Microfreak/UG/09 Envelope Gen/06 Cycling Envelope/01 Cycling Envelope Stages

• 09.6.1 The stages of the Cycling Envelope

  • The Cycling Envelope has three stages:
    • Rise sets how long the envelope takes to reach its maximum after a keyboard or Arp/Seq trigger.
    • Fall/Shape sets how long the envelope takes to fall to zero.
    • Hold/Sustain, part of the Fall/Shape control, sets the level held during the Hold stage.
  • The Mode button selects Env, Run, or Loop:
    • Env: The envelope runs once and stops at the end of Fall.
    • Run: The envelope free-runs as an LFO and resets when the MicroFreak receives a MIDI Start command.
    • Loop: A keyboard, sequencer, or arpeggiator trigger resets the envelope. It retriggers at the end of Fall in Run and Loop modes.
  • In Env mode, a keyboard or external gate starts Rise. Sustain stays high while the key is held; releasing the key ends the gate and starts Fall. In Run and Loop modes, Hold stays high for the time set with the Hold knob before Fall begins.
  • To hear the stages, connect CycEnv to oscillator Pitch in the Matrix and set the amount to about 20. Set Rise to about 200 ms, Hold to 0, Fall to 0 ms, and Amount to 50%. Pitch rises, then slowly falls; lowering Amount makes the rise less noticeable.
  • In Loop mode, very short Rise, Fall, and Hold settings make the Cycling Envelope cycle quickly as a complex LFO. Change these times to change its wave shape.
  • In Loop mode, trigger the envelope with the keyboard or Arp/Seq. Set the arpeggiator near 55 bpm and hold a chord to hear the envelope retrigger on each step.