The Arpeggiator / Sequencer is used to generate a repeating pattern of notes, based on the keys you hold down on your MIDI keyboard.

Arp mode and Sequencer mode are similar, but use different methods to choose the pitch of the notes generated.

The pattern has up to 16 steps, which can be set to any length.

By default they are set to 16th notes, and so the pattern represents 1 bar.

Click the Arp tab in the envelope section to see the arp.

Click the Enable switch to turn the arp on.

Small vs. Large Editor

The Tab contains the small Arp / Sequencer editor, which contains the main controls.

Click the Editor button at the bottom right of the screen to see the large editor, which has additional controls.

Common Controls

• Arp / Seq switch
  Changes the main mode which controls the pitch of generated notes
  Arp - generates notes based on the notes you play
  Sequencer - generates notes based on the notes you play and pitch offset values, allow you to create a repeating musical phrase or riff.
• Anchored switch
  When enabled, the start of the pattern is locked to the timeline of your DAW. If not, the pattern starts when you play a key.

• Rate knob
  Controls the length of each step of the pattern. It can be BPM synced or set to be time based.
• Length knob
  Controls the length of the notes played at each step. At maximum, the length will be 100% of the rate value. At 50%, the steps are half the length of the chosen rate.
• Swing knob
  Controls swing between the steps. It has the effect of lengthening the even steps and shortening the odd steps.
• Random knob
  Controls the randomness of the pattern. You can control what values are affected in the large editor (see below).
• Steps dropdown
  Controls how many step there are in the pattern, from 1 to 16.

Arp mode

Arp Mode dropdown
Controls how arp notes are selected.

All modes sound the same when playing single notes. If you hold a chord, the modes will choose notes out of the chord and play them for you.

If you were to hold the C major chord, with the notes C, E and G, each mode would play the following

• Up - C E G
• Down G E C
• Up & Down C E G E C
• As Played whichever notes arrived first will play first
• Random
• Gate all held notes will play on each step of the pattern.

Octave Dropdown
Controls the range of notes selected.

If you select 1 Octave, the notes generated by the Arp will be the same as the notes you played. If you select 2 Octave or more, the Arp will play a pattern using the held notes, plus the same notes in the octaves above.

Sequencer Mode

This mode is similar to Arp mode, but instead of the Arp controls choosing what pitch to play back, you have small Pitch sliders that can be dragged to set pitch offsets.

When playing notes on your keyboard, the pattern will transpose the incoming notes by the amounts displayed.

In the example above, if you held the note C, the first step would be transposed two semitones, and play the note D. All of the rest of the notes would play C until the pattern was completed and then begins again.

If you right click a pitch slider, it will show a text box where you can enter a value. You can enter any value, and the octave and semitone sliders will be set together. For instance entering 11 will set semitones to -1 and octave to +1.

Snap to Key

If your song is in a specific key such as C major, transposing up 2 semitones works for some notes but not for others. If you played the note C or D, it transposes up to another note in the scale. But if you played the note E, it would transpose to F# - not what you want in the C major scale.

If you want to restrict the notes played to a specific key enable the Snap to key function next to the keyboard. This restricts the notes available to transpose to - so playing the key E would now transpose to the next note in the scale, in this case G.

Notes that Snap to key also restricts the Semitone transpose values in the Oscillators. If you had one Osc set to transpose +3 semitones, it would only allow the transpose to stay in the key of C.

Load the patch 'C Major Pluck Fun' to see this feature in action!

Small editor screen

The screen contains three rows, or lanes, of information.

Common Lanes

The bottom two lanes give you control over when notes are generated.

• Note-on Buttons
  The bottom row - lets you turn notes on and off.
• Tie Buttons (small arrows)
  The 2nd to bottom row - lets you to tie notes to each other.

When notes are tied, the length percentage is applied as a percentage of the tied step length.

Adjusting these two lanes lets you create complex rhythms in the Arp / Sequencer.

