So I just got an Analog Four and I am working with integrating it into my eurorack setup. I am currently using a modular voice going into track one, and whose pitch is controlled by track one. So basically I am just adding my own oscillator and filter in front of the filter on track one. I am then wanting to use the CV envelope to a filter in modular. So I am wanting the CV Envelope to trigger with track one. This seems like a fairly normal use case, but I can’t seem to figure it out. Any suggestions?
Gonna type out everything so some steps might seem “dumb” but just gonna walk through the entire setup:
Press CV track button (under FX button on the far right)
Func + Osc1 button (you’ll notice it says CV A in text below) will take you to the CV out option screen. Set it to a Value Lin. Adjust the CV voltage range you want. Press No to leave that page.
Press Osc 1 again and you should see 4 blank boxes and in the center a “value” knob. This will be controlling your filter, set it to 0 for now to fully close it.
Tap the Env button.
Using knob G set the destination to CVA: Value. Adjust the depth to what you want.
That should be it.
Edit: oh yeah forgot to mention you’ll need to lay down some steps on the sequencer. Might seem obvious but yeah. Press record key and tap at some steps then press play and you should hear the envelope doing its thing.
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Yeah, I was hoping to be able to trigger the CV track’s envelopes from one of the audio tracks though. Basically I was wanting to replace an oscillator on track 1 with a modular oscillator, and then modulate that oscillator with a CV envelope, all triggering everything from track one so I could pretend that it is all one continuous voice instead of separating things out. Basically using the A4 kinda like a semi modular, being able to expand it’s voices with really simple modular setups, sometimes just being a single oscillator, with all the modulation coming from the A4. It’s definitely possible but so far I am having more success just using the CV track separately and routing the audio in on the FX track instead of using the external input into one of the 4 analog voices.
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That would be cool to do what you’re imagining. But why are so sure that it’s “definitely possible” to trigger CV from one of the audio tracks?
Sorry, I just meant that using the a4 with modular as an extension in general is definitely possible, just needs a little learning the best ways to do it. Not necessarily this envelope routing thing I am after.
Also now that I think of it, I could get the same effect by just using a midi keyboard and trigging the CV track and the audio track with the same midi channel.
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It’s definitely been like this for 10 years or so …
The Source Track for any of the Four CV Lanes (A/B/C/D) can be any of the six tracks on the device (when setting up e.g. gate CV out or an envelope triggered like a gate would be etc)
So if you wanted to keep it basic, you can derive both the pitch (1 lane) and the gate(a second lane) from one track or multiple
When selecting and configuring e.g. a gate type CV lane, the Encoder which shows CV underneath it can be pushed rotated to cycle through all the potential source tracks for the trigger info !
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This is true and the simple answer would be just use an external envelope in this case. Link the CV gate output to a synth track then use that gate to trigger an external Envelope. This would make it so everything just works from one sequencer.
But it you want to use an CV envelope from the A4 based on what the manual says the only way to do it is to use a Linear value mode and do it on the CV track. CV out isn’t a destination for a synth track envelope I’m pretty sure, and the only way to use an envelope is then Value LIN mode which doesn’t allow you to assign to a different track like the V/ Oct or Gate modes do.
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I halfheartedly suggested it could based on optimistic memories its impressive flexibility, but alas, when i had a nosey at it, this is indeed only doable with the CV track trigs starting the envelopes … it’s still quite a flexible utility for CV stuff, but not quite as flexible as i imagined - worth pointing out too i misremembered and confused the way that you change destination tracks when setting up performance macros - changing Track on the CV lanes (where possible) is just simple rotation, not pushing, as per Macro setup)
Yeah it still is quite flexible. CV sequencing on the A4 seems pretty underrated. Maybe not as powerful as Hapax or Oxi One but considering you get 4 whole analog Monosynths in the machine that’s fine. Not to mention using the A4 as a processor within multiple different applications itself.
A4 seems like the most slept on Elektron box to me.
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Yeah, I am kinda wanting to keep the envelopes in the A4 so I can p lock them without needing CV for each parameter. So far the A4 seems to get the closest to any instrument I have used for how I want to integrate modular and a standalone sequencer. Just like everything, it’s not perfect. But it’s like 95% of the way there which is closer than most instruments get.
Having the performance controls also be able to control CV stuff really lets me make a cohesive sonic palette that I have really good control of all at once. It’s really nice keeping all the sequencing and performance aspects in one device. The digi’s were starting to really annoy me because I would want to change a bunch of parameters all at once but they were all on different pages and I only have two hands. I got an octatrack a while ago and the crossfader and scenes are amazing, but I don’t totally gel with a sampler as the main instrument, and I really wanted a synth with similar control.
But the A4 performance mode is making me think that I might be able to get something similar on syntakt and digitone by having a bunch of tracks listening to the same midi channel and using the mod wheel like a macro performance control. But that will take some experimenting to see how well it works.
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The envelopes on the cv tracks can only be triggered by the cv track itself, not the other tracks. The other tracks can only affect the cv outputs when they’re set to pitch (V/oct or Hz/V), gate, or trig.
This is my biggest wish for the A4! It would allow for the synth to integrate even more seamlessly with modular, as you described.
There is one workaround, but it’s far from perfect:
Set the cv output you want to use as an envelope to pitch, and use the bend and note slide time parameters to control the envelope. Unfortunately, this cv will be offset by the pitch information from the track, so you may need turn the tuning of that cv track all the way down, or all the way up depending on whether you want the envelope polarity to be positive or negative. It’ll still be offset though, so it may not be useful, depending on the precision you need.
(It might be worth experimenting with the response of V/oct vs Hz/V if this method seems workable.)
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