I just bought a beatstep pro to sequence my neutron. Having never used cv/gate before, is there an advantage to using that rather than midi?
Yes!
Midi = digital steps. 128 steps. E.g. when opening a filter cutoff.
CV = no stepping at all.
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Yes ⊠with CV we can modulate more parameters independently on the neutron with midi less.
And that difference is audible?
Depending on the patch, filter settings (e.g. amount of resonance) and how much youâre opening or closing the filter, yes, it can be very noticeable, especially with a full sweep. On other patches, it can be less noticeable or not apparent at all with a smaller movement, sure, but itâs still there.
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I donât have a Neutron but on the analogues I diid/do own (A4, Bass Station 2, Prologue) I canât say that I hear a difference between say directly sweeping the filter cutoff using the dedicated knob or indirectly sweeping the cutoff using the mod wheel or expression pedal on my master keyboard.
These are modern analogue synths that use a smoothing technique that translates the midi ccâs 128 steps into much more values so the stepping becomes almost inaudible.
You can compare this to a movie that runs with 20 frames per second vs a movie that runs with 200 frames per second.
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If the MIDI controller can only output 128 discrete steps then there is no way that a receiving device can increase that resolution.
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Interpolation will not increase the resolution.
If the mod wheel can only send out 128 different values than the receiving device can only set its parameter to 128 different values, even though it may be capable of a far greater range of values.
Did you ever wondered why the A4 has cutoff values with .00 two digits behind it?
Do your own research. We can only show you the direction. The path you must walk yourself, young Padawan.
Sincerely, your synth Jedi master.
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itâs not about increasing the resolution but about what the synth does between two values. Does nothing -> stepping. Interpolates -> no stepping.
That said, CV can go way beyond what is possible with midi (ie. audio-rate modulation).
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The fact that the A4, DN etc. resolves down to two decimal places does not make a blind bit of difference if you are using an external mod wheel to set the parameter value because the mod wheel does not resolve down to two decimal places.
Say there is a parameter which can have its values set from 0 to 1,270. If you use an external mod wheel to adjust this parameter, when the mod wheel sends a cc value of 0 the parameter value will be 0, when the mod wheel sends a cc value of 127 the parameter value will be 1270 and when the mod wheel sends a cc value of 64 the parameter value will be 640 (obviously assuming you have allowed the mod wheel full range control of the parameter).
In the above example, a single step change of the mod wheel value will result in a 10 step change in the parameter value.
If you look at the âMODULATION SETUP MOD WHEEL PAGEâ on the DN, when you operate the mod wheel the left display changes from 0 to 127 in single step increments.
Somehow I donât think you have achieved the rank of âsynth Jedi masterâ yet. 
Note that because the human ear is particularly sensitive to pitch changes, pitch bend wheels have 14 bit resolution.
Mmm the tone employed is not necessary, please cool down.
@Stickhit While two devices talking to each other via MIDI might need to talk with values limited to 7 bits (= 128 different values possible for one parameter), internally the resolution is generally better, and thus it is theoretically possible for a synth to interpolate between two successive received values (say 4 and 5) and play the internal available notes (say 4.01 to 4.99) and thus escape the âstairs effectâ one would normally hear.
I have no clue which synth actually do or donât, and for which values.
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Basically what I said, but much better explained. This is actually similar to what a synth does for portamento.
I have no clue which synth actually do or donât, and for which values.
Old/cheap virtual analogs are very prone to stepping. One example I have in mind: Electribe EA1.
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Totally, I tried to rephrase what you and @plusn had said because it seemed this point might had not been caught by @Stickhit. And the subject is actually interesting 
Recent DSI synths are also known for such stepping effects, so high-end/recent doesnât necessarily mean this interpolation is done. And I guess not on every parameter neither.
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Wow⊠didnât know that⊠quite a shame at this price point.
What you are saying cannot happen.
Take a very simple example of a light circuit with a switch on the wall and a tungsten filament bulb in the ceiling. The light has two states, fully off or fully on (maximum brightness).
If I swap out the switch for a dimmer control the light now has many states between off and full brightness. The bulb is still the same, it was the switch that limited its resolution.
A synth is not going to know how many MIDI messages it will receive. So just because it receives a mod wheel cc value of 4 it cannot expect that it will subsequently receive a mod wheel cc value of 5. Therefore it cannot interpolate between some âpossible valuesâ it can only react to the value it receives.
No, itâs more like a slew, gradually moving from one value to the next.
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