When I heard of the ARP, I salivated at the thought of four arps in a box. I had been using two separate boxes arpeggiating data and struggled with getting them to play nicely together. Alas, the ARP is only capable of listening to a single source of data for all of the internal arpeggiators to listen to. Disappointed, I opted to try and work around this limitation. I feel I've given it a fair shake, but I still am unable to achieve the results desired. Hence, I'm asking if a slight modification could be made.
Currently, the Global Menu in Set-Menu allows for a Sync to be selected that gets routed to all four arps. I propose adding an additional feature to the MIDI Out button which could set the source of data for that particular arp. I know it would be confusing, but a second press of MIDI Out could call a MIDI Sync In for each arp. Default would be G, for global which is set as is currently implemented via the Set-Menu button. But, it could then be modified per arp to a particular channel - different than the global setting.
For example, the Global Menu could have Sync set to channel 5, with the four arps set to:
ARP 1 = G
ARP2 = G
ARP3 = 7
ARP4 = 13
This would result in the box responding to data on three different MIDI channels (5, 7, & 13).
This would greatly break down the barriers I'm currently banging my head against in using this fantastic Midicake ARP device.
Thank you for your consideration.
I definitely wouldn't want to call this "sync", because that implies (and is standard terminology for) clock-related concepts (which is not channelized and thus cannot work the way you're describing). Perhaps it could be called "live source" or something more clearly related to the ideas that it's note-related.
I'm sorry for the delay here, this post suddenly popped up for my approval, but it looks like you posted it many months back, some glitch in the WIX forum somewhere. Sorry about that if it is the case. The original intention for ARP was as an accompaniment tool but it has since grown far beyond that. My reticence at splitting the MIDI Input sources is how you keep it all in sync. It would be very easy to get in a tangle and the input config would be tricky. That said, I can see the appeal and it has been asked before. Perhaps it could be included as an advanced option with a "here be dragons" warning. 😊 I'll add it to the list.