Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

How can I make the tuning tables tune to Ionian or pentatonic or whatever easily so I can force arps to automatic solo with pitch bend locking to tuning tables and using arp gate?

Does this make sense to anyone but me lol

Well,some of makes sense to me. But there are at least two parts:
(1) How can you force an arp to play only notes in a particular mode/scale? 
(2) How can you force pitch bend to play only notes in a particular mode/scale, specificially, the same one as the arp?

I am not sure about your intended use of gate, but I think you are asking:
(3) How can you use just the PB Wheel (i.e., no keyboard) to play notes in a particular mode/scale, specifically, the same one as the arp, such that the notes are the ones triggered by the arp ?

Let's assume I'm close.
(1) Forcing an arp to play only notes in a particular scale/mode/key signature:
A few months ago, I tested the creation of a tuning table to play in a particular key. Take C major for example, the arp triggered by a C, an F, and a G should be major, the arp triggered by a D, an E, and an A should be minor, and the arp triggered by a B should be diminished.
   
To do this I retuned all unwanted notes across the entire keyboard (C# would play a C, G# would play G, etc.). Arp patterns work by playing intervals [for example, step 2 in the arp might be the "note" that is 4 1/2 steps above the trigger note. With default tuning, you play a C and step 2 is E; you play a D and step 2 is F#.

But, step 2 (using this example) is not really 4 half-steps above step 1, it is the note that is referenced by the tuning table. So, it is >>the tuning of the note<< that is 4 half-steps above.

So, if I have F#3 set to sound like F3 (and likewise across all 128 possible keypresses/notes), I get what sounds like a note only 3 half-steps above.

(Hope this makes sense.)

(2) A few weeks ago, I played around with either quantize or 4XGain and PB to get lower PB resolution. (I think I wrote about that somewhere.) My vague recollection is that PB changed the sounding of the notes directly, as opposed to changing the sound of a retuned note. If I am remembering correctly, you cannot use the method I used to PB to a particular scale. I may be wrong on this, though. Also, there might be another method. 

(3) I don't recall playing around with anything like this. I believe  you can use an lfo set to a clock divisor to trigger notes or envelopes using patch cords, and if all your arp notes are on the same beat as produced by the clock divisor, you could do something with that. However, if the duration of each note in your arp is different, this technique is not what you want.

Assuming I understand what you are trying to do, these sound like fun things to work out.  If someone else has some solutions (which I hope they do), I'd be interested myself.

BTW, a few weeks ago I lamented (either here or somewhere else) that we can only dump banks of tuning tables; not individual tables. Well, I was looking at the sysex manual a few days ago and discovered it can be done via sysex--although from the panle, you can only dump the entire set.

Hope this helps.

Steve     

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Matt <somatt@...> wrote:

>
> How can I make the tuning tables tune to Ionian or pentatonic or whatever
> easily so I can force arps to automatic solo with pitch bend locking to
> tuning tables and using arp gate?
>

>>(2) How can you force pitch bend to play only notes in a particular mode/scale, specificially, the same one as the arp?<<

I've only ever been able to achieve this in the analogue domain, by routing the pitch-bend wheel (of any keyboard, but the control must be analogue CV, so a midi keyboard would have to be sent to a midi>cv converter) through a quantiser or "scale generator" such as the doepfer a-156.

I'm part-way through modifying a moog rogue so that it has an internal 8-step sequencer routed through one of these modules; the second channel will be applied to the PB wheel if I ever get finished.

I don't know of a midi event processor that can impose a scale on PB data, nor can I think of a simple way to do this within the proteus architecture, but there may be some combination of multiple wheel>switch>pitch patchings that will get you there. 

prob'ly use up all the patchcords.... :-)

another way would be to use layers that are tuned differently & use the wheel to switch amongst them; if you combine these two approaches, you might get close to what you need. 
the use of user tuning tables is a given, anyway, if you want the arp to stay in one key. :-)

duncan.

Electribe does this out of the box
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&v=Dtwk2ouGz-U
Notice the pitch strip being used for soloing and freestyle melodies

Korg also does this on many of their kaoss products. Pitch will be. Horizontal and gate will be vertical and then you can modify it in options.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&v=DNBwOycN3MU
Here is me doing this on the korg game boy DS game. If I can only get the command station to do something similar.