Apple Logic Express 7 - Manual (Page 174)

174 Chapter 5 The Environment
Arpeggiator Object
The arpeggiator turns chords into arpeggios. It plays the currently held notes—
individuallyin a selectable pattern (up, down, random, and so on), and at a selectable
speed that ranges between whole-notes and 768th-notes.
The arpeggiator features a number of useful parameters including; note-length, repeat
on/off and octave doubling. All of its parameters can be changed in real time through
the use of MIDI controller messages.
Important: Logic must be in play (or record) mode for the arpeggiator to work.
To create a new arpeggiator, select New > Arpeggiator.
The arpeggiator cycles through all held notes (arpeggiates chords) within its range. You
can set the range to be as wide or narrow as you wish. There are parameters for
direction, velocity, speed, note length, start quantize (snap), repeats, octaves, and
velocity offset. All of the arpeggiator’s parameters can be MIDI controlled in real time,
which adds immensely to its versatility.
To use the arpeggiator, you must place it in the MIDI signal path, and Logic’s Transport
must be running. (For technical reasons, the arpeggiator resets on cycle jumps).
Typically, you would assign the arpeggiator to an Arrange track, and cable its output to
an instrument or port Object. You can, of course, insert it anywhere else in the MIDI
signal path.
Once set up, you can use the arpeggiator with live MIDI input, or for MIDI Region
playback. You can also record the output of the arpeggiator by cabling it into the
sequencer input Object. If you do this, be sure you either record to a no output track,
or break the arpeggiator’s connection to the MIDI output.
Arpeggiator Parameters
The arpeggiator features the following parameters (the numbers in parentheses are
Control Base offsets—see below):
Direction (
+
0)
The direction of the arpeggiated chord:
• Up: Lowest note to highest note
• Down: Highest note to lowest note
• UpDn: Up and down—highest and lowest notes repeat
• Auto: Up or down depending on whether the second chord note arrived before or
after the first chord note
• UpD2: Up and down—highest and lowest notes don’t repeat