ST Modular - Rocinante´s Gate

Published on Dec 16, 2019 Stefan Tretau

"LPG with Envelope Generator and LFO

Rocinante´s Gate is not a classical low-pass gate (LPG) using vactrols, but goes way beyond that providing an adjustable envelope to control the "gate" through an analog filter. Sending a gate or trigger signal into the GATE INPUT will create these envelope shaped sounds you know from other LPGs.

The LOWPASS knob adjusts the range of frequencies being affected by the gate. If you turn it fully counter clockwise the whole frequency spectrum will be gated. Turning it clockwise will slowly add low frequencies to the gated singal until the whole spectrum is not affected anymore.

ENV AMT sets the amount of how much the internal envelope affects the low-pass gate. RISE sets the time how long it will take the sound to go from silent to the loudest level. Just like the time it takes the LED insight of a vactrol to start lighting to its full potential. DECAY controls how long it takes to go from an intial peak to the "gate-phase" level. The length of this phase is varied by the LENGTH potentiometer. Finally FALL changes the time your sound will need to return to silence after the "gate-phase". Just like the time it takes the LED insight of a vactrol to shut down.
RESONANCE sets the amount of filtered audio being fed back into the filter input. It can´t go into self-oscillation, but is able to create very crunchy and juicy overtones when turning clockwise.

The internal Trigger Generator is being controlled with TRIG RATE and the RE-TRIG/LOOP SWITCH. Adjust the rate of the trigger and apply the singal to either a re-trigger circuitry that repeats the "gate-phase" as long as a gate signal is being applied or to a loop functionality that will create cycles of gates without an external gate or trigger. The ENV/INV SWITCH enables you to alternatively route an inverted envelope to the low-pass filter. This way you may create "ducking" or "side-chained" sounds.

An internal triangle LFO can be routed via the LVL ATT attenuator to vary the amount of envelope that is being passed to the gate. The LFO will be deactivated if you turn the LVL ATT attenuator fully counter-clockwise or if you use an external signal to control the envelope amount by patching a CV signal into LVL CV.

In addition to the Audio IN and OUT jacks you may take the signals of the internal envelope and LFO from the ENV OUT and LFO OUT to controll external devices. In combination with the loop function Rocinante´s Gate is not only a Low-Pass-Gate, but also an LFO and ADSR Generator.


Details:

• Low-Pass-Gate based on an Analog Filter
• Internal Envelope Generator
• Adjustable Rise, Decay, Length, Fall Stages
• Internal LFO
• Gate Level CV
• Loop Mode
• Re-Trigger Mode
• Use the Envelope and LFO with External Modules
• Skiff Friendly
• Wrong Polarity Protection

The module consists of two boards:

• Front PCB Panel
• Main PCB"