Again About Using External Oscillators Waves

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Hi there, I’m new about A4 and in general about analog things. I’ve read in the manual that A4 can accept external audio signal as oscillator. Well, my experiments was :

  1. I use sine wave audio signal in various freqs > 1kHz to 500Khz for instance in output from my notebook audio card.
  2. This signal go in input on A4 with standard audio cables.
  3. Setting WAVE OSC1 on [L] and OSC2 on [R], sub OSC off on both. Tracking [OM] on both.
  4. All filters in default values.
  5. I press the local keyboard, but not as I expected, the sound on output on A4 is the same note on all octave, no pitch change/keytracking happen.

I’ve tried to google everywhere but I can’t found any trick for this behaviour. I thought that I can use any external waveforms and play on keyboard like internal oscillators. I’m wrong on something?

many thanks in advance for any help & regards.

#2

It seems that you are expecting the external oscillator’s pitch to change in response to the Analog Four’s pitch. But it also seems that you have not used any means for controlling the external oscillator’s pitch.

A typical set-up would use the AF’s CV track to control the pitch of the external oscillator using CV connections from the AF to the external oscillator.

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#3

You misunderstood
(but i’m not saying that you can do something similar)

It means that you can replace in OSC 1 and OSC 2 the waveform type (what you generally choose when you want to design a sound) as a neighbor routing :

It is also possible to choose one of the two External Inputs (to send external sounds
through the filters)

Check : SETUP EXAMPLES in the manual and you will understand how to deal with what you want to achieve, by CV as Peter reply.

What is your goal @masterbutz with passing audio oscillator in your external inputs and what you would like to do with the analog four after that ?

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#4

Hi guys, thanks for the answer, yes I’ve read example manual, and found out that I can use this as fx box for guitars and various instruments, and tweak the sound with filters, lfo’s, fx’s…I’vent eurorack modules to experiments via CV, so my goal was try to use external waves (ex PPG, WALDORF, MOOG) other than classic A4 internal, and mix them togheter. For instance TRACK1 I can use all A4 oscillators, on TRACK2 some kind of PPG wave on OSC1 [L] and OSC2 [LOCAL SAW], to create more complex instruments playable with external keyboard controller. But I know that I’m feel me a little bit confused… Sorry.

#5

Yes Peter, I thought that I can change the pitch using internal or external keyboard control, simply feed any wave into A4, more like a wavetable synth…
Thanks.

#6

You need to alter the pitch of the external oscillator if you expect it to align with the internal oscillator or the notes you input - something has to change the freq of the external instrument oscillator - it can be midi or cv - it can only be midi if you use the actual playing of the mini keys (i.e. no sequencing of midi) or you can (as mentioned) use CV to control an external oscillator and feed this back in at the ‘correct’ pitch - either way you need to vary the pitch of the external oscillator - the a4 does not sample/re-pitch the incoming audio it only passes it through the filter

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#7

You’re at the good place by the way to see things with more clarity.

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#8

As often, @PeterHanes is right to the point :slight_smile:

The way I do things, I set the CV track to send Gate and Pitch from Track 4, and I set Track 4 oscillators to be the Input.
This way the notes that I set on track 4 are the one I hear.
The envelopes are trigged right where I want, the filters follow the pitch…
IMO it’s the simplest way to set the A4.

So the key thing is, as Peter stated, to get a signal from the A4 to your external device that would control the pitch, so that the input treated as oscillator is at the right pitch.

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