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Nota Arp

Nota Arp is a step arpeggiator. It takes the notes you hold down and plays them back as a rhythmic pattern — up, down, as a chord, and more — with per-step control over velocity, length, chance, ratchets and transposition.

The Nota Arp device card: a rate/gate live strip, a lane rail, a 16-step sequencer, and an order/octave rail.

Overview

Section titled “Overview”

Nota Arp sits before an instrument. It consumes the held chord and emits a generated sequence:

held notes ─▶ note order · octaves ─▶ per-step (velocity · length · chance · ratchet · transpose) ─▶ MIDI out

The pattern is locked to the transport, so it stays in time through loops and seeks and renders identically on export.

Interface

Section titled “Interface”

The card (mockup 2k) has a live strip over a lane rail, the step grid and an order rail.

  • Live strip — clock source (Free / Sync), the note rate (1/1 through 1/32, including the triplets 1/8T and 1/16T), GATE (note length), SWING, and the Hold and Retrig toggles.
  • Lane rail (left) — pick which per-step lane the grid edits: Velocity · Length · Chance · Ratchet · Transpose. STEPS sets the pattern length (1–16).
  • Step grid (centre) — the 16 steps of the selected lane. Drag to draw, hold ⌥ to draw a ramp, and click a step number to mute it. A playhead and a live step · value readout track playback.
  • Order rail (right) — ORDER (Up · Down · Up-Dn · Converge · As played · Chord · Random), OCT (octave range 1–4), DIR (octave direction: ↑ up, ↓ down, ↕ up-down, ? random) and TRANSP.

Parameters

Section titled “Parameters”

Global:

Parameter Range What it does
Sync / Free — Lock the rate to the transport, or run at a free rate.
Rate 1/1…1/32 Step length when synced (includes 1/8T, 1/16T triplets).
Gate 0…200 % Length of each note as a fraction of the step.
Swing 0…100 % Delays every other step for a shuffle feel.
Hold on / off Keep arpeggiating after you release the keys.
Retrig on / off Restart the pattern from step 1 on each new chord.
Steps 1–16 Pattern length (the loop length in steps).
Order Up … Random The order the held notes are played in.
Oct 1–4 How many octaves the pattern spans.
Dir ↑ ↓ ↕ ? Direction the octaves move through.
Transp -24…+24 st Transpose the whole output.

Per-step lanes (16 steps each, chosen from the lane rail):

Lane Range What it does
Velocity 0–1 Loudness of the note on that step.
Length 0–2 Note length multiplier for that step.
Chance 0–1 Probability the step plays at all.
Ratchet 1–8 How many rapid re-hits the step fires.
Transpose -24…+24 st Per-step pitch offset.
(mute) on / off Click a step’s number to silence just that step.

Tips & recipes

Section titled “Tips & recipes”
  • Classic up-arp: hold a chord, Order = Up, Rate = 1/16 — instant arpeggio. Turn on Hold to keep it going hands-free.
  • Rolling accents: raise a few steps on the Velocity lane and drop others for a groove; add Swing for shuffle.
  • Bursts: set a step’s Ratchet to 3–4 for a quick repeated hit.
  • Evolving pattern: pull some Chance values below 100 % so the sequence varies each pass.

See also

Section titled “See also”