FabFilter

Hi BP,

Thank you for your feedback. Those are some interesting remarks. The XLFO right now is pretty packed with features, but I think you're right in the sense that it could be a bit more intuitive. Our main design challenge with these matters is always: How to pack a plug-in with features while keeping a clean interface?

I noticed that Ableton's autofilter LFO and the XLFO from the modulator section are very basic and don't have clear labels for offset such as "dotted" and "swing". Could you point me out to some plug-ins that use these type of labels on an LFO? I'd be curious to see the ones you work with. I think a phase offset dedicated to stereo operation is definitely an interesting option to have.

Also, could you point out some features of our XLO you rarely ever touch?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks Maarten,

I can totally understand the tradeoff between features vs usability. I think normally fabfilter get this spot on, which I think is one of the reasons I find the XLFOs so surprisingly complicated! My thinking with having a 'simple LFO' as a separate modulation family completely is that you could leave the current XLFO functionality untouched to hopefully minimise the tradeoff, but appreciate that another option is not without its' problems and might feel quite duplicative.

Regarding the examples, on reflection I was thinking more of delay time parameters rather than LFO times, and I think that probably helps explain some of my confusion given the inverse relationship between frequency/delay time.

Some of the examples I had in mind were Ableton Echo (Dotted, triplet, note is a dropdown, with an offset knob to get 'off grid'), Valhalla Delay/NI Replica (delay time specified either in ms, notes, triples or dotted notes). In terms of actual LFOs, the XFER Serum LFOs have buttons for dot/trip, and I have some max4live LFOs that do similar (e.g. the ones sold by Hypnus records). The Ableton LFOs give you some pre-defined options as you mention so something slightly different).

I looked at Timeless3 and the implementation for the delay time is quite nice in that you can choose note/dot/trip and it sets the offset knob accordingly. For a dotted 1/8th note on delay time that would be at the 150%, I think the XLFO implementation throws me as I'm so used to that paradigm that I'd expect the 150% of the 1/8th note to give me a dotted 1/8th again. I notice for some LFOs when set to SYNC the knob increases with note length, for some the inverse to keep it aligned to the frequency behaviour. It seems there is no convention.

For the XLFOs Would it actually be the 66.7% at the 9 o'clock position to get me to the frequency offset that corresponds to a dotted 8th?

Personally I would have found it more intuitive if the sync mode offset was really a 'note length' offset, rather than a frequency offset. Perhaps a short term/quick option would be to append the 'straight, dotted, triplet' to the list of note divisions and when clicked the offset be adjusted accordingly (like the timeless delay time approach)? Or even a hint box popping up when you hover over the buttons for .667, .75, 1.33, 1.5 etc to explain how the frequency offset translates to note lengths would be helpful!

Regarding the XLFO features I rarely touch, I'll be honest and say that for some time I've avoided using them completely (or just use an unsynced sine) because I've found them troublesome. This also often means I'll just use auto filter if I'm doing some simple filtering.

With the current implementation it would be hard to lose the glide/balance as they seem needed to get into a lot of the functionality, however I find they are not immediate and intuitive, so I'd personally be happier without them in favour of something simpler.

The midi and keyboard knobs are not ones I'd use often, but can see why others might. I also don't really need the per step glide option, and for how infrequently I'd use the curve option on the steps editor I wonder if it could be set using a curve knob in the step.

Answering your question in a different way; my main use case for LFOs is to choose from a handful of the classic shapes and set a note length, as quickly and as easily as possible - and that's mostly all I need. Needing to use glide/balance to get there will probably always feel a little cumbersome for that use case. Most of the complexity I like to get from LFOs involves stacking multiple LFOs at different frequencies, rather than making one complex LFO, if that makes sense.

The step sequencer is totally something I'd like to use, but my main use would be to set some note intervals, e.g. 1/16th and then the overall length increase/decrease as I add/remove steps. If I understand correctly to do this using the LFO module I need to recalculate the LFO frequency every time I add/remove steps, which if I wanted polymeters like 5/16, 7/16 etc, I'm not sure if I'd know how to do that currently.

I think in trying to pack all this functionality into a single module it's made it very difficult to use for me, but if they were split out into more simple and separate modules I'd probably get a lot more from them,

Hope that makes sense and is helpful, obviously this is just my opinion. I also hope it doesn't come across as moany, as I'm overwhelmingly positive about the plugins and a bit of a fabfilter fanboy. For me this is the only major bugbear I have with the full suite of plugins, but it does stop me from unlocking some of their potential!