[sdiy] trying to understand appregiators in late 70's synths

[Magnus Danielson]

Dan, Paul,

Paul Maddox skrev:
> Dan,
> 
> If you don't want to dive into code, being honest you'd be better off 
> with a simple CV/Gate sequencer with the ability change the root note 
> (analogue sum output of CV and output of keyboard). Which is, IMHO, far 
> more interesting musically than an arpggiator.

That is also an arpeggiator, just a different form of implementations, 
so it is not more musically interesting than an arpeggiator, it is a 
musically more interesting form of an arpeggiator and that I agree with you.

Oh, it would be good if the gate from the keyboard triggers the 
arpeggio-sequence.

A strict arpeggio is playing a given set of notes in rising order on the 
harp. Bela Bartok among others gave us arpeggio with notes in a falling 
order. There is no reason why a broken chord could not be played in 
other orders when produced through automatic means (i.e. no longer by a 
hand over the harp). Infact, we could very well have re-occurent notes. 
We now have a sequencer that can play re-occuring short themes or 
sequences. So, sequencer or arpeggiator... they are just two views of 
the same thing really. Arpeggio became a cheap way of getting some extra 
functionality out of the keyboard decoding, but it wasn't proper 
sequencing but at least something in that genre. As a player you can get 
more out of it by altering notes as the arpeggiator plays.

If you want arpeggiator effects and more, a simple short sequencer which 
syncs up on the hit of a key and transpose with the keyboard is fairly 
easy to achieve and certainly musically useful.

Cheers,
Magnus