Heya!- So upon attaining an MG-1, I’ve been enjoying the setting where you (under the "countour section) switch sustain to “off”, tone sources (oscs) to “contoured”, and then the rise and fall to their longest setting- With this setup on stage, as I play guitar, I can hit a key randomly, walk away, and a nice swell slowly comes in and fades while I’m playing the guitar-
Why can’t I figure this out on my Voyager Old School! I’m sure it’s possible, but I’m having zero luck- Maybe there’s an issue with my envelope? At the longest setting on attack, I can instantly hear the note, albiet quiet of course, but if I let go of the keyboard, it fails to rise any further, despite any decay or sustain setting changes…
weird, huh? or is this a unique feature of the MG-1…?
Are you saying the oscillators are rising and falling in pitch or in volume? Sorry for not understanding, I’m not quite awake yet lol
I guess the MG-1 envelope attack stage doesn’t end until it reaches the top voltage. On the controary, the VOS’ skips to the realease stage when the key is depressed. Isn’t there anything like that?..
Try to have attack and decay with long values, no sustain, and hit the “KEY-ON” switch rather than a key.
The MG-1 provides the unconditional contour function, allowing you to hit a key without holding it and having the entire attack and release stage play out. The Memorymoog also has this function. Not all synths will do this. I looked at the Voyager Old School manual and did not see anything about unconditional contours.
So only a longer gate will do. Besides using the KEYBOARD-ON swotch, consider pluggong a footswitch in the gate input.
unconditional contour function
Cool thanks! I’m fine with the OS NOT being able to do this, obviously since after 2 years of using it, I haven’t felt that need- But when I stumbled upon this ability with the MG1 (I just got one), I assumed it would be possible on the big Voyager- I’ll just use the MG when I need to “hit and run”, haha- I’m just glad there’s not something wrong with the MG’s big brother! Thanks all, as always!
MG-1… this little boy is really capable of fun stuffs 
I always thought these were interesting envelope/contour generators. Both the Rogue and Taurus 2 share the same self-completing EG’s as the MG-1. The original mu-Sonics Sonic V and later Moog Sonic Six had the same style generators. Described as using a dual gate latch in the Sonic Six service manual.
Would be nice to have a switch to get both responses. Not sure of any other EG’s that use this type of self-completing latch on the attack portion of the envelope. But it is one of the fun features on the Sonic Six that seperate it from the other classic Moogs. The Taurus 2’s were great for that “pressing the pedal” to start a swell sound that took a few seconds to complete. The Sonic Six generators go much longer and can be routed to several modulation destinations.
On the Voyager, flipping the Env. Gate switch to “on” with a contour set with no sustain should do the same with much longer times. (works with nothing plugged into the gate input) Or you could go really Old School and set a weight on one of the keys. 
But that switch should do the same thing the MG-1 does with sustain set to zero. Try it!
There are at least a few synths that provide unconditional contour. Besides the Memorymoog, analog modeling synths do it. The Waldorf Blofeld has a “one shot” mode, and the Alesis Micron/Akai Miniak have a “freerun” mode.
I use this type of sound frequently to provide background sounds live. Very useful.
It is an AD envelope or generator depending on the synth. AR is another common form. Both run the full cycle from a trigger event and do not rely on gate events.
Really? Aren’t there any AR that jump to the R segment whenever the input gate is interrupted, no matter where the A segment is?
Yes, there are. The Memorymoog will do that. The ARP 2600 also has an AR envelope that begins the release when the key is let up.