Chaining chords / chord pattern

[synthdad]

If you didn't happen to see it, the Chord Sequencer beta release is in the beta release FW section...
https://conductivelabs.com/forum/forumdi...php?fid=10

The updated manual on conductivelabs.com has the instructions for how to use the new features.

Definitely looking forward to trying it out this week!

[Steve]

Hi Tim,
Thanks for the enthusiasm!
Yes, there are 32 "1/8" ths for the chord duration. You can also repeat chords in the "Sections", and repeat Sections in the "Song".
Steve

[Tim Wilson]

Finally got to try the latest beta and play with the new features. Thank you Daryl and Steve.  I'd forgotten about the controller and was underwhelmed at the idea, but having seen the screens I realise that these will in fact be really useful. Likewise the chord sequencer and song mode very much add to the functionality of the instrument and I particularly like the way the chord buttons rather than just the encoders can be used when constructing a sequence. Now that it is nearer complete (and whilst still in beta) I've a few comments and requests.

The sequencing of key and mode in the chord sequencer seems to over complicate affairs. For me this is a setting I want to set globally, so I'd rather not have the key and mode sequencing and stick with the global mode. This is much more useful to try out on the fly, generally set and forget. The present implementation gets in the way of this.

Choosing quantities of 0.5 is a bit of a headache and could be avoided if the quantisation was displayed as 1/8 rather than 1/4.

I'd like a way so that chords could be sequenced so they don't have to start start on the one.

Related to this I'd hoped that chords would be available in modes other than latched on. For instance if a user wanted to sequence chords that played as stabs on the off beat it isn't really possible. I appreciate the NDLR is primarily an uber-arpeggiator and works well for the motifs, it's the implementation of the chord function I'm querying. 

I did wonder if the implementation of the chord sequencer might use the rhythm / pattern paradigm of the motif sequencer - presumably the pattern sequencers could be repurposed to define chords rather than notes?

(I've tried using patterns as modulators in the LFO section but couldn't understand what I was doing, this isn't well documented in the manual).

A midi learn for the controller section would be wonderful, as would the ability to live record chord progressions.

[Darryl]

Some interesting ideas there Tim, thanks!

For the Key and Mode setting, maybe there is something we can do to make it so you don't have to enter it for every step. Otherwise, its a very powerful part of the sequencer which lets you play "any" chord by switching key or mode to get to a different root. However, I see how you might not want to have to set it for every step, but it doesn't take too long either. Maybe it should keep the last Key and Mode for the next step if the next step duration is 0. Would be interested to hear how people would like this to work.

I think what you are looking for here is a PAD sequencer. The Chord Sequencer is a global chord sequencer for all of the NDLR parts, not just the PAD. The PAD gate length is something we've discussed a few times in the past. We'll still keep it on the wish list but it would be quite a challenge to re-architect the code to control PAD gates separately from the other parts. We never thought of the PAD part as a general purpose chord player, but rather a PAD player in the synth sense. Where a PAD patch typically has a rich evolving texture kind of like a polyphonic drone. So the scope of its feature set might be a bit narrow compared to something that lets you record a sequence while playing for example. The Arturia Keystep is actually great for that as you can insert rests to limit the chord duration. Oh, and Steve is looking into doing that too, so maybe there is hope :-)

Using patterns as a chord sequence works great for doing algorithmic like sequencing where you are not too concerned with timing or specific notes. The pattern doesn't know anything about notes because its relative to the note pool based on the key and mode. Where in the chord sequencer you explicitly choose these things. Think of the pattern as an LFO as a custom waveform rather than a sequence and you will get the idea. The other downside with pattern controlling chord is its not possible to time chord type with chord changes like you can in the sequencer.