A comparator answers just one question: is this signal above a threshold? If yes, its output is high (a 10 V gate); if not, it is low (0 V). It is the bridge between the world of gliding voltages (LFOs, envelopes, musical inputs) and the world of events (clocks, triggers, gates).
Controls
- Thresh: the threshold, from −10 V to +10 V. A ±5 V LFO compared with a 0 V threshold gives a gate whose high and low halves last the same; raise the threshold and the gate gets shorter.
- Hyst: hysteresis, from 0 to 2 V. The gate goes high when the signal rises above the threshold by half this amount, and only drops when it falls below the threshold by that same half. It stops a burst of triggers when the signal jitters around the threshold (noise, or an LFO grazing the limit).
Inputs
- In: the signal to compare, polyphonic: each voice gets its own gate.
- Ref: an optional threshold as a control voltage. When patched, it takes over from the Thresh knob, so another LFO can move the threshold, and with it the width of the gate.
Outputs
- Gate: high (10 V) as long as In is above the threshold.
- Not: the exact opposite of Gate, high when the other is low. Two envelopes patched to the two outputs take turns.