I enjoyed your Bridge of Sighs mashup, Tony. Clever.

I still employ my old Yamaha MO8 (same soundset as your Motif) on a regular basis, despite having a terabyte of sample libraries on call. I'm amazed at how much quality they squeezed into 175MB of ROM. I've got tambourine samples that are bigger than that.

bitflipper-  I find the Yamaha sounds to be the most natural and useful of my entire arsenal.  Their synth-y stuff isn't the greatest, but for stock, natural sounds, Yamaha has the lock on 'em in my opinion.

And thanks for the compliment!

Yamaha have always come up with some great sounds for their synths.

I quite often fire up my old AN1X and get some great sounds out ofi t.

Yep, that's the sounds of today's music. Well some of it. Whatever is different, not just arps.

In my experience, people who complain that using arps is "cheating," would quite happy record a 2-bar bass line and loop it in their DAW. Sure you played those two bars, but what is stopping you from just recording the whole part live through the entire song? Is it that you don't feel you could sustain the timing and technique through the whole tune? Surely a "real" musician would have no trouble laying the whole part down. But no, they limit themselves to playing 2 bars correctly, and when they finally get a good take down, they loop it as needed. 

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it's unfair to accuse the arp player of not being a real musician. Sometimes the style of a song needs mathematically perfect arps played at a speed which otherwise good musicians couldn't possibly manage. What about someone who can play beautiful pieces at a slow tempo, but their fingers are just not physically up to the task of playing fast arpeggios across three octaves? Sure you could enter the notes manually if they're an irregular pattern, but if they fit a common arp pattern then what exactly is "less musical" about automating the task as opposed to clicking individual notes in a PRV? 

ps: give me one of your arp "tricks" you use....

 
Friends don't let friends latch an arpeggiator.  Plus, there's this:
 
Alesion ARP Presets
In Sonar X2 Producer, extract them to hard drive letter:\Cakewalk Content\SONAR X2 Producer\Arpeggiator Patterns.
 
All arpeggiators are not created equal.  If you want to sound like everyone else, pick one of algorithms that've been around since (before) Duran Duran went to Rio.  Up, Down (Forward, Reverse), one of the inclusive / exclusive circle variations.  Even Random can stay boring with just the right static input.  Then latch it, and play block chords.
 
For you non-conformists, selecting an *As Played - Trigger - Order* variation gives you control over patterns with live input (or drawn-in notes, for that matter).   Velocity values that are *recorded* can help out a great deal.  While a Lexicon MPX-1 has an arpeggiator weaker than an SCI Six-Trak, it does have one redeeming quality.  A Mod Wheel at rest (0 value) uses the velocities as they were played in.  CC1 values of 1-127 correspond to velocity value output in the arpeggiator pattern.  Fade-ins, fade-outs, control over the exact note velocities. (Nearly the same thing can be done in Sonar's arp.)
 
The Alesis Ion / Micron had a fairly unique set of arpeggiator features; control over rhythmic patterns, pattern length, octave jumps, etc.  Unconstrained by 16th note regularity and 4-on-the-floor lockstep; unless you deliberately set it up that way.  Those parameters are mirrored in the Alesion ARP Presets download.  The Project5*-to-Sonar arpeggiator has a lot of the same qualities, but you have to dig a little to bring them out.  Those 'One Note Wonder" shipping presets don't help.  A pattern made up of scale-locked sequences has a very narrow window of application.
 
True arpeggiators process incoming notes, then apply algorithms to those notes as they change.  Taking a creative approach has been mentioned above here.  By playing in & around the arpeggiator patterns, and varying the amount of notes that it's currently monitoring, you can vary the shape of the pattern output.  What you don't play is as important as what you do.  Automation of the constituent arpeggiator components does much the same.  Better still: direct MIDI Remote control over the number of octaves, algorithm, or tempo division adds a hands-on approach to a slightly-overused tool.
 
Or, just hit the Latch button.  It sounds awesome with supersaws & Hoovers under hard-Autotuned vocals.
 
*Note: As far as I know, having Project5 installed is the only way to create your own .arp presets for Sonar.
Alesion Pattern Construction Kit
Alesion ARP Documentation / Project5

Danny Danzi


I say everything is a "go" if you need it. These tools were made for people to use and if it gets your idea out of your head to where you like what you've done, you made the right choice.

Now, me as a guitar player....I literally play arpeggios in my lead passages. If I were not able to play one up to speed and decided to play the passage extra slow and then have the computer speed it up so it sounds right, I'm cheating and it's unacceptable to ME. If someone that doesn't play guitar like that decides to cheat and do it, by all means it's acceptable...as long as they fess up and say "hey, I wish I could play like that but I can't....so here's what it would sound like if I could!" :)

-Danny

Have you ever alternate tuned a guitar for a particular chord arpeggio, punched it in where need and sat back and wondered if anyone would ever try to play it with standard tuning and find it was impossible?  Haha.

