Arpeggio Lab Player

#Introduction

A Player is a special type of device that automatically processes, filters and generates MIDI Notes, based on input MIDI Notes, to an Instrument device in the rack. Players can also play back MIDI on their own, without any MIDI input; this could for example be note generators.

The Player devices can be found on the Players palette on the Device Palette:

The Players palette

The basic idea behind Players is that you first create an Instrument device (or instrument track), then hook up one or more Player devices to the Instrument device. If the Player device is an arpeggiator, like Arpeggio Lab described in this manual, you can have it generate complex notes patterns based on the notes you play/hold on your MIDI Control Keyboard. Absolutely great for inspiration and for “happy accidents”!

For more general information about Player devices, see the “Working with Players” chapter in the Reason/Reason Rack Plugin Operation Manuals, which can be accessed from the Help menu in the program.

#Overview

The Arpeggio Lab Player is an advanced arpeggiator that takes an input chord, breaks it up into individual notes and plays these notes in a certain order. However, both the settings and the musical result are different from traditional arpeggiators, such as the Dual Arpeggio Player and RPG-8.

Arpeggio Lab outputs a combination of two arpeggio patterns, which we call Anchor and Movement. The Anchor section uses one, two or three of the chord notes and plays them in a sparse, repeating pattern. The repeating Anchor Pattern is what gives the arpeggio a pulse and makes it sound musical.

The Movement section creates an arpeggio from the chord notes that are not used by the current Anchor Pattern (or octaves of notes if needed) and inserts it in between the Anchor notes in the pattern.

You form the Movement arpeggio by selecting one of 40 arpeggio Shapes and adjusting the Density (how many steps should play back notes). While the Anchor pattern is repetitive and rhythmic, the Movement arpeggio can be much more varying and unpredictable.

When Anchor and Movement are combined, the results can span from finger-picking guitar patterns and two-handed piano arpeggios to classic synth runs and even new and unusual basslines.

The Arpeggio Lab Player also has the following features:

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Arpeggio setups can be saved in patches.

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The arpeggio patterns can be modified with muted, repeated or octave shifted notes.

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There are also CV inputs for modulating the Arpeggio Lab parameters and Gate and Note CV outputs for controlling additional devices - see “Connections”.

#Working with Arpeggio Lab

#Arpeggio Lab quick tour

Add Arpeggio Lab to an instrument device with a suitable sound, e.g. a polyphonic patch from the Europa “Poly” folder.

Next, feed it a chord - either by playing one on a keyboard or by using another Player such as Chord Sequencer or Scales & Chords.

Although the arpeggiator works with single note input, you will get more interesting results with rich chords - four or five notes is ideal.

At this point, you may want to turn on Hold (A), so that the arpeggio is kept going while you explore the settings.

Set the Rate (B) and Steps (C) parameters as desired.

While the arpeggio plays, try dialing in different Anchor Patterns (D).

You can turn off the Movement section (E) if you want to focus on the Anchor Pattern only.

In the note display (F), Anchor notes are blue while Movement notes are shown in orange.

Once you have an Anchor Pattern that you like, explore the Movement Shape (G) and Density (H) settings.

At this point, you may also want to tweak Note Length (I), Velocity (J) and Octave (K) of the notes.

With an arpeggio playing, try the Modifiers.

The Rhythm Modifier (L) can reduce or increase complexity by either randomly muting some notes or adding multiple notes per step.

The Octave Modifier (M) will shift the octave of some notes. The results are random but will stay the same when you save the patch or song

To get new random variations, click the “New Seed” buttons (N).

Tip (Reason Standalone only): At this point, you may have a unique arpeggio pattern going in Hold mode, that you want to capture straight away. As long as Arpeggio Lab's Play Mode is set to “Sync to Song Position” (O), you can just click “Send to Track” (P) at the top of the Player stack. This will capture the currently playing notes and send them to a note clip between the left and right locators in the sequencer.

Finally, you may want to Reset Hold (A) and play or record some different chords.

You can get very nice, musical results by holding a chord (with Hold off) and just changing one or two chord notes at a time.

#Panel reference

#Loading and saving patches

Loading and saving patches is done in the same way as with any other internal Reason device. See the “Sounds and Patches” chapter in the Reason/ReasonRack Plugin Operation Manual pdf/Help for details.

#Basic global settings

Before getting into the settings of the Anchor, Movement and Modifier sections, there are a couple of basic global parameters that you might want to set up:

#Hold

The Hold function lets your played chords/notes continue to play when you release the keys. This is great if you want to add more notes and hear how that affects the arpeggio, for example.

Click the Hold button to activate the Hold function.

Click the display to select the desired Hold mode.

There are four Hold modes:

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Hold All

This mode lets you continuously add new notes to the original chord.

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Latch

The notes are held until you play a new chord or note, in which case the new notes are held instead and replaces the previous notes.

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Chord

All notes are held as long as you hold one of the notes in the chord.

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Toggle

Play one or several notes to add them to the held chord. Play the same notes again to remove them from the chord.

During Hold, the Clear button lights up - click it to release all held notes.

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The Notes LEDs show how many notes are currently passed to the arpeggiator.

#Play Mode

Here you choose where the arpeggio should start playing back

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In “Retrig” mode, the arpeggio will start over from step 1 when you play a new chord.

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In “Sync to Song Position” mode, the Anchor pattern is synced to the main sequencer during playback.

