Mother32, DFAM and a BeatStep Pro voltage question...

[Tessic]

Hello, I recently acquired an Arturia Beatstep Pro to use with my Mother32's and a DFAM. The Beatstep Pro output ports on the back of the unit send a voltage of about 12.8v for Sequencer Gates 1 and 2, Drum Gates at 12.8v and a max of 12.8v for velocity. The highest pitch voltage at C-6 is 6v. The manual states the port "VCO 1v/oct" accepts a +/-5v signal. Should I be worried about over voltage? The manual says the Gate input tolerant of 10v gates and i'm 2.8v above that. And Velocity input on the DFAM states 0 to +5v, and most of the ports in the patchbay on either the Mother32 and the DFAM state +/-5v. Since the BeatstepPro outputs only positive voltage, overvoltage is what Im most concerned about. Should I be?

[Spursmith]

I’m literally wondering the same thing , I’m nervous using the dfam with the bsp, have you made any progress with this ?

[analogmonster]

Hello, I recently acquired an Arturia Beatstep Pro to use with my Mother32's and a DFAM. The Beatstep Pro output ports on the back of the unit send a voltage of about 12.8v for Sequencer Gates 1 and 2, Drum Gates at 12.8v and a max of 12.8v for velocity. The highest pitch voltage at C-6 is 6v. The manual states the port "VCO 1v/oct" accepts a +/-5v signal. Should I be worried about over voltage? The manual says the Gate input tolerant of 10v gates and i'm 2.8v above that. And Velocity input on the DFAM states 0 to +5v, and most of the ports in the patchbay on either the Mother32 and the DFAM state +/-5v. Since the BeatstepPro outputs only positive voltage, overvoltage is what Im most concerned about. Should I be?

Always the same integration poblem.

Even if the receiving ports / inputs are protected against over voltage, the question is whether the different voltage ranges of the sending unit are understood by the receiving unit, especially the CV part.

The Gate over voltages can be adapted by a simple attenuator. There the information is just "on" and "off". But this does not work with CVs for VCOs, as scale is changed with the attenuator as well.

For this I developed a level shifter. It can invert CVs, is a level shifter and an attenuator additionally. See
https://www.analog-monster.de/cvi_en.html
for details. Of course there are other modules / circuits as well which do the same. If you need one, send me an email.

If C0 is at -5V, I would level shift the CV output of the sending unit by 5V upwards. But this means that the C5 is the highest note you can send to the receiving instrument, as a C9 would create +10V level shifted. But -2V for a C3 won't be understood by the receiver, so you must do something anyway.

So you have two problems: The voltage range in height *AND* position. What you must do for integration is to level shift the sendung unit CV about 5V and stay in the note range from C0 to C5 to be on the secure side.