Scene buttons are built for changing the ARP number (1-8). Turn on the ARP scene function, set the ARP #, and save this to a scene button.

You have choices for holding notes on the keyboard without using the sustain pedal or holding down the keys.

1) You can change release to hold notes for a long time after letting go of the keys
2) You can have an ARP hold the notes down for a long time.
3) Can use motion sequence to force silencing the last sustained notes when the next set are pressed

In the past I had created a performance that would "auto sustain" and had a description of how to get that done. I cannot find this post anymore.

Hi Jason, could you please elaborate on using the ARP to hold down the notes? I've read the manual and tried doing it on my own but didn't have much success. The part that gets me confused is - which arp pattern should I use for holding down notes? Is there a good preset for that, or do I need to create my own user arp pattern?

Thanks!

I find it easier to create one than search for one that does what I want. I think there are some ARPs built for holding pads - but it'd probably take a while to find one that doesn't do something you would rather it not do. Holding down a note forever is about the easiest thing to record - so creating your own shouldn't take too many "takes".

The drum key idea isn't bad either. I think somehow this same question has fractured between multiple posts or perhaps the latest spam cleanup killed lots of responses. I've noticed at least one of my posts in a different thread is gone due to the spam cleanup.

Press the record button to pull up the Performance Recorder. Set to record MIDI. Record a song of holding down a note "forever". Convert it to ARP and choose the right type. I can't tell you which one is right - since they all do something different and I don't know the details of how you want the notes to spill out. If you just want one key - then probably fixed will work. If you want the ARP to change according to which key you play - then choose Org Notes. "Normal" is kind of misnamed because it doesn't really conjure up a great explanation of what it does. "Normal" plays the notes you press (whatever they may be) and uses only the rhythm of the arp (not the note values) and has the arpeggiator play the notes you hold down using the rhythmic pattern in the ARP.

There is another discussion on this same/similar topic HERE

Creating a note that plays ‘forever’ is more challenging than you might initially think...

I have my keyboard back from the gig and setup again. I'm not sure, still, exactly what kind of control the OP wants over strings - but to make a "forever" drone of strings is not difficult with ARPs. Your string sound (PART) needs to itself have no decay in the loop. Such that when you hold down a key - you could put a brick on the key and the strings would go on "forever". One such string sound is "Warm Big". I'll use this string sound in my final mockup of this task.

Second, I'm going to have to make an assumption. I'm going to assume that one note is fine. Meaning not a chord droning forever, but a single note. Chords are not much different - it's just easier for me to make this assumption in explaining and executing.

Now on with the program(ing) ...

I had some Performance loaded that I have as my default when I turn on the keyboard. It's my first Live Set Performance. Right now, it's not important for me to have strings or a sound that will drone forever. In fact, when I hold down middle C - the sound I have as default will decay to silence after a few measures. That's fine I'm not going to change the sound - although you could.

Some minor setup before I get started ... I press the tempo indication icon at the top of the touchscreen - I think it says quarter note = 90 for me - and this is one of a few shortcuts to the screen/menu to edit the tempo (among other things). I change the tempo to the maximum of 300bpm. I do this so it takes less time to record many measures of a drone. That completes the setup. Note that I already have my count-in setup to 2 measures (click precount) which is in this menu. You may or may not want to change this -- change it once and it will be remembered "forever". Two measures of count-in helps with a fast tempo.

I press the record button in the transport controls. This pops me to the Performance recorder. I'm not going to export the recording to a MIDI file (requiring a USB stick) - so it's not even necessary to have a USB stick plugged in since songs can save to internal memory. I happened to have a USB stick plugged in - but that's not needed for this. Make sure the "MIDI" tab is selected and not "Audio". Since I only wanted to record one "track" (one PART) - I turned off PARTs/tracks 2-16 on the Performance Recorder screen. This isn't really necessary as later we'll have a chance to set the track configuration when we convert to a user ARP. I did set Rec Quantize to a quarter note (480).

I press record+play and start hearing my count in. On the downbeat of the 3rd measure, I strike middle C and hold it down for 205 measures or so. The recorder shows measure and beat on the display. Since I was using a default Performance - the sound died away quickly so I was holding a key down with silence generated by the keyboard. This is not relevant since the MIDI ON and MIDI OFF are what is important. The sound is not recorded. After 205ish measures, I let go of the key and press STOP on the transport controls.

