Unexpected results from CV merge

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mbfrancis
Posts: 647
Joined: 02 Feb 2015
Location: Orange County, CA
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19 Feb 2018

Can someone pls explain how CV merge works...here's what I'm doing:

I'm using Thor's step sequencer to trigger a VST bass. Great. But the pattern works for major chords, not minor. So I want to set up another Thor with a modified pattern and switch between the two for other parts of the song. I would have been happy to have two MIDI note lanes, one for each Thor trigger - messy but I could see what was happening clearly. I figured if I merge the CV and the Gate signals from each Step Sequencer, and then only trigger one at a time via MIDI, I should be fine, right? No. The gate works OK, but the pitch is multiplied just by merging and comes out super high. This occurs with every merge utility, so it's not a bug. What's going on? Is it something with the step sequencer?

In the end I created a combi and used the Pongasoft CV/Audio AB switch, but I'm still confused why pitch CV behaves this way...any help appreciated.
Last edited by mbfrancis on 19 Feb 2018, edited 1 time in total.
Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. I make indie pop as Port Streets, 90s/shoegaze as Swooner, and Electro as Yours Mine.

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selig
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Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

19 Feb 2018

I would say this is due to the fact that Note CV sends a value at all times, even when the gate isn’t triggered/open. So merging the two Note CV signals actually adds them together.

It’s the same with gates (the signals are added), but gates send a ‘zero’ when not triggered, and respond to any non-zero signal (or close to zero signal). So when two gates are merged, you either get nothing (zero plus zero = zero), or you get a gate - even when two gates are present you still just get a gate.

Some confusion about the CV Merge device may come from the term “merge”, which in other apps such as Reaktor means both signals are sent down one ‘wire’. This is opposed to an “add” in Reaktor, where the signals are added together (summed). But in Reason, the “merge” is actually an “add”, and this becomes an issue when merging Note CV data since adding two notes results in a higher note.


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