Electric Druid ADSR Envelope Generator: Introduction! 1 Features ! 2
Electric Druid ADSR Envelope Generator: Introduction! 1 Features ! 2
Electric Druid ADSR Envelope Generator: Introduction! 1 Features ! 2
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Introduction
This voltage-controlled ADSR envelope generator chip is a completely modern, microprocessorbased design that emulates the analogue ADSR chips of the late 70s and 80s. The two key chips that were used as a model are the CEM3312 Voltage Controlled Envelope Generator and the SSM2056 Voltage Controlled Envelope Generator. The rst of these was used in the Sequential Pro-One (and probably many other Sequential synths) and the SSM was used in the Korg Polysix, amongst others. In many ways these are extremely similar ICs. Both chips include control voltages for A, D, S and R. The CEM3312 includes a CV pin for the nal envelope output level. This is intended to provide a voltage-controlled envelope depth to a VCF in programmable systems. As such, this is a very useful feature, and saves a VCA doing the job, as they point out in the datasheet. It can also be used to provide velocity sensitivity if fed a velocity CV. The SSM2056 includes a pin for the keyboard CV. An increasing voltage on this pin reduces the attack, decay, and release times overall. This allows you to set up shorter envelopes at the high end of the keyboard than the low end, mimicking the effect of many natural percussion instruments. This VCADSR chip includes both these inputs, LEVEL CV and TIME CV. It also includes a digital input to select between the traditional exponential envelope shape and a linear envelope, typical of early-era digital synths. The output from the chip is a PWM pulse train which only requires simple lowpass ltering to produce a genuine ADSR envelope shape.
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Features
Range of around 1 mSec to 10 Sec.
The Minimoog, Sequential Pro-One and SH101 all have a famously quick attack time. Ive never measured it, but its supposed to be around 1 mSec. This envelope generator can also produce times that short. Most analogue synths can do a slow attack of a handful of seconds, but 10 seconds gives a neat range of 1:10000 to be covered by the control voltages, and allows really slowly evolving sounds to be generated.
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Pinout Diagram
Pin
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Function
+5V CLK1 CLK2 GATE INPUT PWM OUTPUT EXP/LIN INPUT LEVEL CV TIME CV RELEASE CV SUSTAIN CV DECAY CV ATTACK CV TRIGGER INPUT 0V
Details
Power supply Connect to Xtal Connect to Xtal 0-5V digital input 0-5V digital output 0-5V digital input 0-5V analogue input 0-5V analogue input 0-5V analogue input 0-5V analogue input 0-5V analogue input 0-5V analogue input 0-5V digital input Power supply 20MHz Clock 20MHz Clock
Notes
Envelope goes to RELEASE stage on falling edge of 0-5V pulse. PWM output at 19.5KHz 0V - Exponential envelope 5V - Linear envelope 8 bit, values from 0 to 255 8 bit, values from 0 to 255 8 bit, values from 0 to 255 8 bit, values from 0 to 255 8 bit, values from 0 to 255 8 bit, values from 0 to 255 Envelope goes to ATTACK stage on rising edge of 0-5V pulse.
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Application Notes
Basic circuit diagram
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