** Review / 1 page / ? words ** Midi arpeggiator ** MIDI_ARP.GIF here ** Ed Mcglone finds out that the analogue sequencer is alive and well and living somewhere in his Atari Falcon... If I was to mention the word "sequencer" to most computer literate musicians (or indeed music literate computer nuts), it would probably conjure up the image of some software package like the mighty Cubase being used to record and arrange an entire piece of music. It might even suggest some of the Hardware recorders offered by the big guns in the musical instrument industry like Yamaha or Roland. Try to cast your mind back in time however, to the dim and distant '70s. If you are too young to do this, just bear with me and use your imagination... The micro computer has not been invented yet - no Ataris, no PC's no Macs. There is a new type of musical instrument - one which creates it's sound electronically - the synthesizer. Some of these devices are so big that they take up an entire wall in a university's music department. They are a mass of control knobs and switches, patch leads and flashing lights and they need someone with a degree in electronics to coax the simplest of sounds out of them. Some (not all) of these synthesizers come with a sequencer module. This enables the synthesizer to play itself! I'm now wallowing in a haze of nostalgia but one of the most fascinating things for anyone with an interest in electronic music to do in the late 70's and early eighties. was to sit down in front of a synthesizer with a sequencer module and twiddle the knobs! There were usually eight or sixteen controls, each with a corresponding red led below it. Each knob controlled the pitch of the synthesizer - the note played - and the sequencer played each of the notes set in turn. When it got to the last note, it started again from the beginning. The combination of the steady, hypnotic rhythm and the little red light chasing from left to right fuelled the imaginations of musicians the world over from German bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream through rock giants like The Who to keyboard wizards like Vangelis and Jean Michelle Jarre. Popular music had found some new avenues to explore! Of course, all of this simplicity was swept aside with the arrival of Midi - (the Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and the Yamaha DX7 around about 1983. The Atari ST was released onto the marketplace with it's two standard Midi sockets and the way that music was written and recorded changed forever. So what has all this got to do with Midi Arpeggiator? Well, just this. Midi Arpeggiator is really a faithful implementation of the early analogue sequencers on your Atari computer using modern midi gear. It has the same sixteen controls - instead of knobs we now have a numerical readout which is much more accurate. It even has the little light chasing along with the sequence, although this actually "shines" in black on an ST high resolution display or yellow in Falcon colour modes. And best of all, Midi arpeggiator is just as much fun as the old sequencers were! On opening up the program you are faced with a very smooth looking user interface. In the centre of the control panel you find the familiar tape transport style buttons for play. fast forward, rewind, stop and record, more of which later. Below these are some more buttons to switch playback of the sequence between modes - forwards, backwards or ping-pong which plays forwards to the end, then backwards to the beginning again. Alternatively, the notes in the sequence can be played in a random order if you are looking for something a bit more chaotic! along the bottom of the window are the sixteen note slots - but in two rows. This is because Midi Arpeggiator can play back two separate sequences at the same time. If you have more than one midi channel available on your sound source, then these two sequences can play back on different sounds. To set up a sequence, all you have to do is enable record on one of Midi Arpeggiator's channels and play the notes on your midi keyboard. As you play a note, the note number will appear in the box and the program will move on to the next step. Nothing could be simpler. If you make a mistake, you can move backwards and forwards through the sequence with the mouse or the computer keyboard cursor keys. You don't even need to use your midi keyboard if you can't be bothered hooking it up - to the right of the transport bar is a "virtual keyboard". You play this by clicking on the notes with the mouse. You can transpose the virtual keyboard to allow access to all the notes ( 0 to 127 ) that midi allows and a slider to the left lets you choose the velocity values entered. The two sets of controls which look like mixer channel strips on the left hand side of the window are in fact the midi equivalent. They let you balance the two sequences you have created using standard midi messages for volume, pan and effects sends - usually reverb and chorus but this will depend on the implementation in keyboard or sound module you are using as your sound source. In fact, the mixer is even more sophisticated than that. Using the "Set Auxiliary" boxes on the right hand side of the window, you can assign different midi controllers to the aux1 and aux2 controls on each channel strip. So you could assign say, modulation and portamento to the two aux controls. If you have previously used them for reverb and chorus, the settings for those are unaffected by the new controller messages. Midi Arpeggiator can interact with your other midi programs in several different ways. Firstly, an Arpeggio can be saved out as a standard midi file. This will be one or two bars long depending on the settings used and can be imported into most modern sequencer packages like Cubase, Logic etc. Secondly, a midi file can be recorded to disk complete with your "performance" of it. You can change the settings and controls within Midi Arpeggiator while it is playing and the results will be faithfully recorded in the midi file. Occasionally Midi Arpeggiator has too much to do when you are accessing a menu item and the timing of the sequence suffers as a result but I am pleased to report that the timing on the exported midi files is always rock solid. Thirdly, Midi Arpeggiator can send a midi clock signal so that you can synchronise it's playback with that of another software or hardware midi sequencer - (or another Midi Arpeggiator)! Unfortunately it cannot as yet act as a slave to an external midi clock so you could not synchronise it to a tape machine or another sequencer package sending out variable tempos. I have had a great time just messing around with Midi Arpeggiator and I am sure that some of it's classic analogue style sequences will mysteriously find their way into my Cubase based compositions sooner or later. Midi Arpeggiator is supplied on one floppy disk in a nice CD style box with a printed manual and also one on disk in ST Guide format. The very best news about Midi Arpeggiator is that it only costs œ10.00 for the registered version direct from the publishers, Electronic Cow. It is also in a constant state of development and updates are free to registered users - anyone still using version 1.00 take note. A major update is planned in April/May and will probably push the price up to around œ14.00 but it's still not going to break the bank. If you want to know more, why not visit the authors at their web site. the address is http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/abi91/cownet.htm ----------------------------------------------------------- Product Info Midi Arpeggiator Author: Danny MacAleer Publisher: Electronic Cow 350 Broadwater Crescent Stevenage Hertfordshire SG2 8EZ Tel: 01426 281347 Web: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/abi91/cownet.htm UK Price œ10.00 + œ.50 postage and packaging. Pros Great fun to use Very reasonably priced Constantly being developed Cons Occasional timing glitches External sync as master only 85%