The switches on the right side of the screen control what information is shown in the top lane.

Switchable Lane

The top lane is switchable between 4 different modes. Switch the modes by clicking the names on the right side of the screen.

• Pitch (Arp Mode)
  Shows a history of the pitch values that were generated by the pattern.This is just a display mode, dragging the screen does not do anything.
• Pitch (Sequencer Mode)
  Shows a small pitch slider for each step of the pattern.
• Velocity
  Shows a bar graph representing the velocity values for each step of the pattern. Click and drag the bars to change their values.
  To connect velocity to the volume of the patch, increase the Amp Amount knob on the very left of the main synth page.
  Otherwise, you can drag velocity to a knob to control it.
• Mod Source
  Shows a bar graph of values which can be used as a mod source to control other parameters - e.g. filter cutoff.
  Drag the Arp tab to a knob to create a modulation link.
• Length
  Shows bar graphs representing the length of the notes generated at each step. If the values are set to 50%, the notes played will eb half the length of the pattern step length.
• Editor [ ]
  This launches the large editor screen.

Key Commands and Mouse Modifiers

These apply from version 1.1.2 onwards.

• Right-click on a lane
  Will bring up a text box where you can enter a specific value.
• Double click / Command click
  These two actions will perform the following. You can select which action is performed for which command in the main preferences menu.
• Reset the value to the default for that lane.
• Bring up the text box
  
• Shift-click and drag
  This sets the values of all steps rather than just the current step.
• Option / Alt click
  Sets the values between the mouse position and the previous mouse position, in a straight line.
• Command-drag on the enabled buttons
  Controls the step subdivision - which divides the step into 2, 3 or 4 sub steps. See below for more information.
  

Large Editor

The large editor contains all of the controls from the small editor, and a large screen with all of the lanes visible at the same time.

Swing grid Lane

Adjusting the swing knob adds swing to the patten by delaying the start time of every second note.
This is represented by the small swing handle flags.
You can the amounts of delay for each step, even making the step slightly early instead of late. Set the swing knob to full - this will adjust the lengths and positions of all of the bar graphs allowing you to see the results of the swing grid.

Subdivision Lane

You can choose to divide a pattern step into 2, 3 or 4 sub steps.
These steps will generate new notes the pitch will use the same value for all of the subdivisions.
If you divide a tied note into 3, this will create a triplet.

Octave Lane

In sequencer mode, the octave lane lets you set pitches up to 4 octaves above or below the played note.
Drag the number up to down to increase the octave.

Random and Reset

• Random
  Click this to randomise the values in the chosen lane.
• Reset
  Sets the lane values to their defaults.
  Right click this knob to bring up a text box. You can enter values to set all steps to the value.
  In addition, you can set a pattern of values by entering text separated with commas.
  For instance, entering 100,50,1 would set the values for each group of 3 steps.

Randomisation column

• Random knob
  At the bottom is a master Random knob which controls the overall randomness.
• Lane Random knobs
  Each lane has a small grey knob that controls the randomness for that lane.

The values are multiplied together, and so will have no effect if either knob is on zero. The combined value is displayed to the right of the land random knobs.

If you wanted the velocity or length to be randomised while the patten was playing, you could set the Large Random knob to full, and increase the Velocity Random amount knob. At the same time, you might not want the Note-on lane to be randomised, and so would set the Note-on Random Amount knob to zero.

Additional Large Editor Controls

• Phrase Reset
  When Repeat is enabled, any arp pattern generated repeats again at the start of the bar.
• Velocity Mode
  Controls how the velocity lane is applied to the generated notes.
  Absolute - the value in the lane is used
  Additive - the value in the lane is added to the played velocity
  As Played - the played velocity is used and the lane values ignored

• Arp Presets
  Load and save entire arp pattens.

• Rotate Patten
  these arrows move the entire patten one step to the left or right.