Triggering the Soundlab ?

[Wild Zebra]

So I dug out my ole TR-626. It has a trigger out. It is supplied by the rim shot in a pattern and is +5v. I tried making a patch(lets just say like a laser beam) and hook it up , but to no avail. Not sure how to do this as I've never done it before. So this is what I did. trigger out to the OSC CV, Mixer up, patch set(AR out to VCA) switch to trigger, but all I get is the OSC droning and when the trigger hits an increase in volume.

This is probably wrong. Can you steer me in the right direction?

[Uncle Krunkus]

You need to go in through the External Gate in on the ARGen. I'm not sure whether it will trigger with 5V most gates use 12V, but I still don't know the Soundlab very well. I do know it's definately not any kind of CVin. The external trigger will re start the AR every time the trigger comes in. Man, wish I had an old 626 hanging around!

[Wild Zebra]

The soundlab isn't supposed to get anymore than 9v(I think). It does have a Ex. Gate In. Its not exactly on the AR, but I thought I tried that
as well. I guess I'll just tinker around alittle more tonight. Yeh I figured that 626 might come in handy one day so I've hung on to it.

[Macaba]

A trigger is not a CV signal, or is it a sound signal. Its quite unique in a third group- control signals, signals and gates being in this.

Trigger being a pulse that comes in when you hit a note, so the trigger out of your instruments has to be routed to a trigger-in, and if you are lucky, it might work if you put it in a Gate-in. You use it on the envelope generator which is linked to the VCA, to make a piano note length sound when you hit a note on the keyboard.

If you already knew all this, my apologies.

[Uncle Krunkus]

A gate was originally a name for what comes out of a CV Gate era synth. The gate goes from 0V to say 12V when a key is pressed down and comes back to 0V when the key is released. In this situation the "gate" may be open for whatever length of time the key is depressed.
On a drum machine the event which triggers the signal is short, ie a rimshot in the pattern etc. Therefore a pre-defined length (10ms or so)one-shot "trigger" occurs on the trigger out as the rimshot plays. So except for the fixed or variable length of the "high" level a gate and a trigger are the same thing, and generally interchangeable, patchable, etc.
Any well designed ext trigger in should be able to accept 12V to accomodate these old synths.

[mosc]

Just to make the discussion complete, the old original MOOG Modulars used something called an S-Trigger. S stands for switch. The S-Trigger was ON when the two contacts were shorted together. One lead was the "hot" and the other the ground, so when the hot was grounded, the envelope generator would fire. After about a year or two, Moog realized this was a bad design concept, so he added the V-trigger, which was a positive going signial like uncle-krunkus described in the previous post. The original Moog sequencer generated V-Triggers. Of course, you had to have a V-to-S converter.

Anyhow, IMHO, any good trigger or gate input should fire if the signal exceeds +0.5 volts. Then you can easilly use oscillators, enevelope followers, or any other module to trigger note events.

[Wild Zebra]

Thanks everyone. I got it figured out. It was mechanical not knowledge
based although I enjoy the lesson. I had my momentary switch wired wrong. It has two hots and a ground. I had it on the wrong lead. Once I
switched it voila triggered sounds via my 626. Its pretty fun so far.

well thanks again

[mosc]

Here is some excellent information about V-Trigs and S-Trigs including some circuits to convert between them.

http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-7110.html