The slope detector is an event-driven gate/trigger generating device. It monitors a control voltage, and responds according to what that voltage is doing. If the voltage is rising, the slope detector gives a "gate" output (approximately 5V) on its "RISING" output. Likewise, if the voltage is falling, the slope detector gives an output on its "FALLING" output. The duration of this gate signal depends on the CV IN and the setting of the SENSITIVITY pot. When the CV IN is remaining constant, the "STEADY" output activates.

These gate signals can be used to fire envelope generators dependent on the action of the CV IN, for example opening a filter when a melody is rising in pitch, and closing it when the melody is falling in pitch. It can also be used to generate gate signals from LFOs, envelope generators, to advance sequencers etc.

The SENSITIVITY pot allows the slope detector to work with either relatively fast events, like the edges of a square wave pulse train, or very slow events, such as the sine output of an LFO being used to drive filter/phaser sweeps.