Part 13.1 - ADDENDUM - Extending the Sequencer, Arpeggios/Chord Progression Patch Idea 

Fantastic! Glad you liked it. Hope you like the DFAM series just as much!

Great idea.

The Moogster! Love it! :)

Nicely said. I think you're right. 12et seems to be the way to go. I've been pretty focused on squeezing as much as possible out of the 8et and trying to get it to do what I want it to do. This idea definitely still has many applications! And is still very exciting, but perhaps not exactly what I was thinking. And, yes, I love that the SubH gets me (us) thinking about these types of interactions and movements between music. In many ways this is why I've enjoyed moving from VSTs to incorporate hardware into my setup. It makes you struggle and think differently. A puzzle of sorts!

I found that the patching ideas by @electrummodularmusic in the video "Essential music theory for the Moog Subharmonicon", is a useful alternative to deal with the limitation of the SubH that only quantizes to a major scale. It is very interesting, and in a nutshell it tunes the subs to one D key and main oscillators to A key to get the D Aeolian mode. It seems it probably catches the idea of @goingmodular . The trick is to switch the roles of sub and main oscillator.

@@racunars This reminds me of something, so possibly I saw that one too. I remember a “trick” consisting in tuning the first sub-oscillator to the fundamental, treating the main oscillator as a higher harmonic. I believe it is the same idea as the one you cite, although the name @electrummodularmusic does not ring a bell.

I fail to understand how this was overlooked. As a consequence, I, for one, never use the 8-note quantiser, I always stick to 12. This must be the single worst shortcoming of this machine.

@@goingmodular This comment is really blowing my mind a little. So, you use 12-ET and you can play in any key without sending a signal, you just avoid the notes you don't want? If that's what you're saying it's brilliant.

I agree. In fact, the more I've been thinking about this issue, the more I wonder why they even included the 8 steps as an option...

That's it!

@@brianlibert sorry, I am not sure I understand your point here. Let me try to elaborate a little, hoping I caught your meaning right. The quantizer in the SubH can either force a C major scale, or the usual 12 half-tone division of western music (in two different tuning systems). In that latter case, one can obviously program four-notes sequences in any tone (or even lack thereof). Now, the difficult part is when one starts to use the “trick” explained here, namely, when Both sequencers get patched to the same oscillator in order to transpose its original four-note sequence with each new note played by the other sequencer. Then I can see two possible cases. Let us imagine for instance that Sequencers 1 and 2 are patched to Oscillator 1. The two cases are, either, having then Oscillator 2 NOT follow any sequencer, or having it follow only ONE of the two sequencers. Let us assume for instance that Osc 1 ALWAYS follows Sequencers 1+2, and that Osc 2 is either not patched to any sequencer or only patched to Seq 2. And as in the video, Seq 2 and Seq 1 are following synchronised rhythms, for instance with Seq 2 running four times slower than Seq 1 (i.e. while Seq 2 plays one note, Seq 1 plays four). • The first of these two cases is simple. Osc 2, not governed by any sequencer, keeps silent or sticks to the same single note while Osc 1 runs its four-notes sequence four times. With each new set of four notes played by Osc 1, Seq 2 advances by one note, and Osc 1 starts playing its sequence again, only this time, transposed by an amount defined by the note played by Seq 2. (Still following me ?) So what we get is the same four-notes sequence transposed four times, leading for instance to a four-tones progression of the same given four-notes arpeggio. An example may make it all clearer. Let us imagine for instance that Seq 1 is programmed to play the base C major arpeggio consisting of the C, E, G, C sequence of notes. To build a chord progression, then you only need to select four adequate notes on Seq 2. For instance, if you want, say, a I, V, IV, VII chord progression, you simply program Seq 2 to play C, G, F and B. Osc 2 will remain silent, while Osc 1 is made to play the same arpeggio four times in a row, in a different tonality each time: first C, then G, F and finally B, all major. Easy. • Now, let us switch to the second case. This time, on top of Osc 1 playing its 4x4 note sequence, Osc 2 is made to follow Seq 2. Then things get tricky, because now, each note played by Osc 2 serves two purposes: it is played for itself (for instance as a slow bass note that runs while Osc 1 plays its four-note sequence) and it also serves as a Cv command defining the amount by which the four-note sequence played by Osc 1 gets transposed. This is obviously when things get really tricky, because without a proper planification, Osc 1’s transposed four-note sequence is at risk of becoming totally dissonant with the bass single note played at the same time by Osc 2. In other words, one has to make sure that each of the four notes programmed on Seq 2 and played by Osc 2 sounds right with the TRANSPOSED four-note sequence played at the same time by Osc 1 following Seq 1. This, for instance, is what I tried to do in the piece that @Braintree56 linked to above (the one I titled Electro Therapy _ for a funny reason that is not our focus here). I leave you to decide wether it worked or not, but it sure was a head-scratcher. Now, with the small example I described in the first case above (Osc 1 alone), things would still work fine with both oscillators playing, given its simplicity. Indeed, in that example, Seq 2 is programmed to have Osc 2 play the fundamental note of the four-note arpeggio played by Osc 1 at the same time: Osc 2 plays C while Osc 1 runs through C, E, G and C again; when it is time for the next note by Osc 2 to come, Osc 2 jumps to G while Osc 1 starts playing a G major arpeggio, so everything is fine again; then Osc 2 jumps to F and Osc 1 plays an F major arpeggio, and it all ends on still the same four-notes sequence transposed in B major in the last run; and then everything begins again. So, by sticking to pedestrian harmonic ratios, making both Osc 1 and 2 play together remains a reachable goal, even without a full tonal quantisation. But it gets tricky the minute your try and wander a bit further away from very basic sequences. Which, in a way, is what makes things fun, after all ! All this was for a 12 half-tone quantization. Now, if the fine people at Moog’s would have made a USEABLE 8-notes quantization, all this would suddenly become much easier AND richer. Indeed, instead of a systematic note-for-note transposition, the patching of Seq 1 and to 2 to Osc 1 associated with an 8-note quantization would have made each four-notes sequence played by Osc 1 systematically remain in the TONE defined by the fundamental note played by Seq 2 on Osc 2 at the same time. In other words, the effect looked for in my example above (and obtained by sticking to an ultra-simple structure) would just be automatic: no need to scratch your head, no need to carefully restrict your choice of notes to keep them musically pleasing. The two-oscillator trick would then make the SubH a thrilling tool for playing semi-generative music ad infinitum. A missed opportunity, I feel. Alright, this answer was ridiculously long, and I do not even know if it deals at all with what you meant to ask in your question ! 😶 But I have an excuse: I am answering right now while being stuck in a long, boring drive across the country ! This can also serve as a disclaimer, in case I said something stupid while detailing the illustrative examples above: I made them up in my mind, without anything to play them on and check that they actually make sense. Sorry if it is not the case ! Alright, I am done now, enough for today ! I hope somebody somewhere will find something of use in this novel-long reply !!