The first Squinktronix modules are now in the library.
You might notice the name is similar to “Squinky Labs”. Well, it’s still me (the author of the original Squinky Labs modules), but doing slightly different things.
One of the new modules is called “Harmony”. You might call it an intelligent chord generator. You feed it the root of a chord It picks the chord voicings, including doubling and inversion, to generate rudimentary voice leading that follows as many rules as it can and that it knows.
It displays the resulting four-part harmony in what I think is pretty nice looking standard music notations. But that’s just eye candy, you don’t need to read music to use this module. The CV outputs are where the action is.
The other module is called “Arpeggiator”, which is what it is. It has a large number of arpeggiation modes, and some extra controls to control the rhythmic repetitions. And lots of CV control. There are so many options to this thing that I’m hoping some people we use it more like a sequencer or ASR than an arpeggiator, but in any case it is a very good arpeggiator.
Haven’t dug into the release version yet but I will! I love playing into Harmony with a keyboard. It can sound like a church organist vamping behind the sermon.
haha - true, but hopefully people can find other things to do with it also
Although most ppl may not notice the difference, the rules have been adjusted quite a bit since the earlier tests. So I guess it will sound like better organist?
One thing I did when playing with that patch is I would modulate keys and modes as the music went along. Don’t suppose you’d be interested in adding a CV control for those in the future would you?
also if there was a clock per voice… you could get pretty close to a multi-part not-a-fugue-but-sort-of-a-moving-voice-lead with some internal motion (like a new root re-voices, but a clock on just the alto voice moves in chord/harmony structure with constant root).
Yeah, but I don’t think adding clock per voice would be the right way to go… maybe? Basically, Harmony is a chord generator, just like any other chord generator. they all sound kind of boring if you use them to play stacked chords over and over.
I had been hoping the answer was to use Harmony as a chord generator, and use something else as a rhythm generator.
I can see how adding a feature as you describe could be cool, though…
The previous version of this code was not a VCV module, of course, but it could do backtracking, so in essence could predict the future, if you know what I mean. But of course a VCV module has to run in real time…
I kind of like doing the stacked chord but then modulate the attack and release of the envelope/vca which switches things up. As does using signal delays on the trigger out followed by a merge so the chord arpeggiates. I take it that Arrpeggiate can do something similar, and more besides.
Well, I have to admit I got the energy to make Arpeggiator because the straight output of of a chord generator can be boring. But I’ll bet there are cooler things to do. As you say, different envelopes on the different voices is a good one, and delays.
I guess I’m hoping to see something wild that I never imagined… Although I can imagine some things with ARSs and possibly more than one instance of Harmony that might be cool… ?
Arpeggiating over the chords is definately one way to make it less “boring”. In that way the two modules are a good pairing.
Harmony Testing.vcv (6.9 KB)
On the arpeggiator I would happily sacrifice the CV2 in+out for CV over Beats and Notes.
Oh, interesting idea! CV2 was an actual request from a tester, but it would be cool to CV those other things.
Actually, this is the first I’ve heard of anyone using those features, so that’s cool! I think they are useful, but it’s always touch with putting in features people aren’t used to.
