The synths<\/a><\/strong><\/span> we know and love come to life due to the awesome features that they house. One of those epic features is an arpeggiator. An arpeggiator makes time-wasting (or should we say procrastinating?) incredibly easy. They allow us to create interesting rhythms with minimal effort – select your tempo & arp rate, hold some notes, and then boom; you have an interesting melody happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you’re composing music in your DAW, what do you do? Besides your computer, you may also grab your MIDI controller or synth. It’s your lucky day because rather than have to manually create a phrase with just your mind, fingers and keys\/pads, you can use the expertise of your trustee arpeggiator and create phrase after phrase of interesting melodies and rhythm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As we’re sure you may have learned, notes and chords<\/a><\/strong><\/span> are at the very foundation of music. But a chord is just a collection of specific notes, so music is just on notes if we’re being honest with ourselves. Anyway, an arpeggiator utilises this matter of fact and manipulates note duration, intervals between notes, and so much more, all based on the information you have to feed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arpeggiators manipulate note duration and intervals between notes to create a sequence of notes based on your master tempo and arpegiattor rate. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n With that said, an arpeggiator is a tool that uses MIDI<\/span><\/strong><\/a> information or control voltages<\/a><\/strong><\/span> to cycle through a series of notes according to information such as tempo and note division. We call them arpeggiators because of what’s known as the ‘arpeggio’. In music theory<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, the arpeggio is where we play the notes of a chord one after another in sequence rather than at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get started with your arpeggiator, the usual data you need to input include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n RATE \/NOTE DIVISION <\/strong>– The speed of the arpeggiated notes (1\/2 notes, 1\/4 notes, 1\/8 notes, etc.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n TEMPO <\/strong>– The master tempo at which you want your arpeggiated notes to play<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enabling the arpeggiator on your synth or controller tells the unit in question to actively “listen<\/strong><\/em>” to the notes you’re playing. With your note information, an arpeggiator generates a pattern based on your input information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The pattern can be very simple or very complex. What matters is the rate you set and the notes you hold. Your arpeggiator will only work with the notes you hold down, whether it’s a singular note or a chord. You could also play a melody of notes with your arpeggiator engaged and start hearing some very interesting patterns. No matter how long you hold any note or chord down, the arpeggiated pattern reflects the progression of notes you have made use of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With this in mind, take note that the more notes you have held down gives the arpeggiator more to work with and can create more diverse patterns…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s an awesome example of just what an arpeggiator can do with the use of SKULPT synthesizer.<\/p>\n\n\n\nArpeggiators Explained<\/h3>\n\n\n\n