more convenient to trigger
via midi and the inclusion of full ADSR is nice (Mutator only has AR).

Still on the fence about this one, maybe someone can give me tips to
squeeze more low end out of this thing.

Jesse

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 6:52 pm

Well, I just did a comparison between Interpole and my Moogerfooger filter. As we all know, the output from Interpole is rather soft, so you have to turn up the volume at the end of the signal chain. Also the filter and resonance settings were completely different on the Interpole from the Moogerfooger, so to get them to sound comparable I had to use different knob positions between the two (Interpole has MUCH stronger resonance, for example). But when I got the knob positions in just the right places, I think they sounded identical except that the Interpole has *slightly* less sub-bass. I'm sure that can be remedied with a simple EQ, though, so I'm not worried about it. So if you turn up the output volume and enhance the low bass slightly, Interpole makes a really smooth, fat filter by which all other digital filters should be judged.

Shayne

medway · Post by **medway** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 11:25 pm

Thanks for sharing your results. I had normalized both files (did each section separatly). So the volume issue was resolved. I was thinking that eq could help but I'd rather not have to use that. The mutator makes such thick low end without the need for any eq. I do hear you on the settings part though, Interpoles resonance is higher but I dont think that was the problem concerning the sub bass.

Would you sell your moog pedal for Interpole?

Jesse

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 1:27 am

Probably not. The two filters do sound different and have their own uses, so I'd use them both.

Shayne

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 4:40 am

On 2003-06-27 19:52, Shayne White wrote:
...Also the filter and resonance settings were completely different on the Interpole from the Moogerfooger, so to get them to sound comparable I had to use different knob positions between the two (Interpole has MUCH stronger resonance, for example)...

I think that's my biggest gripe with the Interpole. Almost half of the range of the rez knob is near self oscillation. They should have used a different scale for the rez knob.

vincent

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 5:25 am

On 2003-06-28 00:25, medway wrote:
...The mutator makes such thick low end without the need for any eq.

... because it has probably one built in

just kidding Jesse, but in that frquency range the human ear isn't very precise. You hear mostly the level part of the 'filter action' but few of the frequency action.
Imho it's a valid and very useful observation and the developers will (hopefully) notice your critics and improve that behaviour of the filter.

A switch to choose an 'intensity response' similiar to the velocity characteristics of a keyboard would make the device more convenient and is no big trick anyway.

cheers, Tom

medway · Post by **medway** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 7:27 am

tom,

i hope they do fix it. even if they could get it half way closer i would be much happier selling my mutator and just using the interpole. i talked to john bowen about the pro one's filter and self oscillation. i noticed that witht he filter in self osc mode and tuned low that the signal would fade away and then i would have to hit a higher key and then i could play the low tone, but again it would fade. he said that self osc is very hard to do with dsp and that it has trouble maintaining low freqs. this might be whats happening with interpole as i belive the same persons desgined the filter.

jesse

medway · Post by **medway** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 11:36 am

well i did a quick test with the mooger fooger plugin and it handles low end fine. overall it doesnt seem to have the richness or smoothness of interpole but it deffinatly doesnt crap out on the l ow end freqs like interpole does.

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 12:53 pm

On 2003-06-28 06:25, astroman wrote:
On 2003-06-28 00:25, medway wrote:
...The mutator makes such thick low end without the need for any eq.
... because it has probably one built in

just a joke but no doubt true......

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 1:14 pm

On 2003-06-28 08:27, medway wrote:
... he said that self osc is very hard to do with dsp and that it has trouble maintaining low freqs.

thanks for the lesson, Tom