Mod Bod

Danny Danzi


I say everything is a "go" if you need it. These tools were made for people to use and if it gets your idea out of your head to where you like what you've done, you made the right choice.

Now, me as a guitar player....I literally play arpeggios in my lead passages. If I were not able to play one up to speed and decided to play the passage extra slow and then have the computer speed it up so it sounds right, I'm cheating and it's unacceptable to ME. If someone that doesn't play guitar like that decides to cheat and do it, by all means it's acceptable...as long as they fess up and say "hey, I wish I could play like that but I can't....so here's what it would sound like if I could!" :)

-Danny

Have you ever alternate tuned a guitar for a particular chord arpeggio, punched it in where need and sat back and wondered if anyone would ever try to play it with standard tuning and find it was impossible?  Haha.

Doesn't have to be an arp. It's hard to tell if the transpose button (on a keyboard) or capo (on a guitar) was used unless of course, you are told this; however, especially with basses, when clear when de-tuning has occurred (unless one is playing a five or six strings - cause many think four string - This is what has occurred when bands bring multiple guitars with them on stage. They've been de-tuned way before hand, so it's just "pick up and play" (my sister has several guitars herself and probably has done this as well)


Even I've written compositions where I think an instrument can't do something, but turns out it can! (No note lower than A55 - the most left note on a standard piano. Often times, I have wonder given the way I write if my parts can be done (and they're quite colorful to say the least). Yet, I rather not think this because the hampers the writing. IOW, I don't cross that bridge until I get there.

Mod Bod

Danny Danzi


I say everything is a "go" if you need it. These tools were made for people to use and if it gets your idea out of your head to where you like what you've done, you made the right choice.

Now, me as a guitar player....I literally play arpeggios in my lead passages. If I were not able to play one up to speed and decided to play the passage extra slow and then have the computer speed it up so it sounds right, I'm cheating and it's unacceptable to ME. If someone that doesn't play guitar like that decides to cheat and do it, by all means it's acceptable...as long as they fess up and say "hey, I wish I could play like that but I can't....so here's what it would sound like if I could!" :)

-Danny

Have you ever alternate tuned a guitar for a particular chord arpeggio, punched it in where need and sat back and wondered if anyone would ever try to play it with standard tuning and find it was impossible?  Haha.

Stop giving my secrets away

Mod Bod

Danny Danzi


I say everything is a "go" if you need it. These tools were made for people to use and if it gets your idea out of your head to where you like what you've done, you made the right choice.

Now, me as a guitar player....I literally play arpeggios in my lead passages. If I were not able to play one up to speed and decided to play the passage extra slow and then have the computer speed it up so it sounds right, I'm cheating and it's unacceptable to ME. If someone that doesn't play guitar like that decides to cheat and do it, by all means it's acceptable...as long as they fess up and say "hey, I wish I could play like that but I can't....so here's what it would sound like if I could!" :)

-Danny

Have you ever alternate tuned a guitar for a particular chord arpeggio, punched it in where need and sat back and wondered if anyone would ever try to play it with standard tuning and find it was impossible?  Haha.

Dave I know this is an old post, but I meant to reply to it before and answer you. I don't ever alternate tune because I'm forever alternate tuned by....umm...accident and have been tuning this way since I was about 4. LOL! I use a form of an open C tuning always. It's the only way I know how to play. I mean I CAN play in standard tuning if I need to, but it's foreign to me. The low C tuning allows for Eb, D, C# and C UNDER your standard, open E 6th string. So I've never had to retune.
 
The funny thing about my stuff is, those who have tried to learn it say "this is impossible in standard tuning!" which in some cases, it is. What's even funnier, when they see me play things in person, they scratch their heads because most times, they don't know I'm tuned like a goof-ball. It's super funny when I play in my VH cover band. Guys come up to me and say "c'mon, fess up...are you faking playing that stuff? I know these songs and when I play them, they do NOT look like that!" :)
 
In answer to your question though, I HAVE had to punch in parts that could be played by one guitar. There are certain limitations within my tuning that make some things pretty impossible for me to play. So when those situations arise, I play one part of it and then punch in the other part on another track....blend the two and it sounds like one guitar. This seems to only happen to me when I have to play on other peoples material though to which they would play/tune in standard tuning. Anything I write, I always can play in one pass without punching in two parts.
 
-Danny