11-09-2020, 08:31 AM
I suspect your issue is a rather common one. Luckily nothing needs to change on the NDLR, just your setup. I've experienced similar issues as you describe. As it turns out, a Note Off is issued before another Note On is issued everytime on the NDLR. The result is that the gate should be going up and down quite frequently. As has been mentioned by the Conductive Labs folks before, the Drone, like the other parts of the NDLR play in legato style. Meaning there is essentially no time (or rather, minimum time) between Off and On. It all comes down to the quality of your MIDI to gate converter and the input characteristics of your envelope generator.
I took the 'MIDI Gate' output from my Berhringer Neutron to a scope and got a reliable and predictable Gate Off time of about 3ms. Attached is a photo. The Neutron always generates a note as expected. On the other hand, my Cre8audio Nifty Case makes a low pulse of less than 2ms, and often times misses pulses. The Cre8audio Cellz sequencer rarely advances with drone notes. It simply can't see the short event. It will trigger a little better using the Neutron to send the gate, but still misses a lot of events.
Moral of the story? You have to use gear that's engineered a little better than the high school level. You didn't mention what device does your 'MIDI to CV magic,' but it might not be magical enough.
I took the 'MIDI Gate' output from my Berhringer Neutron to a scope and got a reliable and predictable Gate Off time of about 3ms. Attached is a photo. The Neutron always generates a note as expected. On the other hand, my Cre8audio Nifty Case makes a low pulse of less than 2ms, and often times misses pulses. The Cre8audio Cellz sequencer rarely advances with drone notes. It simply can't see the short event. It will trigger a little better using the Neutron to send the gate, but still misses a lot of events.
Moral of the story? You have to use gear that's engineered a little better than the high school level. You didn't mention what device does your 'MIDI to CV magic,' but it might not be magical enough.