It’s new firmware season! We’re releasing new firmwares for Alia, Legio, and Versio. We’ll be covering all of them in depth, but if you can’t wait to explore, head over to the firmware swap app and load up your platforms with the new goodies. 

To start things off, we’ve just released Ampla Legio, a stereo multimode-gate for the Legio platform. Today, we’ll explore its functionality and how you can use it in a patch, as well as its history.

Lowpass gates and more

Ampla Legio has a very simple signal path: a resonant multimode filter is followed by a VCA, and both are controlled by an attack/sustain/decay envelope. The overall attack/decay time is controlled by the Time parameter, and the ratio of attack versus decay within that period is controlled by the middle A/D parameter (fans of our Percido oscillators will be familiar with this control scheme). 

With the A/D parameter all the way counterclockwise and the right switch set to LP mode, the module performs just how a lowpass gate would: the decay curve is modeled after the envelope shapes generated by vactrols. However, unlike vactrols, Ampla has control over decay time, and the brightness of the sound can be adjusted with the top parameter. The filter’s starting frequency can even track 1v/8va, meaning that you can mult your pitch sequence in for filter tracking. And if you need some squelch, the left switch can add in a little – or a lot – of throaty resonance.

If you want to break the mold and create some new sounds, bandpass and highpass options are also available, and the envelope has a wide time range that can suit any patching need. Plus, with a sustain phase, the envelope can respond to incoming gate signals if you need a completely different style of envelope. 

Having a stereo signal path means you can use Ampla Legio on any signal in your system: stereo oscillators, stereo effects, or even samples all sound great with some added dynamics. 

The background 

We’re big fans of lowpass gates. We’ve made a few different modules inspired by them, and the traditional circuits are a great-sounding way to control the dynamics of a signal. A while back, we discussed creating a sequel to Sinc Bucina in stereo. After much deliberation, we decided it wasn’t quite the right concept, but had the idea of a stereo LPG on the backburner. Earlier this year, while discussing firmware concepts for our various platforms, we realized that we could make a seriously powerful gate-inspired module on the Legio platform that could cover classic sounds and also do a whole bunch of things that would be tough in analog. Stephen had even written something like this previously for his own use because he just needed it in his case. That served as the basis, but when we revisited the concept, we decided to expand the envelope from a simple decay envelope to a full attack/decay, modeling the decay curve after the response of vactrols. We also added in a sustain phase, an homage to the gate-tracking behavior of vactrol gates. 

After some tweaks (and tracking down a few odd bugs in the envelope behavior) we finalized the firmware and decided it would be fun to release to the world. It’s a useful utility and we love how it sounds, and can you really have enough lowpass gates?