The SL MkIII has eight powerful Arpeggiators. These arps give you the ability to program classic, ‘machine-like’ arpeggios for every part. Perfect for creating layers of arps with vast rhythmic and poly-rhythmic variations.
To turn the arpeggiator on or off:
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Go to the Part you want to use the arpeggiator with.
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Hold shift and press the Arp button to turn on the Arp.
The Arp button lights white and with the arpeggiator on, held notes on the keyboard arpeggiate.
The Sequencer also routes to the arpeggiator. When recording to the Sequencer, held keys record into the Patterns as long notes. Assuming Arp is still on, these long notes will be route back into the Arp for playback.
Using the Latch feature of the SL MkIII is a fun way of augmenting Arp’s functionality.
Pressing the ‘Latch’ button toggles Arp Latch on and off. When on, any notes you play hold, and their note-offs are delayed until you release all the arpeggiated notes and play a new note/s.
Note
Latch will work whether Arp is on or off– Latch triggers a continuous MIDI note, regardless of Arp’s on/off state. Latch is useful, for example, if sending MIDI to an external arpeggiator, or an external synth patch with lots of sustain.
You can use latch to keep an arp running for one part while you change to a different part to play or arpeggiate.
Tip
By latching the arp for multiple parts and adjusting the length control differently for each part, you can create interesting, evolving poly-rhythmic sequences.
Pressing the Arp button (while not holding Shift) reveals the following settings on the screens.
Changing these settings will significantly change the sound of your arpeggios. The following sections explain these settings in depth.
You can set Arp to the following pattern ‘Types’:
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Up (default) - Notes held or latched (with the Latch button) play in an upwards direction at the Arp Sync Rate, one after another, then the pattern repeated.
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Down - Notes held or latched play in a downwards direction at the Arp Sync Rate, one after another, then the pattern repeated.
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Up/Down 1 - Notes held or latched play in an upwards direction, then downwards direction with no repeated notes, at the Arp Sync Rate, then the whole pattern repeated.
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Up/Down 2 - Notes held or latched play in an upwards direction, then downwards direction with the highest and lowest notes repeated, at the Arp Sync Rate, then the whole pattern repeated.
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Random - Notes held or latched play in a random order at the Arp Sync Rate until keys are released.
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Played - Notes held or latched output in the order they were played, at the Arp Sync Rate, then the whole pattern repeated.
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Chord - Notes held or latched play as a chord on each Arp step, at the Arp Sync Rate, until the notes are released.
The Arp’s Gate control shortens the length of arpeggiated notes from the maximum length of one arpeggiated step (100%) down to 1/100th of an arpeggiated step (1%). Gate is set to 100% by default, with an adjustable range of one to 100%. Gate considers Arp Sync Rate and tempo; therefore, as Sync Rate changes and tempo increases/decreases the Arp gate length will remain a consistent percentage of the Arp step length.
This changes the musical rate the Arp runs relative to the SL MkIII’s clock. The Arp can be set to these sync rates:
This setting increases the output range of the Arp by octaves. For example, if you set Octaves to two the sequence plays and then Is immediately repeated one octave higher. Three means the Sequence will repeat one octave higher, and then an octave higher still. By default, Octaves is set to one but can go as far as six.
If arpeggiated notes go out of range, the Arp will correct the notes to within the top octave (G#6 to G7). There are no duplicated notes when you change Arp Octaves.
Octaves interact with Types in different ways. These scenarios are a reference when programming with octaves in mind:
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When Type = Up/Down 1 or Up/Down 2 the Arp will play up the full octave range before playing down.
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When Type = Played the notes play in the first octave before repeating in additional octaves.
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When Type = Random, the sequence of notes is randomised across the whole octave range, and every note is picked at random.
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When Type = Chord, additional octaves will cause the held notes to repeat according to the octave setting in an upwards direction. For example, if Octaves = 3, the held notes will be played as a chord at the pitch, then +1 octave and then +2 octaves, before the pattern repeats.
Arp note Velocity can be between 1 and 127 (standard for MIDI velocities) or ‘Played’ (default).
When set to Played, the output notes from the arpeggiator will inherit the velocities of the notes you physically played.
When set to a value of 1-127, the output notes from the arpeggiator play at a fixed velocity as specified by this setting. For example, if set to ’65’, all notes heard will have a velocity value of 65.
This sets the length of the Arp pattern, measured in steps. By default, the Arp loops through 16 steps, but you can make it shorter (from one to 15 steps). The ‘Arp Sync Rate’ determines the length of a step (1, 1/2, 1/2 Triplet etc.).
You will see your Pattern on the 8x2 pad area, where each pad represents a single step in the Pattern.
Finally, the Arp Pattern feature lets you customise the rhythm of your arpeggios. After pressing the Arp button, each pad will represent a step in the arpeggio pattern. You can then toggle a step on or off by pressing its corresponding pad, thus altering your pattern’s rhythm. A pad will light brightly when the step is set to play, and dimly when the pad will not play. A white cursor moves across the pads as the arpeggiator plays.
This resulting rhythm only affects the timing of the played notes and does not change the order they play.
While using Up/Down 1 with an octave range greater than one, when the arp moves down, reducing the octave range to one will cause the Arp to continue falling through all the octaves until it reaches one. At this point, it will stay within the 1-octave range. If moving in the up direction, the arpeggiator will reset to the first octave after it has completed all the notes in the sequence within the current octave it is playing in.
When you use Up/Down 2, if the top/bottom note is released after it has played once, Arp will immediately switch direction and play the next highest/lowest note only once and continue in that direction. This behaviour maintains timing if you remove the top note, replace it with another note.
When switching between directional arpeggiator types during playback, Arp will not reset position but will continue moving in the same direction (if supported by the new Type) until it reaches a limit. For example, if switching from Down type to Up/Down one Type, the arpeggiator will continue moving down until it reaches the lowest note.
You can set the probability of a step playing in an arp sequence for any of the eight arpeggiators. To enable this, go to the Arp Settings Menu and using the encoders you can change the arp step to a chance between 0% and 100%. 0% giving that step no chance of triggering and when set to 100% that step will always play.