Hi

I’m tryin’ to record drum arpeggios to a pattern, but face some problem.

I’m following this support article:
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/support/view/recording_drums_to_the_mox_pattern_mode

1. While in pattern mode, this article states:

When you press RECORD, you record yourself making these types of transitions, you simply press [F2] ARPEGGIO, and you are given access to the [SF] buttons controlling the arpeggio types.

But when I press RECORD in pattern mode, there is no ARPEGGIO, rather [F2] is assigned to VOICE.

2. How do I record the drum arpeggios in sync with the pattern beat? Aparently I want to start the drums exactly at 1:1:000, how do I do that?

Don’t want to appear impatient, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to record a drum arpeggio to a pattern in sync. It’s exactly what is described here for the Motif XS:

Tweak of the Week: Painting Drum Arpeggios to the Sequencer

This article shows, that after pressing RECORD you can activate the KEY ON START SWITCH, which is exactly what I’m looking for.

Unfortunately the MOX does not offer this option in the panel displayed after activating Pattern Record. So how do I do it? I can’t believe this is not possible.

Searching the manuals I learnt that when recording a performance there is a KEY ON START SWITCH indeed. Does this really mean I have to create a Performance first to be able to record an arpeggio to a pattern in sync? This would be a complicated workflow for such a simple task to accomplish.

Any advice is highly appreciated.

The quoted sentence should have read:

“When you press RECORD, you record yourself making these types of transitions, you are given access to the [SF] buttons controlling the arpeggio types. You can interactively recall Fill-ins and move from arpeggio to arpeggio. For example, say you want to create an 8 measure VERSE Section for SECTION [A] where in measure 8 there is a fill-in:
You can accomplish this by starting with [SF1] ARP 1 and record through measure 7… during measure 7 press [SF4] ARP 4. The arp will switch at the top of measure 8 creating the fill-in. It is a good idea and is recommended that you turn LOOP OFF when you record arpeggios to PATTERN mode – this is so that the sequencer STOPS automatically at the end of the LENGTH you have selected. It will automatically loop on playback.”

It has been corrected. You do not need to push anything - the [SF1] -[SF6] buttons are already accessible for ARP selection while recording. Sorry for the mixup

This article shows, that after pressing RECORD you can activate the KEY ON START SWITCH, which is exactly what I’m looking for.

Unfortunately the MOX does not offer this option in the panel displayed after activating Pattern Record. So how do I do it? I can’t believe this is not possible.

Not all the features of the Motif-series are going to be found in the MOX, nor vice versa (that is the nature of the beast). There are certain functions that if you want to use them you can go about it differently. For example, if KEY ON START is something that appeals to you - particular for recording your drum arps to a PATTERN - you can do it from a PERFORMANCE. KEY ON START was originally developed for use with the direct PERFORMANCE RECORD feature.

The KEY ON START parameter is designed so that when you are working with a PERFORMANCE you can start the recording by simply touching a key.

Call up PERFORMANCE mode
You can initialize one for this purpose (Press [JOB] > [F1] INIT > execute to create a NEW PERFORMANCE
Place your favorite Drum Kit as PART 1
Assign your arpeggios to the KIT as you desire, set the TEMPO as you desire.

Press [RECORD]
Target an empty PATTERN, set the number of Measures you wish to record and select the SECTION
Press [F3] OTHER
Turn KEY ON START = ON

Touch a Key to start the arpeggios and recording simultaneously.

Just FYI (be careful) - not all articles for the XS or XF apply to the MOX, they are different models and as you can see, not all button presses are going to be the same and certainly not all features are found in all products.

2. How do I record the drum arpeggios in sync with the pattern beat? Aparently I want to start the drums exactly at 1:1:000, how do I do that?

Not all of the drum arps are set to start exactly at 001:1:000, however, if this is your goal, you can use the parameter designed to make sure that the first hit lands on 001:1:000 or you can simply CLOCK SHIFT your data so that it lines up. Not all of the arpeggio patterns are strictly quantized (that is a matter of choice).

SYNC QUANTIZE VALUE - this parameter will shift the arpeggio start so that you can more precisely place the START point. Unlike STYLES in an arranger workstation, the arpeggios found in the MOX can be offset - if you play an 8th note late, the arps will be shifted an 8th note late. The MOX figures that YOU wanted to shift it late. This is useful when turning guitar rhtyhm parts “inside out"…

The SYNC QUANTIZE VALUE should move the first event to the nearest value (as you select). You can find this parameter in the ARP EDIT area [F1] COMMON - it removes all of the pressure from having to hit the NOTE-ON event exactly or having to use CLOCK SHIFT which is the other alternative to moving data..

Say you set the SYNC QUANTIZE VALUE = 120 (16th note) this will mean that you only need be within a sixteenth note of the downbeat when using the CLICK count-in. Please note that is does not quantize anything but the start point of the arpeggio phrase - shifting everything (it does not quantize the notes of the apreggio pattern, only where the pattern BEGINS)… hope that makes sense.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for this exhaustive answer, Phil.

Following your advice I created a Performance first and recording a Pattern with KEY ON START worked smoothly then. I should mention that it was important to STORE the Performance, because when Pattern recording is terminated you’ll find yourself in Pattern Mode and you loose the Performance just created. Storing is essential when you want to record additional Pattern Sections.

I’m fully aware that I cannot expect the MOX features being equal to the flagship Motif series. I do understand that the user interfaces of these machines are quite different, but on the other side it seems to me, that the underlying architecture do share a considerable amount of technology, so it may be very useful as a beginner to peek into the articles of the BIG workstations ;-) I promise to be careful ;-)

In the case of the KEY ON START parameter it did show me, that the designers of the Motif OS found this parameter useful to have in Pattern Record Mode and I fully agree with them. I think this is also true for the low cost MOX and as this is only a tiny detail to be implemented in software, I wouldn’t have expected this to be lacking in the MOX.

Anyway, I can live with this, thanks again for your help.

Michael

Michael,

This missing feature was one of the first things I noted when I started using MOX and I thought that was just a glitch. I was very surprised that they didn’t added KEY ON START for pattern recording with the firmware upgrade. I guess this is not a hardware or a custcutting issue.

Best rgds
Hans