Old School Arpeggiators, What lovely sounds. Video Games probably come to mind.

In this tips and tricks video, we see how to achieve old-school arpeggio patterns with Live’s built-in MIDI effects.

Ableton’s Built-in Arpeggiator is awesome. It has really great styles built-in but we can expand them using other MIDI effects. For example, When we choose the Style Updown and add a few Steps. The pattern will go Up and Down one octave and only then jump to the next which is not so old-school.

Instead of using the Step knob we can add a Chord MIDI effect before the Arpeggiator and set the first knob to +12 (Octave). We can then duplicate the Chord MIDI effect for as many octaves as we want.

Now the Arpeggiator will play all the way up and then all the way down just like Arpeggiators from old video games.

This Technique will also give you different Arpeggiator patterns for almost all styles.

Place the Rack before the Arpeggiator

Arp Octaves

Composition Power Tools by Side Brain