Noise problem on extra assignable slot patches

OWL Firmware
#1

I’ve just upgraded from v12 of the firmware to v14 and the built in patches are all working ok.

However when I load some downloaded sysex files in the 4 user slots they are covered in a wash of noise.

I tried loading some of the built in patches e.g. ping pong delay into the user slots and these suffer the same issue, but the built in version of the patch runs ok.

I tried reverting the pedal to v12 of the firmware but when i install that, everything is then covered in noise!

At the moment i’ve got v14 reinstalled, with the built in patches running ok, but the user slots still noisey.

any advice? or help appreciated.

I updated my owlcontrol to the latest version (owl control v12) but this made no difference.

#2

Oh dear. I’m not sure what causes these washes of noise, it seemed to be happening with v13 and I thought I had fixed it with v14.

Two things you could try, firstly Factory Reset in OwlControl followed by Save to OWL.

The second thing is recompiling the patch. Of course if you’re downloading the sysex from the website and it’s not your patch then you won’t be able to do that.
I’m going to be travelling for the next little while but I’ll try to make sure all online patches get recompiled over the next couple of days.

Let us know how it goes and if you find a solution.

#3

Thanks for the quick reply.

I’ll try the factory reset button again.
I’m pretty sure i’ve pressed this at various stages yesterday but it doens’t seem to have had much effect - although not sure I then did a save to owl straight after it at any point.
When factory reset is pressed is anything major supposed to happen in terms of messages / dialogue boxes? When used yesterday i noticed it just very quickly blips the noise (maybe restarts the buffer or similar) and i think the owl ready message quickly flips to something and back again. Is this what is expected?

Yeah i’m attempting to load other peoples patches (mostly want to play with the Owlgazer ones as these are right up my guitar street) so am unable to recompile patches.

Cheers

#4

OK, so I tried the factory reset and then a save to owl on v14 on the user patches and it didn’t seem to affect anything.

I then reverted to v12 and as before all the patches had noise on them, however, in the noisy v12, doing a factory reset and then a save to owl removes the noise on all the built in patches AND the user patches are ok.
So this is where i want to be. I can load new user patches into the slots in v12 no problem either.

I then, out of interest, reinstalled v14 and this time, the user patches were working ok and so this left me with a v14 firmware with everything working ok… and able to load up different user patches ok…

But if i press factory reset and a save to owl when on v14 it messes up the user patches, adding the noise back. (but only the user patches)

I then had to revert to v12 again where initially everything has the noise on, and then press factory reset and save to owl, which then clears it all up.

I can them go back to v14 again and its ok as long as I don’t press factory reset…

So maybe there is still a noise problem buried somewhere around the factory reset and what it does to the user loaded patches?

For now, i’m gonna leave it on 12

As an aside in genenral
A few patches just don’t sound right when I load them on v12 or v14
The cloud delay and biased delay patches don’t seem to work properly though, just give me very noisey delay rather than what the samples on the patch pages suggest it should sound.

The conny patch gives me all sorts of random noise and craxy cpu reading of like 605%, 793%, 191% etc… so am not sure this plays nice with my owl!

#5

just wanted to add that I am having the exact same noisy problem…

#6

I am experiencing the same problem too!

#7

Well this is embarrassing… :scream:

I thought I had fixed the problems from v13 in the v14 release, but it seems not. There’s some incompatibility with certain versions of the compiled patches and the new firmware, and also between how the application settings are stored between firmware versions.

To make things worse I’m going to be away for another couple of weeks and won’t be able to test anything until early Dec.

Apologies for the mess, the best thing to do at the moment is probably to stick with v12 - and if you are downgrading then make sure to do a Factory Reset and Save to OWL.

Though if you’re feeling adventurous then I think that the following procedure will work:

  1. install v14
  2. do a Factory Reset and Save to OWL in OwlControl
  3. reinstall user patches (Load Patch from File and Save to Slot in OwlControl)
    but note that the user patches should be compiled with the latest version of the compiler.
#8

Hi guys,

I just stumbled over this thread and I think i might be encountering the same/similar issue with my OWL modular. Ive got v12 FW installed but ive been seeing these noise issue out of the box.
Did a bunch of tests and the noise is prominent in a lot of patches for me, especially in user patches that i’ve programmed myself.

Here’s the link to my thread for reference: Audio issues during first Owl Modular test - #4 by bfabricius

I’ll try the solutions suggested here and I’m hoping I’ll se the issues go away then.

@all: How are things working with v12 for you guys now? Have you been able to get the noise under control for preinstalled and user patches?

@mars: Haven’t really checked out the FW code yet but if you’re swamped and it’s smaller issues you need some help with (i.e something like this, maybe!?) let me know and perhaps I can help out a bit.

Cheers,
Ben

#9

UPDATE:

I am now able to somewhat control noise/artefact issues. These are the observations I made (using FW v12 only):

  • Connecting OwlControl seems to resolve issues with factory patches: I did a “factory reset” and a “save to Owl”, then I had a careful listen using a few of the factory patches. I used both the OWL modular controls and “Remote Control”. After connecting OWL Control I can say Its hard to hear noisy effects. So that’s some good news

  • Regarding assignable user patch slots: These remain very distorted and noisy on v12. The only way I was able to get them to work cleanly is using OWL Control with “Remote Control”. In this mode everything works a charm. Good enough for the lab but nevertheless problematic when making music… I haven’t tried the new FW yet. I’ll give updates when I have.

HTH.
Cheers,
Ben

#10

UPDATE:

The noise problem remains with FW v14 especially audible with high feedback or dry/wet values. v14 exhibits these issues with both factory patches and user patches. All issues go away when Owl Control is in “Remote Control” mode.

@mars let me know if I can help you guys with any additional information.

PS: For all user slot patches I loaded, I used the online compiler / uploader.

Cheers,
Ben

#11

I encountered this noise problem as well. I’m on v14. It’s my second day with my Owl module, so I don’t know excactly what I’m doing yet, but if it happens again, I’ll try and see if I can reproduce it in a systematic way and let you know.

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#12

Hey Martin (@mars)

Have you been able to get any further in debugging these noise issues? It’s strange that it completely goes away when you enable “Remote Control Mode” in OwlControl. But maybe that’s a blessing in disguise, cause its reproducible and perhaps easier to narrow down the problem using the OwlControl workaround?

Im excited to hear about what caused the issues in the end!

Cheers,
Ben

#13

Yes I think it helps narrow it down: if the noise goes away with Remote Control enabled then it will most likely be caused by noisy parameter ADC’s. This is a known issue with the microcontrollers that we use, and one that we have mitigated before by filtering the parameter values. We changed this implementation in a recent firmware version and the change must have degraded performance in some circumstances.

I’m currently exploring some ways of implementing parameter filtering consistently across all builds, in a way that doesn’t impact performance unnecessarily.

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