Now I have a song with track 1 as a "forever" note. Quotes used to emphasize that it's not really forever, just "forever"-long enough. You can make your "forever" longer by sitting on middle C for a longer duration (more measures). I use the touchscreen and touch the song name "NewSong1234" - or whatever yours says. A menu pops up which includes one for ARPs. Press that ARP option.

Now you have a screen of the ARP setup. I changed the arp type to "Org Note" - which allows me to move to different drone notes. This deals with assumptions that have to be made. I made it - it works for what I'm trying to do here. There's a place where you can set the tracks to use. Since I only recorded one - the defaults work (track 1 only is ON, the rest were off) - but if you recorded more than one track - you can get rid of them here (2-4). I'm not trying to teach everything about ARPs here - so some stuff is glossed over. Most importantly - make sure to change the end measure to something "forever" out there. I recorded a note length of 205ish so I could set my ARP to end at measure 200. My target was I needed 180 measures for this drone to go on for the entire song before ending and I have 20 measures to spare. I can manually shut off the ARP - so having a longer ARP than I need is by design. Maybe someone messes up and adds an extra 16 bars or what have you. How much "buffer" you have is going to depend on your own particulars.

Housekeeping: there's an ARP name that defaults to something non-descript. Change that. I changed mine to "j.200MeasC". This is so I can search for "j." to find all my user arps (maybe just one or two others that are not mine) and 200MeasC tells me something about what the ARP does. It doesn't necessarily play C - but C is the root note.

Now I press the button to generate the user ARP. It does it. Now lets use it.

I recall the Preset Performance "Warm Big" - these are the string sounds that will drone forever if you hold a key down. I touch PART 1, choose "Edit", then navigate to "Arpeggio" -> "Individual" and touch the 1st arpeggio name. I choose Category Search to find my ARP - touch the magnifying glass to search for a string. Type "j." enter - and a handful of ARPs show up including "j.200MeasC". I select the j.200MeasC ARP and now we're just about set.

In order to make the ARP do what I want, a few configuration items. "Arpeggio" -> "Common" screen - I set Hold to "On". This lets the ARP keep running when you let go of a key. I set the upper note limit to C2. This is so the bottom portion of the keyboard keys can be used to trigger single-note string drones and the rest (mid/top) of the keyboard for some other sounds like piano/etc. Most other defaults are fine. The "defaults" are going to depend on the Performance you start with (Warm Big here). So if you start with something else - I would turn loop off myself if it is on. That's up to you about if you want something truly forever and relies on loop - and are OK with the attack sound after a note off. "Warm Big" has a slow attack - so it would be obvious where the loop point is every 200 measures. The idea here is that one cycle (no loops) is good enough to cover the entire duration you need. If you need longer - record a longer note-on event. This may have an upper limit - but 300+ measures at 120bpm is 10+ minutes. You should be covered - although one has to assume without more details.

In the "Arpeggio"->"Advanced" menu, I change the hold mode to "Toggle" from the default of gated. I just do this to satisfy some request that you press a key to make it drone forever - then press the same key to make it stop. In reality - you press any key C2 or below and the drone will stop. If your split was one note wide - then the ARP limit would be set to a single note - and it truly would be a single key to start and the same key to stop.

Last, I make sure PART ARP is turned ON and Master ARP is turned ON. That's it for the drone. I press any key in the range of C-2 to C2 and that note will drone "forever" - meaning 200 measures. The default tempo for "Warm Big" - which is where the tempo is set - is 80bpm. If you want "forever" to be longer AND do not depend on the tempo for other ARP timing that is critical - then you can set the tempo to something slower. If you want "forever" to last a shorter time, setting to a higher tempo value will make "forever" last shorter. At 80bpm, my 200 measure "forever" will last 10 minutes.

Last, just to show this in context - I add a piano PART ("CFX Stage" ). I set the lower note range from the (HOME) screen of PART 2 to be C#2 - one note above the drone trigger range. Now I can press any key below C#2 (and also let go immediately) and that note will drone for 10 minutes - or until I press a key in this range to stop it - while I can simultaneously play notes above C2 to play the piano above this drone.

It's sort of a lot to type - but there was commentary - and it's not difficult at all to execute. Any of the many assumptions may not match exactly what you want - but one can "mostly" arrive at different variations based on only slight tweaks to these steps.

