Simple 2 voice patch, weird distortion

[Madrayken]

Take two sine oscillators, turn off all mods, filters and so on.
Now modulate oscillator two's frequency with a sawtooth wave.

At low end I get nasty distortion, at the high end I get nasty, digital-sounding ring-moddy artefacts.

I repeat, all filters are *off*, filter feedback is off, the levels of the two oscillators are sub 50%, ring mod is off, all OSC2 FMs levels are set to zero.

I bought the Andy to get really clear, clean sounds and am finding it really difficult to do so.

I'm sending a link to a sample. It starts with no mod. I then play Osc 2 with its modulation, then I play a series of notes from low to high with modulation. You'll hear the nasty noisy element creeping in.

Any suggestions? Is this just the A6's character?

http://www.denecarter.com/distortion2.wav

[analogstndrpusy]

I just tried this out on my Andy and I also get the distortion when i re-crete the patch you made. However there are work arounds.
Try using one sine wave from the oscillator section and another from the Post Filter Mix section or alternatively use both from the Post FIlter Mix section and youll get no distortion. I think bypassing the pre filter mix is key in this situation. Ill post audio clips if necessary tonight. good luck.

[Madrayken]

Okay - I've tried everything I can, now.

Lower volumes (some success, but... um... quiet)
Using the post-filter mix and one standard sine osc
Using only two post-filter mix sines, and so on.

Just for clarity, here's a link to the patch with only pre-filter mixes, the filters OFF etc.

http://www.denecarter.com/distortion.mp3

There is NO ring-mod here - neither in the pre-filter mix, nor from the usual ring-mod route. Yet this sounds like ring-mod to me! What the heck's going on?

[analogstndrpusy]

maybe try this to make sure its not your Andy.

could be a number of things.

analog distortion might be on
clipping the mixers
voice mix level might be too hot
lfo level
some fm
clipping outboard gear
etc.

hopefully its something small youre just overlooking and its not any trouble with your andy.

see attachment

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Sine Test.syx
Description:	sine test	Download (listen)
Filename:	Sine Test.syx
Filesize:	2.29 KB
Downloaded:	272 Time(s)

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[Madrayken]

Thanks again for the encouragement. I'll go through the bits I tried...

analog distortion might be on: Checked - not on
clipping the mixers: Everything's at 50% or less
voice mix level might be too hot: See above
lfo level: Also 50% or less
some fm: Checked - none of the three variants are on
clipping outboard gear: The sound's the same on my headphones

Thanks for the sysex - unfortunately, the other problem I have is that my M-Audio IO14 seems to do something nasty to sysex files when transmitted to the A6 which crashes everything, forcing a hard reset. :-/ As it did in this case.

Regardless, I assume the issue must be something I'm doing rather than a fault because so many of the patches sound wonderful (Unicorn Dreams, for example). I'd stop worrying if someone just said: "Know what? The A6 is a dirty beast and it makes dirty noises, like it or not."

When it's reset, I'll send an attachment sysex myself (won't be able to check it's okay for obvious reasons )

Again, thanks so much for the help. It makes swimming in the huge ocean of the A6 much less worrisome.