Cherry Audio’s Poly Envelope Generator is a polyphonic ADSR with sustain control that drastically simplifies creating polyphonic patches. It takes a polyphonic gate signal as its input and generates control voltage envelopes for each individual note, or voice. If you are unfamiliar with envelopes in general, or need a quick refresher, check out the documentation for the "standard" Envelope Generator which goes over ADSR envelopes in detail.

Below is an example of a simple polyphonic patch with sustain control that uses the Poly Envelope Generator to control the amplitude of a Poly Oscillator module.

Inputs, Outputs, and Controls

Gate In jack- Patch polyphonic gate signals here to trigger the envelope. Typically this will be connected to the Poly Gate jack in the I/O Panel.

Sustain Pedal In jack- A +5V gate signal received at this jack holds the envelope at its sustain level. Typically this is patched to the Sus (sustain) jack in the CV Outs section of the I/O Panel which converts MIDI sustain pedal messages (CC#64) from a keyboard controller to a +5V gate signal.

"A" (Attack) slider- Defines the length of time for voltage to rise from 0V to 5V when the gate voltage is applied.

"D" (Decay) slider- Defines the length of time for voltage to fall from the Attack stage 5V peak to Sustain stage setting.

"S" (Sustain) slider- Sets the held voltage level following Attack and Decay phases.

"R" (Release) slider- Defines the length of time for voltage to fall from Sustain level to 0V when gate is released.

Env Out and Env Out Inv- These are the envelope voltage outputs. The Env Out voltage ranges from 0V to +5V, whereas the Env Out Inv jack is an inverted version, with output ranging from 0V to -5V.