Storing different ARP Sequences?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi guys,

i have a problem with understanding the midi arp in octatrack.

i have a moog sub37 hooked up to octa and i want to trigger different midi sequences and arps to different audio tracks coming from octa as backingtrack machine. my backingtracks exclude the sequences that i want to trigger with the midi sequencing and arp.

how do i store different arpeggios? for whatever reason i get the same arpeggio when i switch to another midi pattern. if i change anything there the settings change for all patterns. so i basically only have one arpeggio to store.

is there a way to store different sequences and arpeggios in different patterns for switching between them when the next backingtrack comes in and the arp needs to be changed to another pattern to match the backing track?

or is there another way that does the trick?

thank you for your help!
andreas

#2

The Arp settings are stored in the Part. (You can think of a Part as being like a kit of settings for the 8 audio tracks and 8 MIDI sequencer tracks.) There are four Parts per bank of 16 patterns. Each pattern has an associated Part, but each pattern defaults to using Part 1.

So to associate a different arp with a pattern, you need to select a different Part when you are in the new pattern. Then you can change the arp without messing up the settings associated with other patterns.

Further information is in the “Banks, Parts and Scenes” section of the manual.

5 Likes
#3

You can also set 8 arp sequences in a part, 1 per midi track, copy / paste them on the active midi track, or just select the track with the arp seq you want.

4 Likes
#4

Hi peter,

thanks for your quick response. i get it. if i´m not misunderstanding your text: i only have 4 slots for storing arps per bank, right? (because there are only 4 parts). So maybe it would be best to think about one bank per backingtrack to keep it plain?

sezare56: this feels like a good fix.

i´ll give both a try. thank you, this is an awesome community.

cheers

1 Like
#5

Yes, four parts per bank.

But as @sezare56 pointed out, there are 8 MIDI tracks in each pattern so you could store 8 arps in each part and just select each track when you want. Especially if your “backing track” were just one stereo file.

2 Likes
#6

perfect. this will work. thanks a lot!

#7

You can also just plock the right arp settings on each step of the pattern. That way every pattern can have different arp settings regardless of part.

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#8

Note offsets, arp length and key can’t be p-locked as far as I know. So yes, you can make some variations per-pattern that way, but not completely different arps.

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#9

very good idea. tried it. i had a problem with swing then. when i have an uneven length of my sequence (lets say 7) that i program into the stepsequencer and i want to apply swing and select steps 1, 3, 5, 7 as swing steps it will have an unnatural feel to it because the 7 and 1 are after one another when played in a loop (i.e. track length per pattern an length of this midi track 7/16).

what could solve the issue: disconnecting the swing pattern length from the trig pattern lenth. however i dont think you could do this.

#10

Sure you can’t plock key or length of the custom arp but everything else can be locked: root note, the 3 extra notes, length, speed, transpose, mode, octave range and velocity. Plus 3 LFOs to any of the above. There’s more flexibility there than in most arps outside of software. The only real limitation is that it doesn’t swing.

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#11

Yeah ok. I always design my arps by setting arp length, note offsets, rests and playing notes live, that’s why I said that.

#12

Wild, I never use it that way. You like the extra flexibility?