Voyager envelope, fades out even with held gate

[ummagumma]

I am setting up a patch with no osc's, just the noise source, and trying to keep it sustained & running.

However after a few mins the volume drops out, and I need to retrigger the gate to get it to produce sound again.....then after a few mins it drops out again.

This is with the keyboard env switch set to "on". I even set gate to "gate is on" in the menu, with the same result.

Env & gate sustains are both on full

If I plug a jack into the ext gate input it triggers it, but doing that or feeding a 5v source in doesn't hold the volume either: the same thing happens.

What am I missing here?

-edit: it's also doing it with the osc's so changed the thread title.

If I toggle the keyboard gate switch it retriggers too, but still fades out

Thanks!

[ummagumma]

I wonder if there's an old cap in there that's dried up. Will research how the gate/env circuit works. Voyager is from 2013 I think, so I'd be surprised but you never know.

[ummagumma]

Unless I've forgotten something about the envelopes: do they not hold indefinitely?

Got a workaround by pinging the gate CV every once in a while with a sequencer

[stiiiiiiive]

Hm, I'm not sure how relevant this can be but here is a fact: in the Little Phatty manual, it is said that for holding an envelope, the gate should be permanent AND the decay setting should be before noon, due to the design of the envelopes.
Does the Voyager manual states the same?

Also, IIRC, even with this setting, the envelope will slowly decrease. I can retest that soon if it helps.

[ummagumma]

Oh, that's interesting let me play around with that. I had the decay maxxed out too.

Thanks!

[ummagumma]

Well that seems to do the trick!

Had a look thru the manual & didn't see any reference to that. I am sure I've used a voyager to drone in the past: must have had the decay <noon.

Thanks again!

[stiiiiiiive]

Sure, glad it helped

That being said, the hypothesis of a capacitor getting old is plausible.

[ummagumma]

Yes, I only thought of that because I'd read the model D won't drone because the envelope circuit involves a capacitor that will eventually discharge, no matter what. I had imagined adding a drone switch, but stalled when I read that.

I am pretty sure the voyager has a different env circuit though.

Anyway, thanks again for the tip!

[Acid Mitch]

It's definitely the decay settings. There's some posts about it from years ago that explains it. As you've discovered , you need short decay times for drones or it stops. If decay is above 50% then the level continues to zero and you don't have anything to sustain.

[ummagumma]

Yeah that is an interesting conundrum, and not intuitively apparent. I guess I never had the decay cranked up past noon, any time I've droned in the past.

I wonder why that is though? Decay is just a time based value, and shouldn't theoretically affect the final level?

[Acid Mitch]

There's this quote from Amos:

also make sure volume envelope DECAY value is right down -- there's a quirk in Bob's Voyager envelope design (which we also used in the Phatty), such that the sustain level will gradually bleed away to nothing if the Decay level is too high.

I think there was another post with some more info but I can't find it.

[ummagumma]

I guess it's useful if you want really long envs that do eventually fade out

It's a bonus feature, not a bug

[Acid Mitch]

once it's faded out you can bring the level back up by turning the decay down and then make it fade again by turning decay back up. This can be automated/sequenced

[stiiiiiiive]

Nice!!

[ummagumma]

Hey, that is a pretty neat thing to be aware of, thanks!