Portamento, also known as glide or slew, is an effect that smoothly transitions or slides between two control voltage (CV) values, typically used to create smooth pitch transitions between notes. When applied to pitch CV signals controlling an oscillator, portamento creates a gliding effect between the pitches of consecutive notes, instead of the notes changing abruptly.
Portamento is often implemented using a slew limiter, glide, or lag processor module in a modular synthesizer. These modules take an input CV signal (usually pitch CV from a sequencer, keyboard, or other CV source) and output a smoothed version of the signal, where rapid changes in the input are slowed down according to a specified time or rate.
Synonyms:
Glide, Slew
