Members pixel_zaro Posted February 11, 2020 Members Share Posted February 11, 2020 Hello, I hope you can help me on this. Sorry my grammar, the spanish is my native languaje. The thing is that Im the vocalist and songwritter of my recently formed band (kinda synth rock style) and we're having some trouble dealing with the arpeggiator beat. Some sound presets of the arpeggiator are quite simple and we can follow the beat with no problem, but we are trying some more interesting and complex sounds and then, if we dont turn the synth to the loudest we lose the beat, but then it sound turns too much invasive. What alternatives do you recommend to solve this situation. We are for now: vocals, guitar, bass, synth and we are about to add the drums (wich could make the situation worse). Help please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members moogerfooger Posted February 11, 2020 Members Share Posted February 11, 2020 cant you elaborate on what you mean by arpeggiator beat? what synth are you using and how are you creating beats with the arpeggiator. whats type of patch are you arpeggiating. or do you mean sequencer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Welcome to Harmony Central! moog, it sounds like they're having a hard time locking in to the tempo of the arpeggiator. pixel, can you tell us what keyboard you're using? Some keyboards have arpeggiators that can be locked to an external MIDI clock. If yours can, then you can use MIDI to trigger a flashing light, or to send a click to the drummer's headphone monitor so that you can follow the tempo easier while not having to turn the keyboards up as loud in the mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kbeaumont Posted February 12, 2020 Members Share Posted February 12, 2020 Expanding on what Phil said you can use a inexpensive drum machine like a volca drum. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VolcaDrum--korg-volca-drum-physical-modeling-drum-synthesizer Sync it to with the keyboard and either send a kick drum or some other sound to the drummer. Or just set a kick and put it in the mix with the drummer and use it to both help keep time in sync and enhance the sound by blending with drummers bass drum. One of the issues when your using an arpeggiator as you have found, is they are rigid in their timing. Human aren't naturally clocks, but we can follow one easily if the beat is obvious. Sometimes we need a simple beat to help make the complex more obvious. The volca drum can be used to create a pretty substantial kick. Its not really obvious from the videos for it. I find the marketing demo videos don't do it any favors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pixel_zaro Posted February 12, 2020 Author Members Share Posted February 12, 2020 19 hours ago, Phil O'Keefe said: Welcome to Harmony Central! moog, it sounds like they're having a hard time locking in to the tempo of the arpeggiator. pixel, can you tell us what keyboard you're using? Some keyboards have arpeggiators that can be locked to an external MIDI clock. If yours can, then you can use MIDI to trigger a flashing light, or to send a click to the drummer's headphone monitor so that you can follow the tempo easier while not having to turn the keyboards up as loud in the mix. Hi and thanks for the repply. Im using a Microkorg xl+. I guess the headphone monitor could be a good idea the cause then we would follow our drumer tempo. Maybe I should investigate more about that. Thank you so much for the advise. Hi and thanks for the repply. Im using a Microkorg xl+. I guess the headphone monitor could be a good idea because then we would follow our drumer tempo. Maybe I should investigate more about that. Thank you so much for the advise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pixel_zaro Posted February 12, 2020 Author Members Share Posted February 12, 2020 24 minutes ago, kbeaumont said: Expanding on what Phil said you can use a inexpensive drum machine like a volca drum. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VolcaDrum--korg-volca-drum-physical-modeling-drum-synthesizer Sync it to with the keyboard and either send a kick drum or some other sound to the drummer. Or just set a kick and put it in the mix with the drummer and use it to both help keep time in sync and enhance the sound by blending with drummers bass drum. One of the issues when your using an arpeggiator as you have found, is they are rigid in their timing. Human aren't naturally clocks, but we can follow one easily if the beat is obvious. Sometimes we need a simple beat to help make the complex more obvious. The volca drum can be used to create a pretty substantial kick. Its not really obvious from the videos for it. I find the marketing demo videos don't do it any favors. Hi and thanks for the repply. Thats right, its hard to follow the timming of complex arpeggiator presets if we dont hear the beat behind the complexity. A drum machine would be a good alternative. I should check the costs in my country. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 38 minutes ago, pixel_zaro said: Hi and thanks for the repply. Im using a Microkorg xl+. I guess the headphone monitor could be a good idea because then we would follow our drumer tempo. Maybe I should investigate more about that. Thank you so much for the advise. Exactly - feed the click (or drum machine) track to the drummer's headphone monitor mix, and then the band just follows the drummer. Lots of bands use MIDI sequences and arpeggiators in exactly this way. Give it a try, and please let us know how it works out for you. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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