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Speaking of envelopes, some korg synths such as the ipolysix have a toggle for adsr/gate. Gate is just a hard on/off envelope thats great for stronger sounds and makes it quicker.
Its not really a synth Id consider fast overall but Ill give it a try.
I suspect it is the slow processing loop of our machines. Technically it could be immediate, but the polling loop seems not optimal at all. That reminds me, I’ve got three ROMs I ordered months ago to update my Matrix 1000s to the new independently-coded 1.20, I should find the time one weekend to put them in and try out (the synths themselves are buried in the attic a bit too far back to easily reach at the moment).
Nah... in fact to achieve hard attacks, you explicitly need an ADSR envelope (zero attack, very short decay (say 5 ms), sustain maybe 50%)...
MSEG´s which get updated at audio rate might be the best choice. A linear envelope can be fast but could feel lifeless and not snappy, punchy etc.
But i many forums there often comes the discussion about how snappy, warm and whatever a synth is.
Of course everyone has an own opinion and so it´s great we have so many choices to find the right tool for us.
I try to pick the best out of every synth and prefer different synths for different things.
The one to do it all is not there yet
@Cib: I'm appearently so deaf when it comes to these sonic qualities, I'm already happy with an envelope-less unfiltered sawtooth wave!
Hah´Sometimes the simple things are just great.
I often wish i never started the whole thing. Before i got my iPhone 4 i never did music myself even when i always was so interested into it. Especially about electronic music and synths.
IOS was indeed which opens the gate here for me with the cheap entree.
Lol, i just looked at my app buys and it seems MusicStudio was my first, followed by NanoStudio which really get me into it. I had no clue what a bassline is and my first tracks were so damn liveless and boring until someone gave me advice and finally put it a track in one of his DJ sets. That felt awesome.
Then the journey began. Then came the point where i wanted to go more into ambient and cinematic stuff and iOS limits me so i just bought a mac (normally i don´t need even a computer) and explored the big world there.
Some years later (and sure a few grands lighter) it´s still growing on me and i sometimes wish i could go back and i would have saved a lot money but then when you love a thing it´s worth it.
So as long as it makes me happy i don´t regret it....if it´s a 5 dollar app or an 600 dollar sample library.
What is important is when i play with a synth, FX or sample library it have to put a smile on my face or give me some goosebumps.
Model D f.e. seems to do a good job here...even when i don´t like the GUI still.
Whatever makes us happy!!
@Cib: I started with trackers on a PC in 1995 or so (kingmod!), then moved to FastTracker II, then to Impulse Tracker, which was already quite impressive in 1997. Had filters and whatnot. Then came my first synth, the still-in-my-attic and forever great YAMAHA SY-85. Dude, that was incredible. WHAT, SEPARATE EFFECTS PER INSTRUMENT?? Layered instruments?? Real reverb?? That thing got my "career" started. And it's still great even in 2018... then went with a growing analog hardware studio (VST was only just starting to be "a thing" back then), and this grew until around 2010, when I started moving a lot and I had to ditch the studio. Then in 2011, I found NanoStudio on my then-new iPhone 4... and I thought... WHAT. THIS THING can do MORE than my $20.000 of hardware, in a PHONE!!! So yeah...
@Cib
Have you tried Thor? I remember reading something about it's envelopes being super fast.
I have no iPad just iPhone.
So we can agree that NanoStudio was a paradigm change here
Are there synths that let you adjust envelope settings in smaller increments than 1 ms?
If not, would that not be the quickest any envelope stage could be, 1 ms?
This speed comparison of synths is confusing me.
There are synth which goes below 1ms indeed. But that´s more for audio rate stuff. But that doesn´t really matter much for an envelope if you don´t need to modulate something at audio rate with it.
Increments between 1ms and zero are aweome for delay effects indeed
Envelope below 1ms seems pretty pointless to me... that's already less than a single cycle at "normal" pitches...
I was back and forth with RobertSyrett on the Audulus forum and he made some tweaks and built this. Personally, I find it very useful because I was looking for an iOS effect similar to Infected Mushroom’s Gatekeeper. It may not exactly suit your original purpose but it does demonstrate some of the capabilities of Audulus 3 and the creativity in that community.
http://forum.audulus.com/discussion/15699/has-this-gating-effect-been-achieved-in-audulus#Item_11
Also, as you might read in the thread there is some work being done on implementing curves at some point as well.
I haven't explicitly investigated, but it's relatively easy to test: take any synth and choose a short sound with fast attack, point Xequence at it, set to 150 BPM, make a loop with 16th notes and let it run. If the timing is absolutely tight no matter how high the CPU load is, then the synth's MIDI implementation is correct. If there's any kind of jitter, then it isn't. Note that with today's fast devices, the jitter is often not noticable under low loads. And also, many people don't hear slight jitter. If in doubt, you could record the synth's output and then check in a sample editor. In a correct implementation, the distance between the individual sounds should be (close to) sample-accurate.
