I am stumped, i have an issue that is presently beyond my understanding and i’m desperately searching for clues from anyone with insights or potential leads on where i might focus some attention - it could be that some experience of related issues from the general Modular user community will point me to the origin of this puzzler …
I have an smallish assortment of semi-modular gear by different brands, but enough to have tried much of it to sanity check my thinking by swapping out one bit of gear for another - i’ve utilised the flexibility of the A4 cv sequencing to act as a substitute for a bit of gear but it all leaves me with an issue which only manifests between two pieces in particular, and only one way …
… ironically between two ostensibly similar Behringers, my Pro-1 and Neutron ! This issue pans out in that i cannot CV sequence the Neutron from the Pro-1, whether by the Pro-1’s sequencer or using the same CV/gate derived from midi incoming to Pro-1 MIDI - both are up to date, (1.29 P1, 2.02 Neu) and i have swapped their PSUs etc etc, no stone unturned
The Pro-1 will properly sequence a Doepfer Dark Energy Mk1 (v2 of that board) an Arturia or happily drive the clock in an SQ1 … i ended up establishing the (apparent) working voltage from the Gate out … now, when hooked to a voltmeter it showed 0.03 > 5.08V yet when I instead used the gate as a pitch CV source and swapped between that and the LFO out and Amp Env out (gate shape) it was clear that the Gate out was the lowest voltage, then the square LFO (monopolar btw, only the tri is bi) and then the Amp Env, the signal from the Amp Env with sustain at Max is highest, the sustain at a smidge over 7 equates to the level from the LFO and a smidge under 7 equates to the level from the gate, the voltmeter shows -0.01 > 5.04 for the (max sustain) Env and 0.00 > 3.79 for the LFO
I’d noted that the equivalent pitch Mod from the A4 CV (using value lin and varying permissible voltage range) to achieve the same pitch range as the P1 Gate signal into the Neutron was 0.06 to 3.59, so this tallies well with all observations
Now if you set the range of A4 CV to find the tipping point for opening/closing the Neutron gate it’s in the range 1.38-1.45 … i.e. a signal falling below 1.38 will close teh gate and any signal above 1.45 will open the gate until it falls below 1.38, if it’s below 1.38 it will not open
Here’s the problem - without triggering the gate i set the Neutron VCA bias to drone and feed the P1 Gate and alternately the equivalent A4 CV signal to the Neutron Pitch Mod and they sound identical to within a few cents … when i swap the inputs from Neutron Pitch CV to Gate CV (or e.g. SmpHld Clock) then the (identical?) A4 voltage still works in both cases, but the Pro-1 will not gate the Neutron, this means that the voltage is somehow not exceeding 1.45, yet it’s the very same signal that moments before was sending 3.6ish to Pitch CV … deeply puzzling !!
Every which way i had tried to wrap my head around this i could not make progress, no googling helped, i updated both (again) - i tried and tried and considered all sorts, swapped cables etc, but right at the end i made a lucky observation, i am wondering if it may help pinpoint what is somehow happening internally here - if i take the P1 Gate out in via the Neutron Mult (with no other cables attached to the patchbay) and then take one of the Mult outs into the Gate it works !!
What gives ? What’s rendering this seemingly adequate voltage from this one source only as insufficient, what has happened to the voltage at that port that isn’t happening when seemingly identical voltages arrive from other sources - it’s clear that the gate voltage isn’t being met, so that voltage is somehow not arriving whereas gates from every other device does - I genuinely cannot pinpoint where my attention should turn, because both behave impeccably with every other bit of gear, so it’s not too clear - my initial fear was that this was something i hadn’t picked up on from the s/h purchase of the mint Pro-1 - i’d genuinely never attempted to drive anything from its seq, it’s rudimentary, but i’d actually wanted to use its sequenced (at LFO rate) gate to clock the Neutron Sample and Hold and was puzzled it didn’t fly … then tried the regular sequencing etc, and many hours later i am stumped.
I wonder if i will have joy at Behringer support, but i thought i’d field the electronics question to any folk with a hunch about what may be occurring here … i’m also going to ask users of either device if they can possibly connect the other in a simple cv/gate sequence test to see if this is restricted to my hardware or a general issue … the Pro-1 has digital envelopes so the scope that this is related to firmware is a possibility, but it doesn’t explain why seemingly similar signals are giving different results
Why is the Voltmeter showing a higher voltage from the Pro-1 gate ? Why does the Pro 1 gate play ball with all other gear and just not the Neutron and why do the gate signals from all other gear get spared this issue ? Why might the Neutron Mult fix the apparent issue between this pair ? What’s occurin’, i’m looking for clues ?
PS if you know a friend with both it and you’re inclined to ask it ought to be a quick experiment to CV seq the neutron from the Pro-1 and relay the success or not … this might not just be me affected !
PPS To trigger both the Neutron Envs you feed the Pro-1 gate to input [ E. Gate 1 ] and the Pro-1 KYBD CV (Pitch) goes to input [ Osc 1+2 ]
