Patching Rene 2 as a Powerful Arpeggiator

Many popular keyboard synthesizers include arpeggiators: the sound of staccato chords is evocative of 1980s soundtracks, cheesy ballads and one-finger keyboard virtuosity. The tell-tale electronic pulsing sounds undeniably cool and it’s fun to let the arpeggiator work its hypnotic magic while tweaking knobs to add real time expressivity. Arpeggios are practically a genre of electronic music by themselves or as part of a larger composition.

For the modular synth player, there are many interesting ways to patch arpeggiators with step sequencers and touch interfaces. Though the basic patch will work with most sequencers, Make Noise’s Rene 2 sequencer allows some especially creative techniques.

High-Level Arpeggiator Theory

Let’s think about what an arpeggiator does in order to understand how to patch it. An arpeggiator iterates thru a sequence of notes with a predetermined rhythm, repeating as the notes are held. On a keyboard, one might play a C Major 7 chord and let the arpeggiator play each note individually. Some arpeggiators have a chord memory so the chord can be transposed by simply playing a different key (D would play a D Major 7 chord, for example).

With a modular synthesizer, a keyboard with this kind of functionality might not be available and you don’t need a specialized module for this: it can be patched. In the most basic sense, there are three ingredients: the notes to arpeggiate, whether or not the arpeggiator is running and a transposition of the arpeggio. This is easily modeled in a modular synthesizer by mixing the step sequencer pitch output with an offset voltage from a touch controller (or keyboard, or another sequencer… you get the idea).

The next level of sophistication includes resetting the step sequencer so that the arpeggiator begins on the same root note each time. Most step sequeners have a reset input that is useful for this sort of thing.

Finally, we need a way to run the sequencer when a touch control is activated or to let it run automatically. Running on its own is typically called “latching” in synth jargon. If you have a touch controller that is capable of generating a manual gate, that will be sufficient for run/stop behavior and reset.

The Patch Generalized

• Clock to step sequencer.
• Manual gate to sequencer reset.
• Manual gate to sequencer run/stop/hold. You may need to logically invert the gate depending on your sequencer. For example, if your sequencer has HOLD instead of run, you may need to patch a low gate into it to stop it instead of a high gate to make it run.
• Sequencer cv output (v/oct if applicable) to oscillator pitch input.
• Voltage from a touch controller to oscillator pitch input (to transpose).
• Patch oscillator to a VCA in the usual way and use an envelope triggered by the sequencer’s clock or gate programming outputs.

Patching with Rene 2

• Clock => Rene 2 X Clock in.
• Pressure Points common gate output => Rene 2 X Mod in.
• Pressure Points row output => Rene 2 X CV in.
• Rene 2 X CV out => DPO v/oct.
• Rene 2 X Gate output => Optomix channel 1 strike input.
• DPO Final output => Optomix channel 1 input.
• Monitor Optomix channel 1 output.

Rene Settings

• On the X Access page, enable at least a few steps. You will most likely want to tune these to a chord or whatever other intervals you’re arpeggiating.
• On the X Fun page, enable Fun.Mod.Reset, Fun.Mod.Run/Stop and Fun.CV.Add.
• On the X Gate page, enable gate on each step (at least for now).

Further Exploration

Elaborate arpeggios can be created by using Rene 2’s numerous advanced features. Gate programming enables more interesting rhythms than a typical per-step trigger. The Y channel can be used in tandem to arpeggiate a different sequence or use different gate programming, for example, choosing some gate events on the X channel to trigger a square wave in Optomix channel 2 and gate programming in Y to trigger the sine wave output. This could be any variety of sequencing controls: using one gate pattern to clock a stepped random voltage used for timbre of effect related parameters leads to surprisingly musical effects.

State programming allows even deeper exploration of the space of possibilities with touch or CV control. Changing snake patterns reorders the notes in the arpeggiator and of course lengths and directions and even run stop behavior can be programmed with states. This is useful for example if you want to take your hand off the manual gate and enable latch mode for some states but not others.