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Anyone know of a piece of gear with chord-assign pads and user-programmable arp patterns? I don’t need all the features of the M3m. I pretty much just need to be able to record 2-8 measure midi licks, then turn those into an arp pattern, assign all the chords in my song to velocity-sensitive pads, then play/record the song using the chord pads and the arp patterns that I created.

Along those lines, since the M3m has KARMA instead of user-programmable arps, are there a bunch of simple KARMA GEs available with the ability to mute/unmute steps? What I am getting at is, can you simulate having a programmable arp by picking basic “building block” GEs and then modifying params to create something close to what you would have created if you could have just recorded the arp yourself?

IP,

Sounds like the original KARMA may be what you're looking for, tho it has only 4 chord pads. What it does have going for it is that it can do anything a Triton Classic can, from a sound standpoint, including capacity for two EXB boards.

I own a Karma, but it is not my primary go-to board. At least partially this is because it doesn't do the things you're asking about (at least not as easily or intuitively as I'd like) without a lot of digging into the KARMA functions. You can knock off a lot of the "fancy" to get to a more basic playing style, and save those as "new" takes on the factory combis. As far as muting instruments and bringing them in again, the scene buttons are your bet bet for that as a button push rather than looking for a particular knob.

All that process takes a willingness to invest your (perhaps considerable) time to get the result you want... have you a month to dedicate to editing in your spare time? It may take that long.

BB

Sounds like you might be interested in an Electribe like the ESX

I think it is strange that only Korg makes gear with chord-assign pads, and it appears Korg is abandoning them as well. The M3 has the 8 great velo-sensitive pads, but those did not make it to the Kronos. The M50 only has 4, and they are just buttons without velocity. That USB micro pad thing has them, but you cannot just play keys to assign the chord, you have to go into the software editor and click on drop downs to assign all the notes. Even Akai, makers of numerous pad controllers, has no chord-assign feature on their gear. I think the UltraNova may assign chords to a key, but I cannot get much info on that board.

It seems that my ideal workflow would be quite common, that is, assign all the chords for the song to pads, and then play/record the song using those pads with various arp patterns that you created, but obviously it is not.

I sent a question to Keith McMillen Support regarding their Midi Expander, to see if it would work to turn USB midi into traditional midi. If so, I know there are lots of folks who would like to take USB gear (nanoPad, nanoKey, etc.) that is for the PC using USB driver, and hook it up to other gear via traditional midi port. I will post the response if it looks promising.

Roland Fantom -X and Fantom-G

Thanks for tip about Fantom G, I was not even looking at that board because I did not think it had chord assign on the pads. Looks like it does, except instead of just holding down some keys and pressing a pad to assign like on M3, you have to go into pad setup and select from list of chord symbols.

It will also do the “record mini sequence, turn into arp, then play from pads with chords assigned” thing. Don’t get me wrong, Karma sounds great and is really advanced, but it appears to sort of do the whole song for you (like my arranger does) - I prefer to do the song myself and then just use arp to fill it in a bit and do repetitive stuff like rhythms and guitar cutting and such.