Patch Notes (05/06/2026) - Gate Trains & Subtractive Sequencing

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Hey, it's Jilani. Um, today I wanted to do an episode of patch notes focusing on a concept that I heard on a um, podcast called Source of Uncertainty called gate trains. Essentially, instead of using um, the sequencer for the gates to have specific notes that you choose and they play, you use continuous stream of well, essentially gates that you then kind of filter out. That way you can control the density of the um, the notes going into the well, speakers. Uh, let me kind of show what I'm talking about. So, I'll start with just the uh, sound that we're working with today.

[00:00:37]>> [music] >> It's a combination of the two harmonic oscillators and the complex oscillator going into the scanning pan. Um, I'm just using a random voltage [music] to move the filter around. Um, so, this right now that's [music] the sound we're going to be working with.

[00:00:54]The whole concept um, essentially I'm going to get the voltage multi stages gate output. And I'll use the control voltage processor pretty much for everything. So, you can do this whole thing with just these two modules. So, I'll take the gate output from here and uh, I'll take that into the uh, input.

[00:01:12]Essentially, on the CV processor you have different sections. For the uh, middle and bottom section, they're both identical. Essentially, you have a cross fader that can come from will go from input um, three to input four. And with CV you can essentially control how much of input four you're receiving. If it's facing input three with a positive voltage. Uh, so, if I'm starting it up now, we have all the gates from the voltage multi stage 16 going into the CV processor and only when it opens up do you see the output blinking showing that gates are essentially going through it. Uh, so, I'll take the output from here to my envelope generator. Um, so, let's take one of these guys, patch it over here, and you're here when I turn this knob, >> [music] >> I'm allowing the gates to essentially flow through it. Now, for the um envelope that I'm going to use to essentially >> [music] >> open it up, I'll use the top part of the CV processor. So, I'll get a uh cable from the trigger to the gate output. Now, essentially we have an LFO happening. So, if I grab another cable from the output from this, and I take it into the uh select input, >> [music] >> now essentially we're using the envelope to allow the notes to go through.

[00:02:39][music] Um so, essentially I'm opening the door for the gate train to fly through. Now, we can control >> [music] >> that envelope with the rise and fall.

[00:02:49]And you can kind of make it more interesting patterns [music] that way if you let's say reference it to a kick, so.

[00:02:57]>> [music] >> And you can kind of essentially like improvise, freestyle how that goes.

[00:03:06]>> [music] [music] >> And now instead of like trying to select the individual notes, you're [music] just working in densities. Um another cool way of thinking about this uh instead of [music] the gate train, you can call it like subtractive um sequencing instead of synthesis, cuz essentially you're starting with just a continuous notes, and then you're subtracting >> [music] >> what you have there. Because this envelope [singing] isn't tied to the clock, it phases in and out kind of.

[00:03:50]And why that's [music] also useful for the verbose modules at least, um if you're >> [music] >> turning the gates on and off, you're also turning off that row of modulation [music] or that step of modulation. Um so now you can have all the essentially 16 [music] steps or eight steps or 10 steps um with the CV controlling [music] something. So right now I have that route to pitch for all of them.

[00:04:16]>> [music] >> And it's not the gates are still [music] continuous, so you can still have pitch going across all of them.

[00:04:29]>> [music] >> Or whatever you want to use that CV for.

[00:04:37]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> And then if you ever want to just like go back to the 16th note you just turn.

[00:06:18]>> [music] >> And then back to the gate train.

[00:06:25]>> [music] [music] >> So yeah.

[00:06:38]Gate trains are subtractive sequencing.

[00:06:41]Um >> [music] >> yeah, patch notes.

[00:06:46]And uh one more thing that I just um realized I wanted to kind of mention too, you don't need the voltage multi stage 16 at all for this. In fact, if I take it out of here, I can just have the uh gate train itself coming from whatever clock I want. So in theory, I could do this entire thing with just the uh CV processor. So So you could just use this itself as its own sequencer in in a way. Um yeah.