Envelopes. Am I using them right?

Rack:

Hi! So I'm having some trouble understanding how to utilize envelopes in order to turn my two sound sources Plaits and rings, into pads. I understand ADSR envelopes and how they work, but I'm struggling to use them to actually make pad sounds.

First I know I'm lacking a dedicated envelope module, so I'm using the adsr in uO_c.

Right now Plaits seems to be the more straight forward one - Pam's or Marbles sends a trigger into uO_c, the adsr then goes into the level of Plaits. Boom, there's my envelope / pad sound right?

How do you achieve that with Rings? There's no level input... So would I send the output of rings into Veils, then send an Envelope into the CV of Veils to treat it as a volume knob? I feel like it hasn't worked for me, unless I'm doing something wrong.

If anyone has any advice for my current setup, that would be great! And I suppose any recommendations for finishing my case as well would be awesome - I primarily make ambient / melodic stuff but am getting a little tired of the plucks... Need more pads! Thank you!

EDITED Dec 2nd 2022, 08:10

Method 1: Send White Noise into Rings, not a trigger. You can get Filtered White Noise from Plaits. It's the second red mode. And then to Veils with a Long Attack/Release stage envelope.

Method 2: Trigger Rings as you would. Ting. Adjust Damping to make it decay a little longer and send it to Beads with the Reverb Fully Wet. Tinnnnng. Then to Veils with a long attack. You won't hear much of the initial ting from Rings, only the tail—a long, ethereal smear. nnnnnnnnnnng.

Method 3: Trigger Rings or excite it with white noise. Send it to Beads and press Freeze when it gets to a good spot in the decay. You now have a pad or drone sound. Or use the cv input to gate the Freeze button so you can sequence it as you please.

EDITED Dec 2nd 2022, 09:08

my two sound sources Plaits and rings
-- Rjsounds

Just thought I'd mention I see at least 2 more that can be used relatively easily:

1. Beads: if you remove cables from the 2 inputs and wait a few seconds, the module turns into a wavetable synth. Seeding grains still works, so does the reverb.
2. Quadrax: by selecting the bipolar LFO mode and turning up the rate, it turns into an oscillator with pretty cool waveform control and it will track 1volt/oct.

Method 1: Send White Noise into Rings, not a trigger. You can get Filtered White Noise from Plaits. It's the second red mode. And then to Veils with a Long Attack/Release stage envelope.

Method 2: Trigger Rings as you would. Ting. Adjust Damping to make it decay a little longer and send it to Beads with the Reverb Fully Wet. Tinnnnng. Then to Veils with a long attack. You won't hear much of the initial ting from Rings, only the tail—a long, ethereal smear. nnnnnnnnnnng.

Method 3: Trigger Rings or excite it with white noise. Send it to Beads and press Freeze when it gets to a good spot in the decay. You now have a pad or drone sound. Or use the cv input to gate the Freeze button so you can sequence it as you please.
-- Toccata

WOW!! Thank you!! It had never occurred to me to send a signal that had already been affected by something into the VCA and then to send an envelope into the VCA.... I suppose that's a fairly trivial patch but it's just not something I've tried before, Thank you! Those are all really cool ideas that I'll explore!

my two sound sources Plaits and rings
-- Rjsounds

Just thought I'd mention I see at least 2 more that can be used relatively easily:

1. Beads: if you remove cables from the 2 inputs and wait a few seconds, the module turns into a wavetable synth. Seeding grains still works, so does the reverb.
2. Quadrax: by selecting the bipolar LFO mode and turning up the rate, it turns into an oscillator with pretty cool waveform control and it will track 1volt/oct.

-- toodee

Re: number 1 - I was aware of this feature, but you know, I've never really played around with it. I'll give that a shot, Thanks!!

Re: number 2: Thanks for this idea, But I actually don't own a quadrax, or ochd, or fxaid... I had removed those ages ago but clearly i didn't save my rack properly. I definitely want to get one though as that would be a great source for lfos and envelopes!

Cheers!