Selig Gain CV Question

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cacibi
Posts: 5
Joined: 25 Jan 2018

08 Feb 2018

Posting this under the heading: (I hope) There Are No Dumb Questions

I am just learning about CV. I have been a Reason user for awhile but, some may find this strange...I'm not really a synth guy. I use reason mainly for recorded audio projects. I have just always found it easier to use for this than ProTools or other DAW's.

Anyway - I am trying to tap into things that CV can do, such as VCA fader groups via Gain, that Reason lacks out of the box.

I created an instance of the Selig Audio VCA fader group combinator and tried to figure out how it all works. I thought that I could just create a trimmed down version myself by using one Selig Gain instance to control another via CV fader out. However, what I got was a huge blast of gain. I can see in the manual where it states this can happens but I can't seem to understand whats going on with the CV in the Combinator that is missing if I just chain together two Selig Gain units.

If I measure the CV between the splitter in the combinator and on of the gain units meant to go in a device insert, it goes from 0 to 127 and this CV controls the VCA fader from zero db at 127 to infinity at 0. But in order to get it to work the same way by just chaining two SG units together (taking the Fader CV out of one unit and inserting it in to the Fader CV IN of another) I can only replicate the same response if I warp the CV so the max value is 0 and the minimum is -127.

What am I missing or not understanding?

Thanks for your help.

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Oquasec
Posts: 2849
Joined: 05 Mar 2017

08 Feb 2018

Been on Reason since 2010, when you learn the CV you basically remove the need for 200+ vst synths and samplers. (You can still use those however)
What makes Reason worth using is that once you get used to how it works, you can get a lot of stuff done without much hassle in a stable piece of kit to lay out tracks & bumps/ideas.
Producer/Programmer.
Reason, FLS and Cubase NFR user.

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selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

08 Feb 2018

cacibi wrote:
08 Feb 2018
Posting this under the heading: (I hope) There Are No Dumb Questions

I am just learning about CV. I have been a Reason user for awhile but, some may find this strange...I'm not really a synth guy. I use reason mainly for recorded audio projects. I have just always found it easier to use for this than ProTools or other DAW's.

Anyway - I am trying to tap into things that CV can do, such as VCA fader groups via Gain, that Reason lacks out of the box.

I created an instance of the Selig Audio VCA fader group combinator and tried to figure out how it all works. I thought that I could just create a trimmed down version myself by using one Selig Gain instance to control another via CV fader out. However, what I got was a huge blast of gain. I can see in the manual where it states this can happens but I can't seem to understand whats going on with the CV in the Combinator that is missing if I just chain together two Selig Gain units.
I imagine what happened was the following: you used VCA mode on Selig Gain and left the level at max (the default setting). So your VCA is starting out at max level, then you add max level from a CV input to that and BOOM! This is the nature of CV. ;)

In this case you have two choices: use a negative CV value to LOWER the gain (instead of a positive value), or move the fader down to zero/min and use positive CV to increase the level (which is how the Combinators work).
cacibi wrote:
08 Feb 2018
If I measure the CV between the splitter in the combinator and on of the gain units meant to go in a device insert, it goes from 0 to 127 and this CV controls the VCA fader from zero db at 127 to infinity at 0. But in order to get it to work the same way by just chaining two SG units together (taking the Fader CV out of one unit and inserting it in to the Fader CV IN of another) I can only replicate the same response if I warp the CV so the max value is 0 and the minimum is -127.

What am I missing or not understanding?

Thanks for your help.
Again, all you have to do with VCA mode is lower the fader of the Selig Gain that has audio going through it. You won't see the fader move or any other indication of level (could be added in a future update…), but you'll hear it.

There are ways to do similar things with a Combinator, where the fader will actually move, but it involves a slightly different setup which is a little more complex…
Selig Audio, LLC

cacibi
Posts: 5
Joined: 25 Jan 2018

08 Feb 2018

Thanks very much for that explanation.

okaino
Posts: 143
Joined: 04 Jan 2017

17 Feb 2018

selig wrote:
08 Feb 2018
cacibi wrote:
08 Feb 2018
Posting this under the heading: (I hope) There Are No Dumb Questions

I am just learning about CV. I have been a Reason user for awhile but, some may find this strange...I'm not really a synth guy. I use reason mainly for recorded audio projects. I have just always found it easier to use for this than ProTools or other DAW's.

Anyway - I am trying to tap into things that CV can do, such as VCA fader groups via Gain, that Reason lacks out of the box.

I created an instance of the Selig Audio VCA fader group combinator and tried to figure out how it all works. I thought that I could just create a trimmed down version myself by using one Selig Gain instance to control another via CV fader out. However, what I got was a huge blast of gain. I can see in the manual where it states this can happens but I can't seem to understand whats going on with the CV in the Combinator that is missing if I just chain together two Selig Gain units.
I imagine what happened was the following: you used VCA mode on Selig Gain and left the level at max (the default setting). So your VCA is starting out at max level, then you add max level from a CV input to that and BOOM! This is the nature of CV. ;)

In this case you have two choices: use a negative CV value to LOWER the gain (instead of a positive value), or move the fader down to zero/min and use positive CV to increase the level (which is how the Combinators work).
cacibi wrote:
08 Feb 2018
If I measure the CV between the splitter in the combinator and on of the gain units meant to go in a device insert, it goes from 0 to 127 and this CV controls the VCA fader from zero db at 127 to infinity at 0. But in order to get it to work the same way by just chaining two SG units together (taking the Fader CV out of one unit and inserting it in to the Fader CV IN of another) I can only replicate the same response if I warp the CV so the max value is 0 and the minimum is -127.

What am I missing or not understanding?

Thanks for your help.
Again, all you have to do with VCA mode is lower the fader of the Selig Gain that has audio going through it. You won't see the fader move or any other indication of level (could be added in a future update…), but you'll hear it.

There are ways to do similar things with a Combinator, where the fader will actually move, but it involves a slightly different setup which is a little more complex…
Selig would you mind explaining how to set it up with the combinator?

User avatar
selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

17 Feb 2018

okaino wrote:
17 Feb 2018
selig wrote:
08 Feb 2018

I imagine what happened was the following: you used VCA mode on Selig Gain and left the level at max (the default setting). So your VCA is starting out at max level, then you add max level from a CV input to that and BOOM! This is the nature of CV. ;)

In this case you have two choices: use a negative CV value to LOWER the gain (instead of a positive value), or move the fader down to zero/min and use positive CV to increase the level (which is how the Combinators work).



Again, all you have to do with VCA mode is lower the fader of the Selig Gain that has audio going through it. You won't see the fader move or any other indication of level (could be added in a future update…), but you'll hear it.

There are ways to do similar things with a Combinator, where the fader will actually move, but it involves a slightly different setup which is a little more complex…
Selig would you mind explaining how to set it up with the combinator?
You put Gain in a Combinator, and use a CV input from the "master" Gain to control the fader by the Combinator Programmer. You won't be able to offset the gain like with the VCA approach via CV, as all faders will be operating in perfect sync. In other words, you can't have 4 faders in this type of group with different settings - they will all be exactly the same.

The way to use this setup is simply to control the relative level of all grouped channels, using their main faders to set initial levels and using Selig Gain only to control the overall group level. Make sense?
Selig Audio, LLC

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