Hey guys,
I’ve just got the MS-20 and i would like to use it with my A4 like Mr Dataline do on the youtube video. I don’t know much about CV and i’m not quite sure how to connect that.
I saw on a video someone routed a Doepfer CV and GATE OUT to the Trig IN and CV IN of the MS 20.
But on the video of Mr Dataline the only thing we see is that 2 cable are in the 2 CUT OFF FREQ of the MS 20. So how can he sequence the sound of the ms 20 on the A4 and add effects and stuff like this?
Man that’s one unfortunate camera angle – can’t see what else it’s plugged in to. Also kinda weird settings on Dataline’s MS-20… he has the LPF almost all the way up, which means controlling it with the CV shouldn’t do much.
Anyway, what I’d do is drop both filters of the 20 to zero, connect CV A and B into the filters, set their modes to Linear/5V, and set the bottom dials of the filters to 10, and use the values of the CV bits to control the filters. Then you can use the envelope/LFO on the CV track to control them.
Actually playing sequences involves hooking up CV C to the Keyboard In of the 20 and setting it to Hz/V (see the manual here, and make sure it’s the most recent manual as the procedure recently changed). Set CV D to trigger (and V-Trig if I remember right), and plug it into the TRIG IN input. Use the MS-20’s envelope to control the amplitude.
If you’re willing to sacrifice one of the A4’s tracks, a cool thing you can do is set the pitch to play off say Track 4, then use the CV tracks sequencer to trigger the envelopes. You can get cool transients this way since you don’t have to trigger the filters with every note. I’ve been doing this with a Moogerfooger low pass pedal and it’s been great.
I’ll test this on my own 20 tonight or tomorrow to confirm, but this should work.
details in description https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMQ_qONSSXw
All right, I screwed around with my MS-20 last night for a few minutes to get this properly set up. Here’s what I did:
On the MS-20, set both filters to 0 (zero, I’ll explain later), all the lower left knobs at zero except both filters’ EG2/EXT, which should be set to 10. Adjust Envelope Generator 2 to taste – it will control amplitude.
CV A: Patch to VCO 1+2 CV IN. Set to Hz/V. The manual tells you how to set up the voltage using a tuner, but here’s what works on my 20 for a starting point:
Note 1: C2
Voltage 1: 0.498
Note 2: C5
Voltage 2: 4.011
CV B: Patch to TRIG In. Set to Gate, S-Trig, 5.00 volts. This tells the MS-20 to start making a sound and triggers its envelope when you trigger a note on the A4.
CV C: Patch to HP Filter cutoff. Set to Value LIN, minimum 0 volts, max 10 volts. If you look close at the jack on the 20 you’ll see its range is -5 to +5 volts. With the big filter knob set to 0 it’s actually outputting -5 volts, so setting the A4 to go 0-10 offsets this amount.
CV D : Patch to LP Filter cutoff, same settings as CV C.
And that’s it. CV C & D knobs on the A4 control the filter just as the knobs on the 20 do, and you can bind the envelopes and to them as you would an internal sound.