GESS

Gate Expander for Sweet Sixteen mkII

This is an expander, brings 8 gate inputs for the Sweet Sixteen mkII.

The panel is reversible, so jacks & buttons can be in the left or right side.

the orientation of the 10 pin ribbon cable is marked by the ‘do not plug power here!’ legend on the PCB, so it could be with the red stripe facing that in both GESS and Sweet Sixteen mkII modules.

With the current firmware (Sweet_3.hex) GESS is used to generate midi notes with the get input & buttons.

  • every button/gate in will create a midi note in the TRS & USB midi outs
  • the pitch and velocity can be a fixed value or CV controlled (upper 8 faders & CV inputs for note value, lower row of fader & CV for velocity)
  • 8 presets
  • press the function button (next the USB port) to activate the ‘load preset’, any of the 8 buttons will load it.

press the function button while pressing any of the 8 GESS buttons will save a preset, the position of the faders will determine the preset values (upper row for pitch, lower row  for velocity) and if any of the faders is at minimum position when saving the preset, that parameter will be read in real time when that preset is loaded. So if you save a preset with the fader 2 & 9 fully down, the midi notes generated by gates in the GESS input 2 will be controlled by the fader & CV 2, and the velocity of the notes generated by the gate input 1 will be CV controlled by fader & CV 9. None of those faders will send the usual midiCC while being used for midi note or velocity.

Panel is reversible so it can be mounted with the buttons on the right or left.

  • This module does not draw any power.

4 HP

+12V 0 mA

-12V 0 mA

Bill Of Materials:

part links are for reference, other options are possible (caps in other colors, buttons with softer click etc...)