How to make a chained sequential switch chord sequencer?

Does anyone know how to make a chained polyphonic sequential switch “sequencer” such that arbitrary number of steps can be handled via chaining? I am current using a Count Modula SWITCH 16-1 fed with chords from Aaron Static’s ChordCV module to play a song chord progression, but I want it to be able to handle more than 16 steps via chaining or something similar. Thanks.

Basic chord switcher sequencer test-1.vcv (8.3 KB)

1 Like

Well, as far as I can tell, there are no chainable sequential switches, nor any sequential switches that support more than 16 steps. If I missed one, someone please let me know.

But, I have come up with a way to do my chord sequencing with up to 16 chord changes per “song” and up to 12 different chords per song. I am using the Count Modula 12x16 GATE SEQUENCER and for each chord using one AaronStatic ChordCV/FM-OP chord voice with the FM-OP triggered from the CM 12x16 trigger outputs and with the FM-OP voice sent to the MindMeld MIXMASTER 16, which handles 4 more voices than what I need here. If the CM 12x16 step has no track enabled, no chord is played at that step, allowing some rhythmic harmonies such as a chord change in the bar.

I think this will do what I want. I may play with manually chaining 2 CM 12x16 Gate Sequencers as I did a few months ago when developing some complex drum patterns with a turn around. That was pretty complicated but worked well.

It is fun to take a musical score and implement the chord progression :grinning:

The downside with this I am just realizing that it is now harder to arp the chords as I would have to arp each chord separately, But, I will give that a try to see how it works.

Here is my test/demo patch for this: Experiment chord-voice switcher sequencer test-3.vcv (8.2 KB)

1 Like

Actually, the first patch I posted here is more flexible than the 2nd.

Here is a fun demo, but I cannot post the recording, as you will hear :wink:

This is a 16 step chord progression using 7 chords via the Aaron Static ChordCV modules and the Count Modula Sequential Switch 16-1.

Hotel Fun.vcv (8.9 KB)

why a sequential switch tho?

i’d look into driving impromptu chordkey (which can store 25 chords) with e.g. count modula’s 64 step sequencer. wouldn’t that cover your needs?

3 Likes

Good questions. I had forgotten the Impromptu Chord-Key. Actually, I may not have used it before. Is there an easy way to use the Aaron Static ChordCV module to supply the chord for Chord-Key to store? Have you run across any Chord-Key tutorials? Thanks for the suggestion.

Of course part of the fun for me is finding out how many ways I might accomplish the same complex results in a patch.

You know, I think you can get what you want pretty easily. I often use ML switches that are polyphonic and cv addressable. Connect BOG PGMR and use one line to address switch 1, another line can address a second switch, then use a third line to address a third switch that has the first 2 as inputs. Obviously you can scale this up to 8x8 or beyond. You can expand these PGMRs until your processor gives up, but sometimes if I just need the same step again or need to shuffle several steps, I will then address PGMR with ADDR. I hope this was any kind of helpful, maybe this isn’t what you need, but it works for me.

1 Like

And now that I think of it, this PGMR/ADDR combo can address a single Chord CV module and forget have multiples and switches, you don’t need it.

1 Like

can’t say i’ve used either one. i’m just aware they exist.

1 Like

Here is a 32->1 sequential switch that can be expanded up to 64->1.

Switch32-1.vcv (3.9 KB)

2 Likes

Hi Dave. This looks interesting. I downloaded it and am playing with it. Do you think your patch would work for sequencing chords generated by ChordCV? I.E., sequentially switch polyphonic chords?

I did not quite follow this. When you say " this PGMR/ADDR combo can address a single Chord CV module", how does the combo address a ChordCV module?

Well my thought is Chord CV has 4 cv inputs, and those 4 voltage inputs can produce any chord with any root etc etc. So connect PGMRs 4 cv outs to these 4. You can turn the 4 knobs on PGMR and get any chord you like. So let’s pretend I need 6 chords but in a sequence that uses these 6 to build a sequence 32 chords long. So I connect PGMR with one extension for 8 possible steps. If these chords always repeat in the same sequence you need nothing but the clock to drive PGMR and a cable from the trigger out of step7 back to select input 1. But if you need to make a progression that jumps around those steps in a different pattern than 1,2,3,4,5,6 you can connect ADDR to the address input of PGMR and select any step on each clock move of ADDR, and it can easily be extended to 32 or more steps with its ASX extension. I hope I am clear.

1 Like

Ah, I see where ChordCV is in the sequencer chain now. Thanks. So, ChordCV can take 4 inputs to set the Root, Type, Inversion and Voicing. For whatever chord I want to sequence, I must enter the correct 4 voltages into the PGMR. Do you just mentally use the ChordCV manual values?:

Of course - the Bogaudio 8-1 switches are polyphonic. The polyphonic channel count need not match between the steps. The 8-1 output channel count will always match the channel count of the active step.

1 Like

Honestly, I know the PGMR exceeds the range of the inputs, but I just turn knob until I am pleased, of course you can scale the value of PGMR in the right click for a better response.

1 Like

There are so many ways to approach this. I like the simplicity of approaching this from a song perspective where there are usually just a few chords in the song, repeated in various ways and permutations. ChordCV is a quick and easy way for me to indicate which chords will be used in the song and set them up once in the patch and be done with that.

I have a lot of music scores, sheet music, guitar TAB, etc. printed out of my favorites from mostly rock and classical genres. So, it is fun to take a song and set up the chord progression in a patch and play with it. Of course, if use a copyrighted song, I’m pretty well limited to not posting any audio recordings (including YouTube) so as not to trigger off any claims. I did a fun Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells excerpt last week that I was proud of, but, I can’t share that.

2 Likes

totally get this idea of the ease of setting up a number of chord modules to represent those chords, visually and mentally pleasing

but this works very well in my suggestion too, each PGMR select button goes right to the chord you want to use or edit

also thanks for your contributions to the rack and this forum in particular, these little conversations are great food for thought

1 Like

I’m glad you enjoy these discussions. I enjoy them a lot but I probably like to “meander” too much and reminisce in my retirement :wink:

1 Like

Here is a demo patch using ChordCV with multiple sequential switches as well as a sequential switch which switches between sequential switches… meta-switching. This works fine but since everything is clock driven, it gets tricky to determine what clock divisions to trigger which actions and really only works when all “chord phrases” have the same number of steps and is a power of 2.

Multiple Sequential Switches switching Test-1.vcv (9.4 KB)

1 Like