Arpeggiator in grid view

Hello,
I can use the apegiator with the pads or a keyboard but I can't get it to trigger from note events in the grid view
If anyone has a solution I'm interested
THANKS!

it only works on midi input, BEFORE it reaches the grid. think like this: the arpeggiator intercepts the midi notes coming FROM the controller BEFORE they get recorded, so it only works on midi input. there is a workaround tho:
use 2 tracks, track 1 is just a dummy track to write your midi notes. in the track input\output field, use the send to track field to send the midi out of this track to track 2. on track 2 insert your instrument program (keygroup, plugin, external synth, whatever), arm the track and enable the arpeggiator. this track's arpeggiator will be triggered by the notes you've written on grid edit of track 1 and if you record you'll see the arpeggiated notes on grid view of track 2. hope this is clear.

EDIT: sorry, i was mistaken, the dummy trick works, but again only if you press pads\keys, not from written notes, i'm really sorry, i had to check it out and it doesn't work.

this trick works for other stuff such as using a midi track with random arp to send to a drum program track which only has note repeat and no arpeggiator.
this is kinda weird, because in theory using the send to should mimic using an external controller, weird routing... can't really explain to myself why this trick doesn't work...

I think you'll have to use an external hardware MIDI loopback. Written notes/chords are sent to external MIDI out, and the notes comes back to the arpeggiator at a MIDI input. Hardware cable or some USB MIDI contraption that can do port-to-port loopback routing.

I had never thought about MIDI loopback - looks like it is popular in the Elektron world... I have long dreamed about triggering the arpeggiator from notes in a track - would a simple MIDI loopback cable, from MIDI out to MIDI in, do the trick, with some channel configuration care to avoid an infinite loop ? Any famous traps to avoid falling into ?

If you have a MIDI cable, you can try it out. It won't permanently destroy anything even if you mess up the routing.

theoreticaly it should work - at least this is the way to record automation on master bus. It’s finicky and you can easily freeze your machine if you not careful (loopback) but it works. Subs and masters are not automatable because they have no “automation lane” attached to them so you have to use a separate midi track as the automation carrier, anyways, as I said you have to be very careful with routing as the MPC receive Midi data from “all channels” by default.

Experimented... The good news is that plugging a MIDI cable from the MPC One's MIDI out to its MIDI in produces no ill effect - a good start. "MPC" now appears among the options in track's "MIDI INPUT" dropdown menu.

Now what ? No apparent option for sending a track as MIDI output...

Then on the display, I notice the "SEND TO" option... Am I just trying to recreate a useless worse version of "SEND TO" ?

Are you saying that you don't know how to get a track to output MIDI to a physical MIDI output? I guess you haven't used it for sequencing external MIDI devices a lot then. If you have ever had anything connected to the MPC's MIDI Output, you do the same thing now, except now the cable and the MIDI events transmitted in it go into the MPC's MIDI Input instead of an external synth or whatever device.

let's say you have your chord progression on track 1 and a plugin on track 2.
set track one midi output port to the one with your midi cable attached and set it to let's say channel 16.
input port of this track should be set to "none" - it is set to "all ports" by default which will cause the track to feed itself via midi cable and as a result you will freeze your machine.
Set track 2 midi in port to the one you have cable attached to, set it to channel 16, arm it, turn on arp, press play+rec and watch it record your chord progression as arp on track2.

Hi ! First, apologies for not following up your explanations... I was frustrated and way out of my depths - just a new MPC user. Tonight I tried again - it works... Glorious. Here is how:

Hardware: cable from MPC's MIDI OUT to same MPC's MIDI IN.

Tracks:
- 01: Plugin program, long chords patch. "SEND TO": Track 02. Track populated with long chords.
- 02: MIDI program. "MIDI OUTPUT": MPC, 1
- 03: Plugin program, a pluck patch. "MIDI INPUT": MPC, 1

Set tracks 01 & 02 to AUTO, set track 03 to MERGE

Latch the arp' and press Play... It works: the arpeggio follows the chords - one of the nice tricks of the Midicake Arp, performed by the MPC !

My setup has three tracks instead of your two - did I add some unnecessary convolution ? Anyway, it wooorks ! Edit: I think the difference is that my chord track sounds too - it is not just a control track to the arpeggio track... Different intent.

Edit2: with my setup, I can mute the slave arpeggio track while the chords keep playing but, if I mute the chords track, the slave arpeggio track stops playing. Not a perfect solution yet... But still an exciting toy for a lazy noodler such as me !

Edit3: stupid me. The track mute dependency only occurs when the track is only slaved but, after having recorded the arpeggiator can play even when the controller track is muted - it is just a normal track with notes in it. Perfect now !

I posted my method in a dedicated thread.

if you haven't noticed there is about a 10ms delay using this method if you are recordinging your arp. So you'll have to nudge your pattern to the start of the grid. You can also record this while playing with the track length for some interesting variations.

SuperKonquer wrote:if you haven't noticed there is about a 10ms delay using this method if you are recordinging your arp. So you'll have to nudge your pattern to the start of the grid. You can also record this while playing with the track length for some interesting variations.

I didn't notice the delay - I was just happy it worked at all !