#Shuffle

Shuffle allows you to add a swing feel to the arpeggio by delaying the offbeat 1/16th notes.

Click and drag up/down in the display to select the desired Shuffle value.

Range: OFF, 50-75% or “Global” to use the Global Shuffle setting (found in the Groove mixer in Reason).

#Rate

Rate is the note length of each step in the arpeggio.

Click and drag up/down in the display to select the desired Rate.

Rates: 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 3/16, 1/4T, 1/8, 1/8T, 1/16, 1/16T, 1/32, 1/64.

#Steps

Here you set how many steps to play before the arpeggio starts over.

Click and drag up/down in the display to select the desired number of Steps.

Range: 4-64 steps.

Click the buttons to the right of the display to quickly set the Steps to 16, 32 or 64.

#Randomize

The Randomize function is a great way to quickly try out different arpeggio patterns.

Click the Randomize button to set all Anchor, Movement and Modifier parameters to random values.

Note that the Randomize function will only affect a section if it's turned on.

#The Anchor section

The Anchor section uses one, two or three of the chord notes and plays them in a sparse, repeating pattern. There are 64 Anchor Patterns, with the lower numbers being very basic (e.g. only the lowest note in the chord repeating on the downbeat each bar) and higher numbers being more complex and using more notes. The repeating Anchor Pattern is what gives the arpeggio a pulse and makes it sound musical.

The Anchor pattern is represented by blue bars in the note display:

#Anchor On/Off

Click the button to turn the Anchor section On/Off.

When this is on, the Anchor pattern will be output as MIDI notes, and displayed as blue bars in the note display. When off, the Anchor pattern will still be output to its separate CV/Gate output on the back, allowing you to send it to a separate instrument. It will also still affect the Movement arpeggio (which plays notes in the gaps between the Anchor notes).

#Anchor Pattern

Select one of the 64 Anchor Patterns by turning the Pattern knob - or by clicking and dragging the Pattern Number up/down.

The Anchor Pattern determines which chord notes should be played at which steps. All 64 Anchor Patterns have 16 steps, as indicated by the display above the Pattern knob.

Anchor Pattern 0 plays no notes at all - select this if you want to use the Movement Arpeggio only (see “The Movement section”).

#Anchor Note Length

Set the desired length of the Anchor notes with the Note Length knob.

Range: 10% to 400% of the Rate step length (see “Rate”). At the maximum value, “Hold”, the note will be held until it repeats (or until the input chord ends).

#Anchor Velocity

An arpeggio note normally uses the velocity of the corresponding input chord note. The Velocity parameter can be used to either raise or lower the velocity (Offset mode) or set it to a fixed value (Fixed mode).

Click the gray button below the Velocity knob to select “Offset” or “Fixed”.

Set the desired Velocity (Offset or Fixed value) of the Anchor notes with the Velocity knob.

Range: -127 to + 127 (Offset mode) or 1-127 (Fixed mode)

#Anchor Octave

The Octave parameter transposes the Anchor notes +/-2 octaves. Note that this can affect the octave of the Movement notes (see “The Movement section”) too. The Movement notes are normally transposed automatically to stay “out of the way” so that the Anchor notes and Movement notes don't play the same pitches.

Turn the Octave knob to set the desired transposition of the Anchor notes.

Range: +/-2 octaves

#The Movement section

In the Movement section you define how the arpeggiated notes should be played back in-between the Anchor notes. You can set the shape of the Movement “pattern” and also control the density (amount) of the output notes. There are 40 different shapes to choose between.

The Movement pattern is represented by orange bars in the note display:

#Movement On/Off

Click the button to turn the Movement section On/Off.

When this is on, the Movement pattern will be output as MIDI notes, and displayed as orange bars in the note display. When off, the Movement pattern will still be output to its separate CV/Gate output on the back, allowing you to send it to a separate instrument.

#Movement Shape

Select one of the 40 patterns shapes by turning the Shape knob - or by clicking and dragging the Shape Number up/down.

The Shapes range from standard up/down arpeggios to more complex motions (like “3 notes up, 1 note down, folding“, etc). The shapes are graphically indicated above the Shape knob, but it's important to remember that the actual result will also be affected by Density parameter (see “Movement Density” below) - and the notes will only play in the gaps between the Anchor notes.

#Movement Density

The Movement notes are only played on the steps between the Anchor notes. The Density setting determines how many of these available steps will be filled by Movement notes.

Turn the Density knob to set how many Movement notes you want between the Anchor notes.

Range: 0-100%, where 0% means that no Movement note is output and 100% means that Movement notes are output at every step (as set by the “Rate” parameter), except for where Anchor notes are output.

If you select Anchor Pattern 0 (see “Anchor Pattern”) and set Movement Density to 100%, you will get a more traditional arpeggio that plays on all steps, according to the chosen Movement Shape.

#Shift Rhythm

The Shift Rhythm setting will move the Movement note pattern sideways, changing which steps are playing and which are empty. The order of the Movement notes remains the same however, as set by the “Movement Shape” parameter.

Turn the Shift Rhythm knob to move the Movement note pattern sideways (back or forth in time).

Range: -16 to + 16 steps.

#Movement Note Length

Set the desired length of the Movement notes with the Note Length knob.

Range: 10% to 400% of the Rate step length (see “Rate”). At the maximum value "Hold", the note will be held until it repeats (or until the input chord ends).

#Movement Velocity