Arpeggiator

The arpeggiator turns held notes into patterns: multiple modes, scale awareness, an interval grid (octaves, chords, harmonizers, diatonic triads), and a rhythm layer with swing, probability, and Euclidean fill. It has a chord mode with strum, and doubles as a modulation source and a set of modulation destinations.

Hold a chord, press play, and the arp turns it into a rhythmic stream of notes. The defaults are simple (up, in time, one octave), so you can reach for depth only when you want it. The step sequencer shares this same clock and rhythm engine; see the step sequencer for programming a fixed pitch pattern.

Modes and direction

Five modes decide how Aconite walks the notes you hold:

Mode	What it does
Up	Ascending through your held notes
Down	Descending
Up-Down	Up then back down
Random	A shuffled order, consistent within a pass
As Played	The order you pressed the keys

Octaves (1 to 4) extends the pattern upward by whole octaves, so a two-note hold at Octaves 3 becomes a six-step pattern that spans three registers.

Rate and gate

Rate runs in two modes:

• Sync: tempo-locked to your DAW, subdivided by the value you choose (eighth notes, sixteenth notes, dotted values, and so on).
• Free: an absolute speed in steps per second, independent of any clock, so a pattern floats on its own.

Gate controls how much of each step the note actually sounds. A short Gate chops notes into staccato hits; a full Gate plays each note into the next for a legato feel.

Latch is the arp’s live-playing trick: engage Latch mode, play a chord, and the arp keeps cycling after you lift your fingers. Tap a new root note to shift the whole pattern: useful for bass arps you want to play both hands free.

Scale awareness: stay in key

Give the arp a musical key and it keeps every note legal.

• Root and Scale set the key. The scale menu covers Chromatic, Major, Minor, the modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Locrian), Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Major and Minor Pentatonic, Blues, Whole Tone, and a fully editable Custom mask.
• Snap to key pulls any out-of-key note to the nearest scale tone, so nothing plays wrong even when you are scrambling for chords live.
• Scale-walk modes (Scale Up / Scale Down / Scale Up-Down) turn the lowest held note into the start of a melodic run through the scale. Hold one key for a scale run; hold a chord to set where the walk begins.
• Transpose shifts the whole pattern by scale degrees, not raw semitones: a “+2” stays diatonic wherever you are. Because Transpose is a modulation destination, an LFO or macro can sweep it for automatic chord progressions without ever leaving the key.

The interval set

One grid of 13 cells decides which intervals stack from the notes you hold. The scale says which notes are legal; the interval grid says which intervals to actively build.

Each interval has two switches:

• Unit: Degree follows the scale, so a “third” is whatever major or minor quality that scale degree produces. Semitone is an exact interval, which can step outside the key; pair it with Snap to pull it back.
• From: Held stacks the interval on every note in your chord for dense clusters that follow the voicing. Root stacks on the lowest held note only, so a single key gives a defined voicing that transposes cleanly as you move.

One grid covers three jobs at once: stacking octaves (exactly what the Octaves control does), adding harmonizer voices above a held chord, and building diatonic triads from a single key; degrees 1, 3, 5 From Root give you an arpeggiated in-key triad anywhere you play.

The interval grid applies to the held-note modes. Scale-walk modes and the step sequencer carry their own pitch models, so the grid hides itself when it does not apply.

Rhythm: swing, probability, Euclidean fill

A shared rhythm layer shapes the timing across every mode:

• Swing delays the off-beat steps for groove.
• Probability sets the per-step chance a step fires; a failed roll leaves a rest, thinning the pattern naturally.
• Euclidean fill spreads a set number of hits evenly across a cycle of steps: 3 hits in 8 gives the tresillo, 5 in 8 gives the cinquillo. Setting the cycle length differently from the pattern length produces polymeter.

Probability and Euclidean fill decide whether a step sounds; Swing decides when.

Chord mode and strum

Chord flips the arp from one-note-at-a-time to firing the whole note pool together on each step: same held notes, interval set, and scale-snap, played as a rhythmic chord stab. The same clock, gate, swing, probability, and Euclidean fill drive it.

Strum spreads those chord notes across time:

• Time is the spread amount. In Sync mode it is a fraction of the step, so the strum tightens as you speed up, the way a real strummed chord behaves. In Free mode it is an absolute time in milliseconds. The gate automatically extends to cover a wide strum, so the tail of a slow strum is never cut short.
• Direction: Up (low to high), Down (high to low), Up-Down (alternates each step), As Played, or Random (a fresh shuffle each step).

Strum Time is a modulation destination, so a slow LFO can breathe the chord wider and tighter over time. Chord mode applies to the held-note modes; the step sequencer keeps its own pitch model.

When Chord mode is active, Aconite automatically switches to polyphonic voicing so the full note stack rings together, even if the patch was previously set to a mono mode.

The arp as a modulator

The arp exposes live data as modulation sources you can route through the modulation matrix:

• Arp Step: the pattern position, a staircase that advances with the clock. Route it to filter cutoff for a rhythmic filter sweep that tracks the pattern.
• Arp Velocity: the velocity of the current note, carrying any accents you have set.
• Arp Gate: high while a note sounds, low between notes. Route it to any parameter for a pulsing modulation that breathes with the rhythm.

And the arp takes modulation in from the same matrix:

• Arp Root: automate the key centre with an LFO to drift the pattern through keys over time.
• Arp Transpose: move the pattern diatonically from another source for programmatic chord progressions.
• Arp Strum: automate strum width for evolving, organic chord attacks.

Tip

For a quick expressive patch: set the arp to Up, route Arp Gate to filter cutoff, and push the filter envelope amount up. Every arp note plucks the filter open, then lets it settle: a classic two-handed feel from one held chord.