is this a gate or... something else?

[glittle]

I'm looking for an audio insert effect that:

+ can pass stereo audio through with stereo field intact

+ does what things like trance gates and so on do, but where patterns can be quite a bit longer (like, at least 8 bars of configurable beats per bar)

+ for each pulse/note/beat, the adjustible per-pulse parameters include at least attack, release, and sustain-width (although full ADSR with selectable curve type would be nice), and amplitude (so some beats/gates could be louder than others).

+ can be triggered to start and stop in some way... I've found that ones that kind of "free run" from either where you start playback or the beginning of the project can get messed up if you have bars of different sizes ahead of where they are audible... their "count" of where they are in the pattern does not necessarily match up with where I want them to start.

Having controls over other things than amplitude (like filtering, panning, etc) are nice but not explicitly necessary. I'm mostly looking for the amplitude gating at this point.

The kilohearts trance gate interface is nice and quick... an extended version of that would seem pretty intuitive, but in kilohearts you only control whether a specific time slot is "on" or "off", so there's no amplitude control per pulse. But the ADSR control that controls all pulses globally is nice and quick. If Kilohearts could stop/start where I want it to, had the ability to do significantly more steps before repeat, and had per-step amplitude control, that might do the trick.

What would I want to look into to find this sort of thing? I do have zebrify... maybe that can do this? I took a quick look (not a zebra master by any means) and didn't see how to trigger it to start, so kind of gave up without exploring whether or not I could get the sequencer or msegs or envelopes or something to really do what I needed on a multi-bar scale (8 bars of 4 beats = 64 eighth notes, which could get unwieldy depending upon how editing and configuring is done).

Actually, as I think about it, maybe a vst synth "effect version" (like zebrify) that can take audio input would be best, and just use midi notes and velocity to control the gate pattern and per-note amplitude. I think in addition to considering plugins as described above, I need to see if there is a way to route a track of midi data to zebrify such that it responds to note-ons, velocity, etc.

[audio/fault]

what about cableguys Volumeshaper?
https://www.cableguys.com/volumeshaper.html

or just the full shaperbox incl. filters, panning etc.
https://www.cableguys.com/shaperbox.html

[greententacle]

the drop, triggered by midi

[glittle]

Thanks, those bear further investigation. In the meantime, I did get zebrify working. Just for future reference, here is what I did to make it work in cubase:

+ Insert zebrify on an audio track
+ make a new midi track
+ the above zebrify will show up as an available output in the midi output chooser for the new midi track
+ now, midi information on the track is sent to zebrify
+ in zebrify, if not using any filters etc, can simply:
+ turn audio volume for the left/main lane all the way down
+ turn up the "mod" control for the same lane
+ select an envelope as the mod source

Now, with no notes playing, no audio is passed through. When a note plays, it triggers the envelope, which opens up the amplitude accordingly.

Now, various synth stuff can be added, filters, etc. The envelope controls the overall gate shape, and I can set up my gate pattern as midi notes, or perform it in real time, etc.

[simon.a.billington]

Arturia have a couple of filter plugins that will do this, Waves Metafilter as well if you set it to the dB mode, but the steps are more limited. Though you can use the steps in conjunction with the LFOs for a bit more creative freedom.

[muki]

others to try would be:

devious duck
https://deviousmachines.com/product/duck/

tal filter (freeware)
https://tal-software.com/products/tal-filter

both lets you build msegs at variable length/segments
trigger through env follower or midi

[MattLeschuck]

Just throw TranceGate in Snap Heap and use LFO's to automate it on and off. You can also do the same with the Filter and Gain snap in within Snap Heap.