i'm sorry, phil, but this is far too complicated. the whole undertaking does not meet practical needs. for comparison purposes: let's take a quick look at this excerpt of the manual of korg's m1:

this simple function transfers play data to a pattern by coping from a track. the only thing you have to do beforehand is to set the time signature and the length of the pattern by using the pattern initialize function. compare that easy method to montage's complex and convoluted procedure! let's face it: user arps are frighteningly difficult to make, therefore, i put user arp creation somewhere in between rocket science and brain surgery. unfortunately, the montage is an overly and unnecessarily complicated board. 😀

Thanks Phil, that is really useful. The arpeggios seem to be pretty powerful and easy to use. But the documentation is more on the light side :-).

Thank you Cassie for the announcement and Phil for this great new article 😉

Thank you, that' really helpful

Poor manolo continues to whine like a 4-year old brat.

Thank you very much for this lesson.
I don't think it's not complicated to make User Pattern while reading this tutorial.

If I want to do create an Arp of a one bar phrase that repeats on a trigger (starts when I press a defined key) E.g., Chaka Khan 1 bar phrase at the beginning of Ain't nobody.

I pick a patch, Dyno Wurlitzer and record the pattern as a Drum Arp that will be triggered by pressing the one key (Fixed Note). I can turn it off within a performance by reducing volume for that part or just turning the Arp setting off. Measure set to Start 1 - End 2 and Hold set to on (maybe use Synch-off?)

Be nice to see a practical use case like this laid out. I love the sonic power of the Montage but the interface for developing a simple pattern like this is not the most intuitive. Love to have a "genius bar" option to lay out the 3 or 4 things I most need to do (this is one of them) and I'd pay for that. It would unlock a ton of capabilities that now are not easy to access via the manual. Something like the above I would think should take 5 - 10 minutes to complete but my guess is doing it via the manual could take hours with some luck.

Bad Mister - Help 😮

Drum Arp - Dyno Wurlitzer - what? You mean you want a user arp to play the Dyno Wurlitzer. I'll guess you want an ARP to play at least this:

Maybe more parts like the "bass" answer line (during the rest) and counter-line that starts during the fade-in. You can adapt if you want to record something different.

I'm going to outline one way to do this without using software. Software would probably be easier - you would just notate the musical notes and rests to create a MIDI file then import that to Montage. But say you don't have your computer around.

1) Notice the line only contains 8th and 16th notes/rests along with a 1/4note rest. Therefore, quantize to 16th notes so the timing will be "computer perfect". That may not be what you want - in the end you may want slop - but lets say you want it "perfect". This is an analysis step to prepare for later settings.

2) Setup: touch the musical note (tempo) icon on your touchscreen. Set the tempo to something slow (65? it's up to you). This will help you achieve accuracy while recording the line pictured. Notice the "count in" setting and other click settings (hopefully on 1/4 note). This will help you know how long you have to wait after pressing PLAY+RECORD to start performing the above passage. You can set the click divisions to 16th note if you really want to be hand-held through every note. But you'll have to count 4 clicks per beat while waiting for the count-in measures. I just leave as 1/4 note click myself.

3) Press the record button under the super knob. This will bring you to the Performance Recorder.

4) Change "Rec Quantize" to 120 (16th note)

5) Press Play button to start count-in (wait number of measures you set your count-in to)

6) If you mess up - press stop, then rewind, then press RECORD, make sure it is set to "Replace", and start over.

7) You can set loop to ON and set to loop one measure. Press PLAY (by itself) to hear what you recorded. Should be exactly as notated above when you catch all of the notes.

8) Once "perfect" - press the "Newsong XX" title. A popup window will show options - the last one on the bottom is "User Arp" - touch that.

9) New menu - optionally assign a category/sub-category. Certainly change the name. I changed the ARP name to "Aint_No_A" the "A" as in ARP A, B, C, D, etc. You can use your own naming convention.

10) The ARP type is, by default, "Normal". For this one - I haven't checked the rest of the song to see if this pattern moves around - but I'm going to pretend it doesn't and is always those notes I played. So I'll change the type to "Fixed". This lets me play trigger notes anywhere on the keyboard and the same notes will spill out of the ARP. I can have a single trigger note way down on the keyboard which will work fine to trigger this. ARP track 1 shows "1" (PART 1) and tracks 2-4 show "Off". That's what I want. Measure start and end show "1" and "2" meaning just one measure - which is what I want.

11) Press "Store As User ARP" in lower-right corner of touchscreen

You've created your ARP. Now use it

13) Recall Performance "Dyno Wr" - if that's what you want the sound to be. Or your custom Performance. I don't have yours - so I'll just demo using "Dyno Wr" which is a single-PART

14) Touch PART 1 (the only one) - or your PART which has the sound you want to apply the arpeggio to, choose "Edit"

15) Bottom-left area "Common", left-hand menu "Arpeggio" -> "Individual". Touch the "Name" field for Arpeggio 1

16) Use Category Search (ARP) to find your user ARP "Aint_No_A" - or whatever you called it

17) Setup the ARP for use - press the [ARP ON/OFF] button to turn ARPs ON. Touch "ARP PART" button to turn it green in the upper-left portion of screen.

18) Assuming your settings are like Dyno Wr (ARP settings) - at this point you can touch/hold any key and the arpeggio will start playing the right notes.

19) Go to menu "Arpeggio" -> "Common" to refine the arpeggio settings

20) Select the note limits - lower/upper. Set by keyboard to one note of your choice. Hold=On, Loop=On, Timing=Real-Time. Note: Hold=On not needed since trigger mode will be "Toggle" which automatically does a "Hold" when toggled on.

21) Go to menu "Arpeggio" -> "Advanced"

22) Change trigger mode to "Toggle" - Now you can press the trigger key once to start playing the ARP and once again to stop it.

23) Set the tempo to something reasonable (matching the song) if it's not done yet.

This is great! Thank you. I will let you know how it goes.