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Godel Demo

December 05, 2009

Here's a quick video demo running through the main features, just showing the basic options in operation. Please Note this is only intended to show what functions are available. This is Not a music synthesizer, but a MIDI arpeggiator so you can play your own arpeggios with your own instruments. Here the focus is on functionality only.

A First Cut at Explaining the functionality

When playing a keyboard, the notes pass into the main arpeggiator. If the main arpeggiator is off, it simply repeats the input notes as a rhythmic cord:

C3 F3 A3..
C3 F3 A3..

The chord generator has two parallel modes, IN and OUT. When OUT is on, it adds notes to whatever note is input, making a chord of a single note, or an even bigger chord of multiple notes. If one chord generator is set to add one note two semitones higher, and you play the same chord as above with the main arpeggiator off, it would again repeat, and the chord generator simply adds three notes two semitones up for each the three notes currently on, at each tempo period:

C3 D3 F3 G3 A3 B3...
C3 D3 F3 G3 A3 B3...

Assuming HOLD is off, you can stop playing the chord and play a new one at any time, and the chord generator would add notes to whatever notes you play.

Now each of the transposers can also transpose the input chord and the chord generator notes separately. Say there was just a simple clock (without the beat generator) and one of the transposers simply shifts only the input notes by one octave up, every other tempo period. Then the transposer would make this chord sequence:

C3 D3 F3 G3 A3 B3
C4 D3 F4 G3 A4 B3...
C3 D3 F3 G3 A3 B3
C4 D3 F4 G3 A4 B3...

which the pitch mapper could shift to any key. If notes are shifted to the same pitch they cancel each other out. Then the other transposer could shift the chord generator notes separately, at a different rate, and transposing multiple times up and down, with reversing directions and patterns and so on.

So far the main arpeggiator is off. We've already been adding notes to the input chord and transposing them in some rhythmic pattern, which can change period and beat and so on, but that's just the beginning. Turning the main arpeggiator on and turning the chord generators and transposer off, the played notes arpeggiate in order played, or ordered by pitch, or ordered by velocity. If ordered by pitch ascending (without a stagger pattern or reverse):

C3
F3
A3...
C3
F3
A3...

If you change the notes on the keyboard, the arpeggio changes to reflect whatever notes you're playing. But supposing you played the same chord continuously, and now added a single note to the output with the chord generator, two semitones up as before...that creates a sequence of three dyads:

C3 D3
F3 G3
A3 B3...

And turning the same transposer back on, every other note from input is again transposed an octave:

C3 D3
F4 G3
A3 B3
C4 D3
F3 G3
A4 B3...

Of course that's not very harmonic, but I kept the intervals at 2 and 12 semitones to make it clearer what's happening. You can release the notes and play new ones at any time, and the same arpeggio pattern would be applied to the new notes. If the arpeggio is running in HOLD mode, the old notes are also remembered, so notes of the same pitch can be added to the arpeggio multiple times.

When the main arpeggiator is on, the chord generators can also insert notes between the notes from the keyboard, as well as adding them to the chord output. So if the above single note from the chrod generators was set IN to the main arpeggiator, instead of OUT, it would create the following six-note monophonic arpeggio

C3
D3 
F3
G3 
A3
B3 
...

and turning on the octave transposition on every other input note:

C3
D3 (*added)
F4 (*transposed)
G3 (*added)
A3
B3 (*added)
C4 (*transposed)
D3 (*added)
F3
G3(*added)

The the other five notes from the chord generator could insert more notes between the ones you play in the arpeggio, and/or add chords to some combination of the notes. It's always playing the notes you out in, whether from the mouse keyboard of from external MIDI. It can also save the sequence you play into it, and play back the same sequence, in a snapshot. It's set to remember 32 notes, which allows for at least a 100 trillion different possible sequences.