Hi everyone and Merry Christmas (or alternative festive celebration of your choosing) to you all.
I received a Beatstep Pro yesterday which I’d requested expecting to use it to sequence my Minimoog and ARP Odyssey via its two channels of CV-gate outputs. Straight away I’ve hit problems in that the BSP will not trigger the Mini. I’ve set it to s-trig mode but no response from the synth. It will change the pitch CV, but even with the 0Volt base note set to C-2 the notes are really high. I’ve got similar pitch issues with the Oddy where even with everything transposed down on the BSP and tuned down on the synth there is no bass register available.
So at the moment it’s looking like a very pretty brick that’s going back to Santa’s workshop for a refund. But I’d be curious to know if anyone has managed to trigger a Model D with a BSP, and how. I don’t want to do it via midi and converters - that defeats the object.
Thanks for any help!
Edit: - I’ve found a further transpose feature so can get bass notes now. So I really need a fix for the trigger issue
The Minimoog is a finicky beast as far as triggering it via the trigger input. Even though it accepts an external S-Trigger signal, you have to watch the polarity. Also, if you play a note on the keyboard, it will have priority over the external S-Trigger signal. Also, the DECAY switch on the Mod Wheel panel will have no effect (always ON) when triggering form an external S-Trigger source, and the GLIDE switch will not work either when controlling the pitch via an external CV.
NOTE: Depending on the calibration of your particular Minimoog D, and the precision of the Pitch CV sent to it, it might play in tune only on a limited number of notes and start to be out-of-tune on the higher notes rather quickly. And you have to play the lowest C on its keyboard first to get to right notes to play, as the keyboard will transpose (add to) the CV coming in.
On the Cinch-Jones Ext S-Trigger socket on the Minimoog D, the “positive” side leg of the external S-Trigger is the shortest slot, and the ground is longest one. It’s important that the ground remains the ground throughout.
Also, when I tried to trigger the Minimoog D from my Korg Mono/Poly, even when its Trigher-out was set to GND it didn’t work. I had to use the +15V gate trigger out setting on the Korg, and pass it thru an external S-Trigger converter (shown below) before sending it to the Moog for it to work properly.
Hope this helps.
P.S. jsharphoto, the Minimoog D accepts only an S-Trigger (short to ground) signal for triggering correctly. NOT a positive gate signal.
You can specify the trigger format in the BSP editor. But the Pitch CV is always 10v. I was addressing the “pitches are way too high” comment, but I didn’t specify. I have 0.00 experience with any s.trig synths.
I having the same problem with Beatstep pro. Just got it about an hour ago so still have to figure it out. Where in Beatstep can you lower the register besides the obvious Octave buttons. BTW as for the gate signal, My mini was modified with a Vtrig for the gate signal.
You can set th base note for each step in the editor, but I believe that’s only for midi. To adjust the cv range, you need the attentuator cables from Koma Electronic.
I haven’t solved the trigger problem, and have resorted to controlling the Mini over midi instead using a Kenton pro Solo.
Using a combination of the BSP’s octave transpose (pressing the relevant sequence button + the octave shift pads), tuning down with the step knobs, and the transpose function on the Kenton I can go as low as ever I’d need to.
Clearly there’s and issue with the BSP though in that it won’t work on its own.
