While not an actual gate control, an alternative is to use the MOD track to control the rate of an LFO with Retrig = Sngl, using a down slope saw or a square, then assign that LFO @+99 to the VCA or one of the filter outputs for Duo Split bliss. You could also control envelope segment times, but if you can spare an LFO it can be used an audio gate envelope with different duration for each step.
Just curious...What advantage do you find in using the LFO over varying the EG's Sustain or Decay per step?
For doing short percussive type decay sounds, there wouldn’t be much difference modulating the decay/release on the EG and a sawtooth LFO set as a one shot. The real emulation of a simple gate time would be using the square lfo, as a one shot, that would be modulating the “on” time of the faux envelope that the lfo is making. However, there is no decay possible, so it would be a choppy envelope sound.
If you use the custom LFO shape, you could do a smooth release ramp, but it wouldn’t quite be the same as a sustain stage on an envelope- the length of the release would be tied to the length of the sustain, because the whole LFO is just a little sequence playing out, and you would scale the length of the faux envelope by modulating the lfo time control.
Right I’m not seeing an advantage of using a one shot LFO rather than modulating the EG Sustain in the Seq Mod lane.
Not trying to argue the point—just trying to see if there’s something I’m missing!
Only advantage I could see is using the square lfo one shot as a simple on/off envelope with fast attack, full sustain, fast release envelope, like an organ, that you can vary the gate time that the envelope is on (simulating different lengths of time the note is held down), with the step sequencer.
The other methods would be good for changing the fade out length of each note (which could be great), but aren’t the same feel as holding a note for longer or shorter amounts of time in a sequence.
Yes you can, but the velocity lane, or rather the Accent lane, only has two values. Those are unaccented and accented with velocities 64 and 127 when you use the Play button, or actual key-velocity and 127 when you play the sequencer with the keyboard. While that can be used to good effect, it will not give individual gate length per step.
Yes, quite right, but I think even 2 gate lengths could be more interesting sounding than one. Of course, varying velocity helps the expressiveness of the sequence, so, if going for a more organic feel, there is a good chance you’d want to use velocity. An imperfect solution...
