[sdiy] Fully assignable sequencer

[John Mahoney]

At 04:57 PM 7/11/2007, Mattias Rickardsson wrote:

>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.

Yes, that's what the "note bank" or "pitch bank" is -- you use it to 
preset the "allowed pitches". There is a tuning knob (or 2 -- you 
know, for fine tuning) for each position in the bank so that you can 
set up 'N' different voltages. (I suppose that Buchla would call it a 
"preset voltage bank" or something.)

Instead of having its own tuning knob or slider, each step of the 
sequence has an N-way switch (or encoder) to select from among the 
values in the bank, i.e. from among the allowed pitches


>Hmm... interesting idea... why not give these knobs some extra toggle
>switch features like octave, on/off, glide, etc? ...

Yes, sure! (I mentioned octave and +/- semitone, I think.)  I like 
A/B gate bus selectors, too (like the ARP?).


>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! :-)

You mean, like a random selection from the bank? That would be cool.


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

I agree, obviously. :-)
--
john


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