Hey Phil, Hope to hear your words of wisdom on the arp. I know the simple answer is upgrade to the XS but, I can help thinking there is still quite a bit of unexplored life left in my old ES.....

There is tons to explore... two of the biggest changes between the Motif ES and the Motif XS was going to multiple arpeggiators and the conversion from Preset Drum Phrases in Pattern Mode to Arpeggio Phrases.

The Motif ES “Combo” idea was to create a single Arp that could be assigned and do something different to a second Part assigned the same Phrase. This difference could be in Note range or Velocity range. As you mentioned there are only a handful of them, and frankly I don’t recall any of them specifically. In the ES one Arp Phrase could be active in a Performance, and the Parts either opted in, or not, to following that Arp... so to do two instruments separately, you had to be very clever in preparing the data.

I do remember the discussions back then about reinventing the Arpeggiator concept for the XS... which, because you could assign multiple separate Arps, doing drums and bass was now a real possibility. Four separate Arpeggiators, each independent, meant you could realistically assemble a rhythm section and play lead in a Performance. Not just Drums or one instrument... but each Part could be following its own Phrase, chord intelligent, where applicable.

It was a major change. Arps are flexible in that the data can adjust, not only to major, minor, dominant, diminished and augmented chords, when necessary, but can also ignore chord quality changes when playing “fixed note” phrases (like drums) and the timing of the Arp Phrase can be adjusted by sifting the events through a timing grid. Swing Quantize can be achieved as a real-time function.

What I remember about the few combo Arps of the ES was that you wound up really wanting a separate Arpeggiator. Sorry, I don’t have access to ES so I can’t even review them. But I do remember that what it was attempting to accomplish was greatly expanded by adding additional (separate) Arpeggiators in the next model, XS.

And coincidentally, one of the biggest changes from the XS/XF to the MONTAGE/MODX is again an expansion of the Arpeggiator concept to now include eight independent Arps, and an expansion of the Controller Arp concept. Controller Arps, are no longer limited to just Pan, Expression, Cutoff, Resonance, and PB, but have been expanded to include scores of synth engine and effect processor parameter destinations. These are the so-called “Motion Sequences” — they are like Arps without notes, they simply automate parameter changes.

Thank you Phil.... Sounds like the ES combo category of arps might have been the catalyst / genesis of greater arps to come in XS and now Montage. I think you confirmed my basic understanding of what was intended there on the ES with the comb. category trying to use the 4 parts of the arp to, in effect, assemble and merge data to allow two voices to share a single arp phrase. Like you said it would require some pretty clever and careful note range assignments across the keyboard to make it all sound musical. Conceptually, I guess you could put a bass line pattern down between C0 and C1, then put your drum kit around C2 and C3, then assign / put them together as an arp then match your performance part note range and voice assignments to this arp phrase.....All too much for my little brain to try to put in practice just yet. However, it helps a lot to understand the architecture and concept behind the ES arp. Step one will be become more proficient with one voice one arp application. THANKS AGAIN