I'm not actually sure if this a bug or an intended feature (or possibly just an unforseen side-effect?), but I'm posting it here because it seems like it might be a good thing if this behavior was changed...I think it's worth consideration anyway :p

The new SFX instruments are great but the one thing I've noticed is that you can't really use them for syncopated rhythms where you need a note to be held over across SFX boundaries.

In case I'm not explaining it clearly enough, here is an example: let's say SFX 8 has a note in its last note-slot (31), and SFX 9 has that same note (same instrument, same pitch, same everything) in its first note-slot (0). Then you have a music pattern that plays SFX 8 followed by SFX 9. If the instrument used was a regular instrument, you would hear one unbroken tone across the "boundary" between SFX 8 and 9, but if it's an SFX instrument, the instrument is retriggered when the pattern switches from SFX 8 to 9.

Now the manual says that an SFX instrument note will only be retriggered if one of the following happens:

• the pitch changes
• the previous note has 0 volume
• effect 3 (drop) is used to manually retrigger the note

But as my example above indicates, there is one additional case in which it is apparently always retriggered: if it's the first note of an SFX. I'm guessing this may be because these rules are implemented in the context of a single SFX so the "previous note" of the first note in an SFX would be nonexistent and would therefore be taken to have a 0 volume...maybe??

In the context of my example above, however, when we look at note 0 of SFX 9, the "previous note" is not any different from this note, so no retrigger should occur (I would argue!).

So what I am trying to propose is: it might be better if the sfx instrument behavior was modified slightly to not retrigger in this case, since if you really want it to retrigger, you can always just use effect 3, but if you don't want to retrigger, you can't do anything to make it not retrigger. (In the actual song I am working on, I would just use homophonic non-SFX-instrument notes across the boundary to circumvent the issue, but in my case this is not possible because the notes are a lower octave that is impossible to play without using an SFX instrument!)

Sorry that took a lot of writing to explain :D

apparently this works if you use effect 3 on the first note of the second SFX! it will hold out the same note without retriggering!

marking as resolved :D