hey BD,

What you require is a single gate with something called a 'sidechain'. What the sidechain does is it allows the gate to be triggered/controlled by a signal other than the source signal plugged into the gate.

So... for the kick drum example:

1) you plug your synthesizer playing the continuous low tone into the input of the gate
2) you plug the output of your kick drum track into the gate's sidechain input
3) play with the gate thresehold, attack and release until you get the effect you are after

The gate will not look to the synthesizer for trigger information... it will look at the kick drum coming in through the sidechain. The gate will open when the kick hits and will let the synth tone flow through only on those hits.

greg

In addition to the kick, this can be also be done on the snare where a white noise source is in addition or replaces the synth oscillator.

I do this all the time using one of my own custom written algorithms in my Eventide. I also get to add reverb, delay/echo, compression, eq, pitchshifting, auto panning, white noise and bit reduction all at the same time.

Originally posted by AudioGaff:
I also get to add reverb, delay/echo, compression, eq, pitchshifting, auto panning, white noise and bit reduction all at the same time.

well... more IS more better. :)

i'd love to hear those auto-panned, pitch shifted, delayed, white noise snare tracks of yours...

This can also be done without the use of a gate with a key input, although it might take a bit longer if you are used to doing it. There are several other units (Forat F16, SDE3000, AMS DMX, etc) that can facilitate the same results.

For example, on the TC 2290.
#1 Press SAMPLE (to enable sample mode)
#2 Feed the tone into the unit you wish to trigger (or hell, use a drum sample you like- that's what most people do when they do this, but you could also do it with the flat tone you mentioned)
#3 Press KEY A (led will be lit) to enable recording.
#4 The delay display will show 2.81 (meaning 2810 ms) with is the rear point of your sample. Some of the 2290's have a sample upgrade and you can increase the recording time by pressing UP or DOWN.
#5 Press KEY B and the display will show .01 (15 ms) which is the start of the recording. (There's a 15 millisecond prerecord in the 2290 to prevent clipping the beginning of the sample- cool thinking on TC Elect eh?)
#6 Press LEARN and the unit will make a recording or if you want the unit to trigger it's recording by seeing audio input press DYN MOD. You can set the threshold for this in the SPEC NO 30.

To edit the sample
#1 Press KEY B to access the start of the sample. Press the "Up" or "Down" button so you can input numbers in the 'delay' window. Press 400 enter, and you sample will start at 400ms. Press the learn key to play to sample and find the correct start point.
#2 Press KEY B to access the rear point of the sample. Press the "Up" or "Down" button so you can input numbers in the 'delay' window. Press 4000 enter, and you sample will end at 4000ms. Press the learn key to play to sample and find the correct end point.

Now, if you want to trigger the unit, "Learn" obviously will do it manually. Or press DYN MOD. Now, if you use the trigger input, you won't hear any of the OG signal, which is usually what you want.

So, basically, you'll probably want to use a gate after all this to get the correct tail on the end of your tone that you send into the unit.

Different roads, same destination.