Programmable Arpeggiator - DONE

[Azure Feast]

After years(!) of looking for a good way to reproduce the functions of a truly programmable arpeggiator, as the fabulous one from the SuperNova synth, I finally found a good solution with Live's arpeggiator.

The objective is to program a pattern of note (Instead of the useful but quickly boring Up, Down and others). Besides the SuperNova this seems to exist in some of the Yamaha & Korg workstations and also in the NI FM8 soft-synth. But in todays world it would be so much better to have it in your DAW (It seems to exist in some of Cubase's Arp. I almost bought it but overall I find Live a much better (funnier) solution).


It may be obvious to some of you, but I finally found a workable solution for achieving my objective with the combination of Live's "Arpeggiator" and "Clip Envelope".


I use "Retrigger=Beat" at a high rate, so that only the first note of the arpeggio gets played repeatedly. You can then use the "Arp Offset" to control via a "Clip Envelope" which note is being played. That gives you a fully programmable arpeggio of any length! Via the "Clip Envelope" you can also control all the other stuffs (Gate time, Velocity, Muted notes, Pan position, Note transpose and all the settings of your soft synth). Overall it is a quite elegant and very powerful solution.

There are a few limitations due to the fact that you constantly have to retrigger the arpeggio: The maximum rate is quite low and you loose some of the advanced functions of the arpeggiator. That could be solved easily if Ableton would provide an additional "Fix" mode for the Arpeggiator, where the pattern would have to be programmed via the "Offset" control. That is on my whish list for a next release!

Please share with me if you have other ideas for achieving truly programmable arpeggio.

Marc for Azure Feast.
For some example of my previous "Arpeggio based" music see http://www.AzureFeast.com

[glitchrock-buddha]

Can you do glides and/or swing?

The thing that makes programmable arpeggiators so great on certain synths (albino and Zebra for example) is that you can program the glide notes as well as have swing, while still being able to play it (unlike a straight sequence).

[Azure Feast]

I am not a specialist of these two techniques.

I think Glide would be possible as you have control of gate time and you can make any pitch adjustment you want into the "Clip Envelope".

I think Swing would not work if you do reset the arp after each note.

Hope it helps.

Marc.

[Azure Feast]

Hi there again,
Some of you will have seen this post.

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=113297

As I explained the challenge, when using trigger notes to launch arpeggios, is that sometimes your are holding notes for several measures. As Live does not have a tool to properly split notes in two, this became a problem in my workflow.

I applied yesterday the solution I described in the other thread to prevent any note to overlap beat boundaries (while keeping full liberty to play what ever you want). I tried it yesterday evening and it works exactly like I thought. You simply have to add a track that contains your "chopping algorythm" - Arp in "chord mode" at the slowest rate. And route the original track and the "chopped" one to a single track. It takes 5 minutes to set up and test, but it works flawlessly.

I am 100% happy? Not really. Once I have the "Chopped" clips I am missing a function to increase all note lengths by a few %. With the proper instrument settings, that would avoid the re-triggering of envelopes at the boundary of measures. Once again Logic has this. Live does not.

Frankly, I was not expecting to struggle with so many Midi manipulation short comings on the Live side. I am afraid I too quickly forgot how powerful Logic is. I hope Live will improve over time, although I am concerned that some of these aspects are linked to fundamental design decisions of Live.

Hope it helps,

Marc for Azure Feast
http://www.AzureFeast.com

[siliconarc]

i've never used a synth that has a programmable arpeg so not sure what you're trying to achieve, but in Live's session view you can create a midi clip full of the notes you want to arpegiate, then midi-map that clip to a keyboard's note span:

enter midi map, select the clip, then hold down a low note while tapping a high note (eg. hold C1 while tapping C2 to map the clip to an octave). now you can play that clip like an arpeggiator.

start adding Scale, Chord, Note Length etc devices in midi racks for proper note mangulation

[Azure Feast]

Hi Gary,
Thank you for your reply.

Indeed the possibility to trigger and transpose a clip from a range of note in Live is great. However this is no replacement for a programmable arpeggio. With programmable arpeggio you can play chord progressions (like A maj - Amin - G) and have an arpeggiated line being played. (Say AA_C#A_EC# - AA_CA_EC - GG_BG_DB). You can also program how your arpeggio will react to less or more notes being played.

Combine one (or even two) such arpeggio with a pad and you can very quickly build a highly musical rhythmic arrangement while keeping a lot of control over melodies and chords to develop musical ideas.

I hope it helps,

Marc for Azure Feast
www.AzureFeast.com

[Azure Feast]

Since I wrote this post I have been using this technique quite a lot. And I must say that so far I am very pleased with the way it works.
You really have most of the benefits of a fully programmable arpeggiator like the one in the Novation SuperNova.

The most fun part is to only play fragments of the Arpeggio. Indeed the "musical phrase" is controlled by the looping clip: So it remains always in sync with your other tracks. But you can dynamically play only a few short notes and then gradually evolve to full chords for the length of the measure. (And back) (A bit like the "Vortspinnung" technique. You can really play with your arrangement very dynamically... I could spend hours improvising with this technique.

I know to some of you all of this sound like using an "arranger". But please remember that you have to program everything yourself. So the music is as personal as you want it to be and can really reflect your own style...

Marc for Azure Feast.

www.AzureFeast.com

[witlof]

Hi Mark,

thanks for your post. I really like the way you showed how to get more out of live's arpeggio. I was also looking for a programmable arpeggio, without being dependent on presets that synths deliver.

I also use delay and the live's recently added vocoder for some nice funky effects.

Thanks for posting this kind of messages!!

Ciao Bart