are notes i made yesterday offline, pasted in, i'll edit it
down if i went way off track
)at first impressions, the Keys sequencer isn't much:
just a realtime recorder that doesn't even have quantize,
and no step mode.
but i've been looking at it more closely, and have just
found a different approach, involving the Active Step
function/mode:
if you slow it down by selecting 1/4 or 1/2 divisions
-and this also works in 1/1, and seems to be linked to
'flux', because when that is off, you only get chords,
and it seems to be dealing with coarser divisions eg:
1 entry position per step
so, using flux mode then, each step can be a mini-sequence
of its own, perfect for little arpeggios or sort repeating
sequences. that way, you could see it as 16 minisequences
per pattern. 16x8= 128(!)
the way to start with this is to set function+active step,
and select only one step ie: start with step1 only 'active'.
you will have to get good at toggling between active step
and play/record - not hard, you just press function to
disable active step once you've selected the step/s you want
to work on, and you're back in play/record. record stays
selected as you go in/out of active step mode- which is
useful, would be a nightmare if you had to re-engage record
each time (but it can also make you make mistakes)
so:( with 'flux' set on )
-with only eg: step1 selected, and on the slow 1/4 rate, with
tempo turned right down, hit function and get out of 'active
step'. check out the notes you want to input, as single notes.
-now activate record, and input one note. it will repeat at a
slow rate. now add another, but not at the same time as the
existing note. now you have the 2 notes cycling. now enter
another, you have three, and another, four.. it is a kind of
repeating arpeggio now.
-you'll notice the timing doesn't conform to eg: 16th notes,
it isn't quantised at all, so you get different rhythms, it
is quite hard/impossible to get it on regular 16ths. maybe
it could be done sending in data from an external midi sequencer.
-and i don't know how many notes each step can take. i don't think
there is a limit, as they are not quantised and it seems to be
able to do loads=complete chaos sometimes, good chaos sometimes.
-trouble is, it goes much too fast once you change the tempo back
up to 1/2 and 1/1. so i tried this in 1/1, and it works too. it
turned out 'flux' mode was enabling this. otherwise, you get chords
at the top of the step - and i don't know how many notes poly you
get, i think it is 3?
-ok, so save this 1 step pattern to a memory. now go back to
active step, and select only step2(disable step1). hit function
to go back out to play/record/note audition. if you left it in
record, you can start entering notes straight away, one at a time.
(chords also, if you want, i think, must check)
-once you're done, go funct+act.step and you can try using both
steps together. the odds are that it will sound wonky, wrong
rhythm, because it isn't quantised, but it can also sound cool.
now you can work on step3 only, and so on.
-nb: you might think that funct+clear act step just clears the
*current* step, but it doesn't: it clears the active steps
assignment, eg: the steps you had selected, resets it to the
full 16steps. this is not terribly useful and will screw up
what you are doing. if you want to clear what you just did,
you hold funct+erase with only the step you want to clear playing.
it works most of the time, haven't quite figured this out fully,
but if you hold this one one step cycling it will generally reset it.
so that's it, really. this is giving me all sorts of idea about the
Keys, because i love little abstract arpeggios, and, let's face it,
an arp never has memories, unless you own the fiendish oberheim
cyclone(which i once did)- imagine this thing sending out MIDI!
you then have 128 arpeggios and mini basslines to recall(if you can
remember what is what..)
