To see this working, head to your live site.

Custom chords common to whole ARP

I just wonder, the eight chords types available with the buttons, are common to all tracks, all Chord Chains, and all Patchs. That is very restrictive, if i want each patch or bank, have distinct chords progressions, in ARP or Chord modes.

I discover too, the 12 chord chains are common to all patchs.

That implies, the global ARP storage can only keep 8 chords types, and 12 chord chains.

ARP could be a powerful Chord machine, and more versatile in ARP mode, just allowing to customize the 8 chords type among the 42 available in appendix II, in Play mode, in Chain edit ...

The minimum could be to have distinct 8 chord type set by patch, or/and, by chord chain.

Having 12 chord chains distinct for each patch could be great.

Enough memory for that ?

A future import/export via the Web (using Usb Serial) could allow to free the ARP, just keeping less banks to allow more memory ?

Anyway, i just get my ARP V8, and enjoy very much, ergonomy is perfect, i just "omplain" about the lack of chord type customization ...

Thank you very much, and congrats for this marvelous hardware.

Yves Lafont (french customer)

6 comments

Comments (6)

Yves Lafont

Hello Phil, thank you very much about the Neo-Reimann transforms. I will look around, i'am fine with maths and music theory. For now, Midicake ARP is for me the best existing hardware for Arp, and hoping soon, for Chords, because Arp and Chord are a same entity, and need always work together. In all music style, chords progressions can be predictible, even on melody improvisation, adding some subtile variations to humanize. Midicake is very close to be the hardware i dream since years, the only lack is about Chords limit, because memory restrictions. I hope Chris will success to ehance the Chord way, i really enjoy the "non classic" way for ARPs ! Greetings, and i'am glad to discuss around that. Yves

phil.mercy

Replying to

Hi again,

Yes, the Neo-Riemann comment was mostly just a thought dump of an alternative approach to coding chord progressions which would be very efficient in terms of coding and memory (whilst being fairly unique as functionality).

I think I understand your request better, now. You are after functionality that allows a simple chord definition to have vairants which would humanise the chord voicing every time it is played ... kind of like a jazz pianist playing a C major 7th chord one time around a verse, but playing a C major 9th the next go around to add variety, yes?

Obviously, Chris knows best here, but on the midicake itself, I would try to create something like this:

Select a chord you like, that you want the ARP to humanize
Setup a chord on track 1, and modulate the start note to change the chord inversion
Setup an arp on track 2 an octave below 1, using the same midi channel. set its time to be the same as track one so notes are played at the same time. Choose a pattern to provide an interesting selection of root notes for your chord from the notes in your chosen chord
Setup an arp in track 3 an octave above track 1. I'd probably choose a more rapid time for this track, but choose a rhythm and bounce to provide sparse clusters of notes (some of which coincide with your chord being voiced)

This mights create something with the flavour you're after .... if I've understood you correctly :)

phil.mercy

Hi Chris & Yves,

Count me as an enthusuatic Midicake Arp user. My primary use case utilises the follow mode, playing a midicontroller to provide the notes/chord for the arp engines to follow. That said, I've also used a sequencer to composer chord loops for the arp that I can use as a dependable vamp during live performance. I've also played with the new chord chains functionality, too, and that'll definitely get used when I pull my next set together 🙂

Ok, so why am I posting?

I've been looking into various compositional theories to be able to spice up the sort of music I can perform solo backed by all this wonderful technology .... I come from a background firmly in rock bands 🙂

One thing I've been playing with is Neo-Riemann transforms. If this is not something you've come across, a bit of googling might help, but the general ideas is simply this: Chords are described as combinations of tones on a 'tone net' arranged in a triangular grid. A lot of film music uses this appraoch to create emotional chord progressions that are not diatonic in the traditional sense.

The novel thing is that chords are 'transformed' by moving from one postion to an adjacent positon on the grid. There are a limited number of transform types, and they work on any triad (and extensions to a degree). The operation a transform performs on notes is the same no matter what the starting chord is, and the resulting chord has the same relationship to the starting chord, no matter what that starting chord is.

So, what I'm thinking is that you could save a series of transforms using far less memory than storing complete chords, and composing using a series of transformations from a starting chord is a fun and new way to create interesting results away from the typical diatonic/ functional harmony approach.

Anyway .... I thought I'd share 🙂

Yves Lafont

Replying to

After looking closer on Neo-Riemann, i think that is more for chords progression, so, not in actual Midicake ARP functionnalities. Why not for future upgrade ? Chris will know :-)

Yves Lafont

Thanks Chris ! I'am very glad about future V9. ARP will be the best generative hardware i know (i'am NGEN and NDLR a bit disapointed owner)

Chris Brown

Hi Yves, Thank you for the feedback and for your kind words. Storing Chords per Bank is coming with next firmware update, V9... then, each of the 16 banks will have it's own set of chords and the 12 patches on a bank will share chords. This is ideal for creating songs with 12 patch variations but all sharing scale. The Chord Chains take up considerable memory (that is limited by ARP's hardware) so it is just 12 chains for now. I originally developed Chord Chains to give my ears a break when editing parameters, but it evolved into a pretty powerful little sequencer. ARP was envisaged as a way to play and compose on the fly and not a device to create and store whole songs. For rapid composition, not a DAW in a box. It's so easy to change and customise chords that you can get back to a point pretty quickly. There are many more chords than the 42 in the list. Hold the Chord button and toggle the notes to create custom chords. I will take on board your ideas and suggestions and see what I can do. Keep the feedback coming, it is very much appreciated.