Arps – what do you want from them? – Instruments Forum

Arps used to be simple things. Set the rate, up / down etc. Play one note, get one note, play a chord and it cycles through. Great!

Mich of the time that’s all I want or need to be honest. But the usual extra features are useful where you can set pattern, length, glide etc come in handy. Then there are some super slick ones where you can set modulations and all kinds of wild stuff.

But somewhere around here it begins to jump the shark for me. When you start getting full melodies and chord progressions, I lose interest completely. Even if I were lazy enough to use them for some background cue – and I can get pretty lazy at times – I figure I might be hit with a copyright violation somewhere. So what’s the point?

How about you? Does anyone use melodies and chord progressions? What features are must-haves? Is there a case for going back to basics and keeping ARPs super simple? What synths have the most useful arps?