Hi, trying to drive my Erica Pico System I from my Squarp -
I have the Pico set up in a fairly standard way, with the Envelope Generator (EG) driving both the VCF and VCA (via their CV inputs) to give me a classic “sharp” synth sound.
I know the Pico is working fine because if I set it up to be driven by its own Sequencer (Seq) module (with Seq CV output driving the VCO, and Seq Gate output driving the EG) then I get just the sound I want.
However now I want to drive the Pico from the Squarp (and drive the Squarp via MIDI USB from my laptop). So I disconnect the Pico Seq CV and Gate outputs, and replace them with similar from the Squarp.
What happens now is that the CV works fine (I can hear the pattern of notes generated from the laptop) but the Gate appears not to (there is no decay or “bite” on the notes, which should be caused by application of the envelope).
???
Struggling now to debug this.
Am wondering if somehow the Squarp is sending the wrong “type” of Gate messages. Could it actually be sending Triggs instead, and confusing the Pico ? Seems unlikely as Squarp output is labelled Gate and so are the relevant Pico inputs/outputs.
Could it be that there is some Squarp MIDI setting I am missing somehow ? (I juct connected everything up and hoped it worked, didn’t do any kind of Squarp config)
Is there any way to debug or visualise the different messages the Squarp is sending ?
All help gratefully received 
the Hermod sends what we would consider as ‘gates’ since they are on/off for the length of a ‘note’.
trigs, are usually short pulses - however, generally gates work fine for trigs as well, as usually modules accepting trigs are just looking for the leading edge.
so no… hermod is not sending 'the wrong type of gate ’ 
if you program the steps on the hermod - rather than send via midi - do you hear the same thing?
this is something I would test… so you can remove midi/daw from the equation.
k, so to be clear… the EG is firing, since otherwise you would not hear anything since the EG would not open the VCA - correct? it’s just its not sounding as you expect?
(to be honest, your description is a bit confusing… usually one would thing of attack as ‘bite’, and decay as the note sustaining…)
what do you have the EG Rate set to - trig, s, m or l?
one thing you can do to ‘hear’ the gate, is patch the hermod gate directly to the VCA (so ignore the EG for testing) … this way you will hear how long the gate is open for - and try sending longer notes (e.g. 1/4 notes)
another thing to be careful of… if you’re using fast sequences of notes, then these will retrig the envelope.
unfortunately, difficult to say why the difference between the SEQ and hermod, without having the system in front of me…
(you could do the SEQ GATE->VCA test described above, to hear the gates, see if they sound different)
Sorry for the confusion - n00b at work, lol
I fixed it. Problem was the midi sustain parameter than Tidalcycles (my seq) uses. Am guessing this determines the time before a MIDI off message is sent. Anyway the Env was in fact being triggered, it was just that it was somehow being drowned out by the sustain effect. Not exactly sure why but setting a sustain approx equal to the env length returned much better results.
Sorry for the trouble but many thanks for the assistance
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