Rabid Elephant - Natural Gate

A top range low-pass gate – Natural Gate is a dual LPG with exceptional sound design capabilities. Users can choose between three material characteristics. Each of them responds differently to excitation signals. Depending on the selected material and other settings, it is possible to produce crisp and hard to soft, more muted sounds. As the trigger frequency increases, the low-pass gates open up more and more. The decay varies depending on the pitch of incoming audio material. Natural Gate’s basic sound is punchy and absolutely clean. Thanks to the thought-through circuit design, each LPG channel can be used as a VCA, ducking compressor, wave shaper or envelope as well. – Just to name a few possibilities.

Contrary to classic LPGs, Natural Gate does not feature optocouplers in its control paths, but uses transistor circuits. The low-pass gates close completely. Their sound is extremely clean. Each low-pass gate comes equipped with the following connectors and control elements:

• In: Audio input – With nothing plugged into this socket, a DC voltage is normalized to the input so that you can extract the LPG's envelope at the out connector.
• Hit: Trigger respectively gate input – Activates the low-pass gate.
• Material switch: This control element is used for choosing a material characteristic.
• Switch in the upper position: Imitation of a hard surface with lots of brightness and very fast attack.
• Switch in the middle position: Imitation of a soft surface with slow attack and a muffled sound.
• Switch in the lower position:  Imitation of a medium hard surface. The sound lies somewhere between the extremes described above.
• Decay fader: Determines the length of the decay.
• Decay connector and knob: CV input with bipolar attenuator used for influencing the decay.
• Open fader: This control element can be used to open the low-pass gate manually.
• Ctrl connector and knob: CV input with bipolar attenuator used for controlling the low-pass gate via an external modulator like an ADSR envelope or a LFO. Without a cable plugged into the socket, musicians can use the Ctrl knob to add an offset to the open parameter.
• Out: This socket emits processed audio material respectively the LPG envelope. (See above)

Many of the Natural Gate’s parameters influence each other in order to achieve the most natural sound possible. The pitch of incoming audio material affects the module’s behavior as well: High notes make the low-pass gates close faster than low notes.
Another important feature of the Natural Gate is the memory effect: As the trigger frequency increases, the low-pass gates open up more and more.