Jason,

Thanks for the thorough explanation. Your assumptions were good for me, only one note held thru the entire song, or maybe later change it to an octave held continuously, whatever. Anyway, I followed the steps you outlined, first using the CFX Concert perf, then using one of my own, and everything seemed to work until I to generate the user ARP. When I selected that, it said No Data... Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I tried several times, even recording only 40 bars and setting the end measure at 32 just to test, but same result No Data. I'm pretty sure I followed the directions you gave correctly. Thanks for any ideas.

kirk

Perhaps you do not have the track turned on in the recorder that matches the PART that is being triggered. To remove any ambiguity you can start with "Warm Big" as the Performance you record to generate the ARP data. This will be just a single PART (PART 1) so be sure track 1 in the recorder is switched on.

Although it's possible the above is contributing to your issue, it's not as probable as below.

I'm not looking over your shoulder - so it's difficult to really know what's going on. But I can say that recording MIDI - for ARPs or anything else - is very timing sensitive. Audio recording is not. If you start playing minutes before you hit the record button - audio is still going to be recorded. Maybe chopped of - but it still works. For MIDI - if whatever is recording your data is not looking at the right moment (said differently - if you play something at the wrong time) - your MIDI data can be missed altogether.

It's possible this is what is happening:

1) Press Record + Play - the recorder starts your 2 measure count-in
2) You may "mess up" and press-and-hold middle C starting at the 2nd measure - one entire measure early before the downbeat of the 1st measure
3) You hear your note ringing out - the recorder starts recording NOTE-ON events AFTER you've already played the one note-on you're ever going to play.
4) The recorder keeps chugging along - you stop after many measures letting go of the key. The recorder DOES record a NOTE OFF (but no note on - since you were too early in generating the note on for the recorder). When you play this back - you'll get silence. Press the rewind button and then play as a sanity check always after recording.

You don't have to be a whole measure early. You can be a 16th note early. If you start the note before the recorder is actually recording - your note-on will be missed.

As a further sanity check - you can record playing a scale. Make sure the recording quantize is not a longer duration note than the notes you are playing. You can turn this off for now. Make sure you can convert SOMETHING to an ARP - then experiment to figure out where you went wrong. Do utilize the rewind/play sanity check to preview the note(s) you recorded to see if they are there. The system is fairly basic - there are only so many things it does - so understanding the ins/outs should not take long to master. If after recording the scale - upon playback you don't hear the first note - then you know your timing is incorrect and need to adjust. With recording a single note - you either make it or you don't. Drone (data) or silence (no data).

Thanks for the info, not sure if that's what is going on (any of that you mentioned, that is...). I tried using one of my performances and started recording AFTER the queue in, I could here the sound on playback and was able to save the ARP. After adding it to the part in the PERF, still didn't hold. I used WarmBig and that worked fine, the sound held for as long as the ARP had recorded. So I tried using that same ARP that worked for WarmBig on the pad and it doesn't work, so there is something else in the pad preset that is causing this not to work. The "problem" pad I am using is NuWarmPad... Maybe you could take a look and help me understand what is going on with this particular pad... Thanks very much for all you help!

Nu Warm Pad under the "Arpeggio" -> "Common" screen shows the mode as "Direct". This needs to be set to "Sort". When I see "direct" - this usually indicates the arpeggio is one that does not arpeggiate notes - but arpeggiates control messages.

Thanks very much Jason, now all is good and working well. Just one last question: now that I have a whole bunch of test ARPs, is there any way to delete the ones that I don't need?

Most delete/erase functionality is under [UTILITY].

Borrowed from: https://yamahasynth.com/ask-a-question/help-understanding-modx-user-bank-memory-and-file-types

Press [UTILITY]
Touch "Contents" > "Data Utility" > touch the Folder named "Performances"
the folders that appear under Data Utility represent you current user created data... Arps, Libraries, Live Set, MotionSeq, Performances, Songs, Waveforms

... just modify above to the "Arp" folder instead of "Performances". After touching this folder, you'll get a listing of your user Arps and can touch any single one to delete it or rename it. At the upper-right of the window is a "Job" button which, upon pressing, lets you select more than one arp for deletion at a time.

Thanx very much Jason, I appreciate all the help!