I've had a scan through the forum and searched for a couple of keywords but haven't found anything related so have started a new topic.
I love the massive amount of sounds and effects you can get out of this little box, the random function alone will keep me busy for a life time. Top marks to the crew again (you know who you are ;-), of course, for such a fantastic achievement.
The MBFM user manual state that the only way to change the snare drum frequency is to change the multiplier. Actually, changing the multiplier has no effect on the pitch of the snare at all. (for reference, changing the multiplier for BD and TOM both have the desired effect).
Strangely, changing the multiplier for Open HH does change the pitch of the snare (change the snare waveform to a full or half sine to get a note+noise instead of just noise) as long as only the snare is being played (no other drums). However, as soon as you play Closed HH, the snare drum pitch reverts to its original pitch :S. Even more strangely, changing the Closed HH multiplier also changes the pitch of the snare.
This means that if you set the multipliers for Open HH and Closed HH differently (for different pitches), whichever HH you play preceding a snare, that will set the pitch of the subsequent snare... does that make any sense at all?
Maybe this is easier to understand:
Try setting Closed HH multiplier to 4 and Open HH multiplier to 8 for example. Then play SD, then CHH, then SD, then OHH, then SD and you will see what I mean.
Also, changing either the CHH or OHH multiplier also affects the Cymbal pitch. Changing the CYM multiplier also changes the Cymbal pitch as expected.
Similarly, go to the FREQ menu and change the HH frequency - it affects both the SD and HH pitch - I think it should only affect the HH according to the instructions!?
Changing the Tom frequency affects the pitch of the cymbal, tom, open HH *and* closed HH. The user manual does state that it is impossible to have independent frequency settings for HiHat/Tom/Cymbal due to a design quirk of the OPL3 chip. This I understand - but why then are there separate frequency settings, one for HH and one for Tom? Changing the Tom's Freq and Decr setting affects all CYM, TOM, OHH and CHH whereas changing the HH Freq and Decr settings only affect OHH, CHH and CYM.
Lastly, changing the HH Decr setting above 0 makes the snare pitch descend until it is silent and the only way to get snare sound back is to change HH Decr back to 0.
Is this actually by design or is it a fault with either my components or soldering or is it a firmware bug? If it is by design, it seems that it is a little counter intuitive even though you can get some *very* cool, mixed up drum sounds. I suppose I am just a little frustrated that I can't change the SD pitch independently from the pitch of the HH and BD.
I'm hoping someone else with a sammichFM (or a full blown MBFM!) can confirm my findings. I mentioned this to nILS on IRC and he briefly mentioned that he seemed to think it was by design.... :fear: