Ableton’s arpeggiator device is awesome in every way. At first, I found some of these controls to be a little cryptic, so today I am going to break them all down so you have a clear Idea of what they all do. Understanding puts the creative power in your hands.
Let’s begin!
Style
Style determines how Ableton will break up the chords that you play. There are 18 different options.
The following shows what the arpeggiator would produce when given the input, C-E-G-C
Groove
Groove determines if your notes should be played straight, or if they should be swung. You can choose swung 8ths or 16th.
Hold
Hold will repeat the notes you’ve played until you play new ones. If you physically hold any notes down with hold toggled on, you can press a note a second time to remove it from the pattern, or play a new note to add it to the pattern
Sync
Turning sync on and off allows you to line up the arpeggiator to Ableton’s clock or to the time in milliseconds.
Gate
Adjusts the length of the notes. Small percentages make notes very short, and large percentages make them legato. Values over 100% produce notes that overlap.
Retrigger
Provides two options for when to start the pattern over.
Beats- start the pattern over by a specified number of beats or bars.
Notes- Will start the pattern over everytime a new note is entered.
Repeats- Sets the maximum amount of times a pattern will repeat. This will create some pauses in your arpeggiator. But it can also add some interesting dimension and take away the heavily computerized feel.
Steps and Distance
These parameters work together to handle how much the arpeggiator will transpose incoming notes.
Distance- Tells Ableton how much to transpose by in half steps.
Steps- tells Ableton how many times to transpose your notes.
For example, setting steps to 1 and distance to +12 will play the pattern once in the octave you enter the notes, and once on octave higher
Transpose and Key
Transpose tells Ableton if it should shift incoming notes chromatically, or if it must adhere to a key.
Key tells Ableton what key you are in. If you choose major or minor, you may choose the letter of your desired key from the drop-down menu directly below.
In shift mode, Ableton will go outside of your original key if your distance setting permits it.
In major mode, Ableton will only choose notes from the major scale you set
In minor mode, Ableton will only choose notes from the minor scale.
Velocity
Turns on a velocity decay. You can set the lowest value it will reach by adjusting the “target” and decay time using the decay knob.
Velocity Retrigger
Turning velocity retrigger on will allow will retrigger your velocity decay each time the arpeggiated pattern is started over.
Experimenting
The best way to really understand this device is to you use it a little bit. With the information above, and just a few minutes, you will understand exactly how to use this device.
I highly recommend watching the video that goes along with this post to see all these parameters in action.
Alright, now get out there and make some awesome music. Maybe incorporate some sick new arpeggios in it. Then make sure you join my facebook group. Its’ the best way to be directly connected to me, as well as a whole community of Ableton users.It’ss a great way to give and receive support.
I hope to see you there
Until next time, happy creating
-Brett