Hey, I'm curious about getting an MS-20 filter pedal. (I want to push my bass into synth territory) I already have a Geiger Counter (bitcrusher) that I love... The Geiger seems to be gated, so when you stop playing, it goes silent. This is what makes it so useful to me. I've been looking at the Robot Factory & Pulsemonger synth-filters, but I can't figure out if they do this as well. When I stop playing (one beat rest), will it just be sweeping by itself? I'm confused... Thanks for any help!
The Robot Factory will just be a fixed filter unless you have an expression pedal connected. You can almost think of it as a wah brain with an MS-20 sound. I don't know about the Pulsemonger.
For devices that have an LFO built in, the LFO just runs forever whether you are playing or not. Whether that's audible all the time, or an issue at all, will depend on the specific pedal and your settings.
So if you run an LFO based device after a gated effect, you shouldn't get any sweeping noises when you're not playing (unless you've got a very noisy chain). I would love a lfo filter that had a gate so its sweep started when you played...
The LFO itself may make noise, and any gain stages after the LFO will amplify that--completely regardless of whether anything before it is gated or silent. It depends on the quality of the circuit design. People that just clone existing older circuits often don't bother to (or have the knowledge to) improve those circuits to avoid LFO noise.
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