Yep, I agree this (like everyone else), I really think the OP is concerned with the envelopes, not MIDI. An example at the opposite end of the spectrum is my Roland JX-8P. Envelopes are as slow as molasses. The JX-8P would not make a good percussive synth (unlike the ones listed above), but it makes for great pads!
Yes, the arp is basically doing the same thing you could do by hand, but making it easier. It is the type of sounds used that makes the Arp sound cool. A good experiment to try that represents this well is to load a pad patch into an arp and then load a pluck patch into an arp and listen to the difference.
There is a spanner in the works regarding envelopes. If an envelope gen has a fast attack, and a fast percussive decay, it could conceivably be perceived as having such little energy in the transient that it sounds insignificant and enfeebled. Some synths have a kind of ‘dwell’ at the top of the attack excursion, where it may well reach it quickly if set to minimum, and decay back down quickly similarly, but while it is up there it imperceptibly ‘hangs around’ just a touch, giving the overall impression of energy a lot more kick and oomph. Then again, some synths don’t do that – they have mathematical and precise and literal curves that go up and then come down as described in theory.
This is almost exactly my experience, with the exception of a Roland JV-1010! Hahaha!!
I don't think we'd even be able to hear the 1ms difference.
Interesting! I think I'm one of those who can't hear slight jitter. In fact, I like a lot of old school electronic music and often try to recreate the inaccuracies--to me, it's more organic and real. I'm talking about all of the old analog systems going slightly out of tune, phasing, midi jitter, etc., etc., etc.---we call it character!
There are some great, old Human League, Joy Division, Gary Numan, etc albums that have a really awesome and organic feel.
In fact, I've got a book somewhere that talks about midi tricks for removing the machine gun effect, humanizing, etc.. So, I guess it comes down to genre. Inaccuracies and flaws can be endearing with the right genre, or they can be absolutely irritating.
@u0421793: In general, if I feel that a synth doesn't have enough "snap" at the beginning, I just put a compressor with 10 ms attack behind it. Problem solved, and no messing around with the patch
@Audiojunkie: Yeah Roland stuff is great as well, had two JV-1080s in my hardware studio. And a Boss (Roland) SX-700, great allround FX unit.
And regarding electronic music: sorry, I prefer it absolutely on the spot and when I hear MIDI jitter, I feel like setting random buildings on fire! That's why I went to great lengths to ensure Xequence's timing is tight
But I have a very strange musical taste anyway. There's a "saddest electronic songs" thread here somewhere. It's funny, I wouldn't even consider 95% of the tracks posted there "electronic" at all
That's perfectly cool!
I'm glad you are a perfectionist with midi timing! If I want something to be humanized, I can add it myself. But if I'm unable to have perfect timing when I do want it, I'd be frustrated and helpless. 
BTW, for those interested, listen to the synth part in this song to hear the character and organic nature in this synth. Remember however, this is actually played live, so it's not midi timing's fault.
Here's another example--listen to the inaccurate timing on this song:
@Audiojunkie It’s pretty interesting stuff, that old analog jitter. I never thought about old sequencers having jitter until @brambos was talking about emulating the 808 jitter from Egyptian Lover’s old 808.
Now after considering your examples, I am wondering if some of the time inconsistencies came about from using analog tape recorders to track everything.
That seems like it could be pretty effective. Extremely narrow pulse wave for initial attack would add some solidity to the otherwise wispy initial attack. Brilliant.
Not if you use Retrigger mode, until they finally accept it as a bug and fix it.
I did a comparison between iMini, Minimoog Model D and an old Mini D hardware and I was surprised about how good Arturia's iMini still is. With enough patience, for the majority of sounds the iMini was practically indistinguishable. Some extreme settings on the original hardware cannot be emulated by iMini but those sounds hardly have any practical use.
Thank you very much for writing this!
I seem to be a rare incarnation of musician who likes to use iOS apps together with hardware, and as hardware usually has much tighter timing (less jitter) and lower latency than iOS apps, such behaviour becomes even more apparent when mixing both. Only few synths have both low and quite constant latency, so I'm limited to a few fast and tight ones in the first place.
Cassini and NanoStudio 1 seem to be the best, Animoog and bs-16i are second best but with higher jitter.
Zeeon, Magellan, DXi are audibly slow, and zMors Modular is practically unusable as a live synth controlled by MIDI.
I wish Zeeon was better in this regard because sonically it's my absolute favourite.
YES!
I wish GR-16 would be as usable with my hardware sequencers.
For some reason Jim Pavloff seems to avoid such MIDI features and I wish he would ask people like you who could help with their experience and knowledge!
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