Doepfer

Module A-185-1 was designed in 1997 and at this time there were no other (or only a few) other module manufacturers on the market.
The gate section of the A-185-1 is only a buffer (nothing but a so-called emitter follower) but does not increase the gate voltage.
Rather the emitter follower lowers the voltage a bit (by about 0.7V). The A-185-1 was designed to be used with A-100 modules only
and for A-100 modules there was this rule for gate voltages: <1V means low and >3V means high. All A-100 modules that process gate
signals (especially envelope generators, clock divider, trigger delay and so on) have usually a transistor at the gate input that
requires about 1.5-2 V to trigger. But I'm aware that things have changed and we will redesign the A-185-1 so that the gate output
voltage can be set to +5V or +12V (probably by means of a jumper) and that it does no longer work as a buffer.

Best wishes
Dieter Doepfer


> About the A185-1
>
> Maybe it's just me using the module the wrong way.
>
> This is the setup:
>
> A190-1 Clock Out ---> 1st A185-1 Gate In
>
> 1st A185-1 Gate Out ---> 2nd A185-1 Gate In
>
> 2nd A185-1 Gate Out ---> Intellijel Metropolis Gate In
>
>
> The Metropolis (and probably other modules too) doesn't trigger well because the gate signal is too weak. I did some measurements.
>
> A190-1 Clock Out ------ +4.1V
> 1st A185-1 Gate Out --- +3.4V
> 2nd A185-1 Gate Out --- +2.7V
>
> Why not keep the gate signal as say +5V?
>
> For this purpose I build myself a simple "Gate Amp". Just an idea.
>
> Best regards,
> Karel.