[sdiy] Fully assignable sequencer

[Mattias Rickardsson]

On 11/07/07, John Mahoney <jmahoney at gate.net> wrote:
>
> Then I thought, "Screw the chromatic scale!" Instead of selecting
> from 1 of 12 chromatic pitches, why not select from a bank of pitches
> that are in key for your song? There would be a bank of independently
> tunable pitches, most likely 8 or 12 notes, perhaps 16 (works well
> with 4-bit encoders).

But how would you determine which pitches these are? :-)

I mean, using just the three notes of a minor or major chord - in
different octaves - is quite dull in the long run. I find that most
interesting "typical analog sequencer sequences" include other
pitches. Almost all of them are needed. Perhaps not in the same
sequence, though, but you'd need som kind of "scale definition" where
you set the allowed pitches with, say, a row of 8 extra knobs just for
this.

Hmm... interesting idea... why not give these knobs some extra toggle
switch features like octave, on/off, glide, etc? Adding or removing
pitches from the set of allowed pitches in the scale (letting the
sequencer steps find different pitches instead of being skipped) could
be at least as interesting as skipping steps on a Moog 960! :-)

> With such a setup, you could change notes (the rotary switches) on
> the fly without the risk of selecting any out-of-key notes. (Yes, a
> quantizer that knows what key you are playing in could also achieve this.)
>
> I think this would be a fun way to operate a sequencer because it
> would encourage you to actually *play* the sequencer, juggling notes
> around on the fly.

Way to go. Sequencers deserve to be instruments as well. :-)


/mr