in reading the blurbs and listening to the song demos on the Atmosphere site. There are several references to gating evolving sounds. With the right preset this can a really nice effect for adding a bouncing or rolling rhythm.
The 'right' sort of preset seems to be those bubblers where an lfo (or two) modulates the osc amplitude or pulse width (or both and usually two osc controlled by lfos with different waveform or offset with same waveform)
the gating emphasizes the volume or pulse width breakout and cuts away the squeezed down 'background'.
in my ragged collection of fx, I only have the compressor/gate that came with P-5 and it doesn't seem to have a fine enough gradient in the range I need. and there aren't a lot of gates noted in the effects section.

so what are some nice gating effects for this application -- free to moderate price a plus.

If I'm reading you correctly, my plugin scuzzphut6 would do what you want.
The gating is done via a setp-sequencer (think 808/909/303) and it does, indeed sound nice when you put an eveolving pad through it.

scuzzphut6 is free and can be found at the link below.

PC only.

<edit> I just realised you use P5. I've never tested it in P5, so please let me know how you get on </edit>

thanks a lot
I'll try it this evening

Aye, Scuzzyfoot does some good gatifying plugs - nice GUIs that make you want to play with it too.

Also check out MDA - don't know if they still do a free one but they might. I think they coded the one that comes with Cubase ... "midigate" which is very very flexible .... you can assign a midi sequence to open/close the gate, with all the usual controls for attack, hold, release, sensitivity etc, and you can invert the gate so that a note on opens rather than closes the gate, and vice versa.
So if you've got the patience, you can transfer a drumloop to midi notes in your audio app via hitpoints (or use a beatslicer such as Phatmatik etc) and use the loop rhythm to gate your pads (which generally works far better than a sequenced rhythm obviously, because it's got that human feel).

There are also a few others around, but I can't remember what they're called etc (because I'm well happy with the Cubase one) ... maybe do a search on topic threads here .. I'm sure there have been a few discussions on gates?

the filter section works per controls as far as I can tell,
but if I click to enable the gate section, I don't get any sound at all -- doesn't much matter how the dual line of 16 switches are set after that.

disappointing, eh?

Just a quick correction, Midigate was originally an FXpansion plug I believe, but I'm not sure if Angus still sells it.

ok Wrench. Sorry to hear that it's not working. I've had some issues with hosts that don't provide the full timing information it needs.
You did have the track playing though, right? The sequencer needs to be playing for it to work.

I will be rewriting scuzzphut6 from the ground up sometime fairly soon and will try to work in some kludges to make it work in more hosts.

As alternatives, you should try Destroy Fx midi gate and MIGA, you can find links to both here http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9780&start=0

These work slightly differently. You need to insert these plugins as normal, but then route a seperate midi track to the plugin. Midi notes on that track will open and close the gate. In many ways this is more flexible, but it is a wee bit more fiddly.

Best of luck - let us know how you go.

I added scuzzphut as an effect to a vst playing a complex evolving preset in the usual Cakewalk way. I'm sure it was playing through the effect because I did notice the filter section changed the output when the gate section was not enabled. As soon as the gate section was enabled all sound faded.
I was looking for a threshold control because that's how the few gaters I've auditioned control what gets through, so there's no doubt I was a little confused with how this plugin worked. (always a problem when it doesn't seem to work, I'd guess.)

Given all that it still sounds like something I'd be interested in, so I'm glad to hear you're considering an update.

In the meantime, I've uncovered a similar sounding effect in FL Studio. It's a little different because it works with its step sequencer. There's a gate/portamento control standard on FL plugins. What's a little cool for rhythmic sequences is notes marked in the step sequencer as portamento get full (or fuller) value, while the gate threshold setting cuts off the others. There's a tutorial on it that comes with the download. It sets up a great rolling bass line.
Something with that sort of control, but on a complex, bubbling preset would be what I'm looking for.

well, scuzzphut6 works perfectly in Fruityloops, so why not do your pad part in fruity and load fruity as a plugin in P5? That would solve it.

There is no threshold, the gate is either open or closed, depending on the buttons on the step sequencer. Just make sure you've got a few lamps lit on it, press play in your sequencer and all will become clear.

i had the same notion, but i'm less familiar with the ins and outs of FL. When I refresh on the add channels dialog, new generators/synths show up, but for some reason effects don't -- even though all the FL effects do.

that doesn't seem like the right place to look up effects anyway. By the time I got to this it was well past my bedtime. I was going to consult the manual or post another newbie question to their forum.

i've been alternating little projects trying to get more familiar with FL and integrating it with P-5 for crisper drum lines. I'll give it another go this evening.
thanks.