Glide vs Portamento

VCV Rack
1

How do you all prefer to use glide vs portamento in a musical sence? I believe glide is linear and portamento is exponential ? :cherry_blossom:

2

They’re basically synonyms. I doubt there is any formal definition, just one term or the other used by a given synth.

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3

From AI but I think its correct:

1. Portamento: The “Distance” Approach

Portamento (from the Italian portare, “to carry”) traditionally refers to a constant rate of change between two notes.

  • How it works: No matter how far apart the two notes are, the “slide” moves at the same speed.

  • The Result: It takes longer to slide from a low C to a high C than it does to slide from a C to a D.

  • Musicianship: This is most similar to how a violin player or a singer slides between notes.

2. Glide: The “Time” Approach

Glide is more commonly associated with a constant time between two notes.

  • How it works: You set a specific duration (e.g., 500ms). Whether you move one semi-tone or four octaves, the transition will always take exactly 500ms.

  • The Result: Large jumps feel very fast and “sweeping,” while small jumps feel slow and syrupy.

  • Context: This was a hallmark of the classic Minimoog “Glide” knob.

4

But in synth lingo, they are the same. If your Casio says portamento, it’s just gonna glide. You need a clock involved to set rate of change and that is not how hardly anyone creates the effect.

5

Which effect is what will happen when using a slew? I would like to test both to see if any approach is more suitable in a specific context sound design wise,

6

A constant rate of change is just what a slew limiter does.

Constant time actually involves determining the correct rate of change for a given difference between voltages.

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7

I am not challenging what you say, I just want to bring up that it is peculiar that the morph sounds exponential.

8

Without knowing what synth or module you’re using or listening to, it isn’t really possible to give you an answer as to why that is.

That said, slew limiters can also have exponential curves, but then that’s neither a constant rate of change, nor a constant time.

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9

On a Haken Continuum, the feature is called “Pressure-weighted portamento.” On the Expressive E Osmose, the precisely identical functionality (same implementation down in the engine) is called “glide”.

“Portamento” is a nice traditional Italianate music term.
“Glide” is an accessible informal term for contemporary synthies.

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10

I would like to try and patch them in VCV with as much basic modules as possible.

11

I notice DanT has a new module, Bend that does clock driven portamento. Maybe give it a whirl.

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12

I usually use befaco slew limiter, but venom slew and sickozell slew are the first two that come to my mind when looking for CVs on the slope shape

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13

Yep, I had mind bugling interrogations each time I have to make a GUI so I ended up looking it up:

  • Portamento is the name of the western musical articulation to go smoothly from one note to another note
  • Glide is the gesture you usually do to perform portamento (not always: on guitar you can do portamento by bending or with a whammy bar, so no gliding)
  • Slew is the electrical process to perform portamento on a synthesizer, which can be constant time or constant slope

This said, 70’s pionners came up with their own name for things and many synths has 2 different names for the exact same feature, so at teh end of the day, a wrong name has sometimes more resonance among users so it becomes a good solution.

none of them are perfect:

  • portamento asumes you’re going to play western classical music
  • glide implies a gesture that doesn’t happen, especially with sequencers
  • slew could apply to anything other than V/oct signal

EDIT: to add some mess to the idea: portamento is a continuous glissando :slight_smile:

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14

Portamento is just the Western classical name for the thing. Nothing to do with what type of music you’re playing, but if you’re playing Indian classical music, there’s likely an Indian term for it, but it’s still the same thing.

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15

this is the whole point: portamento in classical western music is an ornament between two stable notes, it spices a melody. Meend in Indian Carnatic music is the core of the performance, notes almost disappear between the glides and it sounds almost like a wandering. I strongly believe that I or anyone would play different things if a synth glide knob was named “meend” instead of “portamento”.

This is why I’m looking for a term that would not suggest what to do with the glide effect in your music.

I remember a live piece from Kansas, performing a very long glide from a very low note to a very high note, starting with a super-long glide setting, almost stationary, and changing the glide knob to shorter and shorter and then to zero, so it hits the C6 in perfect timing. This is the kind of idea that requires forgetting everything about the role played by portamento in Western music, and thinking of it as something completely different.

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16

Yeah, I was wondering where glissando went :slight_smile: As we always say - many names for the same thing. Here’s my nomination: We sometimes use glide when we play music, and in Rack we do it with (a) slew (limiter). Glide just seems by far the most descriptive.

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