Verbos Electronics Control Voltage Processor

The Control Voltage Processor from Verbos Electronics is a suite of control voltage processing possibilities divided into 3 sections in a slim 18HP package.

The lower 2 sections are DC coupled mixers that allow mixing, inverting, offsetting, scaling, multiplying, dividing, crossfading or a combination of these functions.

The top section is a voltage controlled slewing processor with independent control of Positive and Negative slew rate, with some unique tricks. The Positive and Negative slew, or Rise and Fall rates if you like, have reversing attenuators.

The slopes can be blended from linear to RC curves (starting all slides fast and ending slow, like a proper “East Coast” Portamento) without a change in speed. It can be triggered like a AD envelope and has a Gate out that goes high when the CV out is below 100mV. Of course it can loop by patching the Gate out to the Trigger in. The Bounce control adds a unique flare of overshoot to CV changes, a bit like the effect of stopping a tape reel from turning and then letting it go. The combination of multiple voltage processors offers the user the functions of analog computer.

The Top Section
The top section of the module is a Slew Rate Processor with independent control of the positive and negative moving voltages. In addition to the panel control for each of these, there is a c.v. input for each with a reversing attenuator to scale the control amount. A Trigger input and manual gate button will send the output up to 8 volts at the Positive rate and back down at the Negative rate. The Shape can be continuously swept from linear to curved, as expected from classic portamento circuits. The curves are “true RC” in the sense that they are not created using feedback, therefore they always start fast and end slow throughout the voltage range from -11 volts to +11 volts. A Gate Out goes high for negative voltages and low for positive ones and allows looping if it is patched to the trigger in. Bounce, a feature unique to this module, allows control voltage to overshoot its destination by an amount set by the control, at the rate of the Positive control. This gives the effect of letting go of a tape machine’s reel and hearing the pitch wobble.

The Lower Sections
The lower two sections are identical voltage processors. Inputs 1 and 2 have reversing attenuators, allowing inverting, scaling, addition and subtraction. Inputs 3 and 4 are a voltage controlled crossfader, which can also be used as a VCA that opens or closes with voltage or even a 4 quadrant modulator. The Offset control will add or subtract a fixed voltage to the mix. The voltage range of these processors is more than +/-11 volts.