SEQ

The sequencer writes music one step at a time. Every sound track has its own pattern, drawn as a grid: steps across, the notes of your scale down. All the patterns play together, each with its own track's sound, alongside anything you have recorded. This chapter covers the grid, stacked notes, step settings and conditions, parameter locks, DICE, stored patterns and chains. Drum tracks use the KIT grid instead, which works in much the same way.

On the FM-1 now

Switching a pattern on

Press SEQ with a sound track selected. The track's pattern switches on, the sequencer opens, and the pattern plays whenever the music does. If the pattern is already on, SEQ from TRACKS (or any other screen) only opens its grid, so the part never drops out because you wanted to look at it. SEQ on the sequencer itself switches the pattern off and returns to TRACKS. HOME leaves the screen but never switches the pattern off. A kit track's drum grid follows the same rule (see The step grid).

Each track plays its pattern or the arpeggiator, not both (ARP ON THIS TRACK).

Clearing the track (CLEAR in the TRACK menu, or hold SHIFT+REC on its lane on TRACKS; SHIFT is HOME held down) clears its pattern too, along with its recorded notes. One undo brings both back (see The TRACK menu).

The grid

Patterns are 1 to 64 steps long (up to four bars of 16 steps).

Writing notes

There are three ways in, and you can mix them.

With the keys. The keys write the note at the cursor step, and the cursor moves on to the next step when you let go. Press several keys together to write a chord (a stack of up to four notes in one step); the cursor moves on when the last of them is up. The cursor row goes to the lowest note of what you wrote, and if that is out of view the window moves so the whole chord shows. Hold SEQ and press a key to write a rest. Hold SEL and press white key n to jump to step n of the cursor's bar (never the bar FOLLOW shows, so a jump while the music plays lands where you are working); SEL+OCT- or SEL + OCT+ picks the bar first. With CHORDS on (see KEYS), a chord pad writes its whole chord, and the cursor moves on when you let go of the pad. Press the next pad while the last is still down and the first chord ties into the next (legato).

Hold and turn. While the key is still down, the cursor waits on the step you just wrote, and any of K1 to K4, whichever you turn first, edit that step as they do on a step: K1 NOTE moves it up or down in your key, K2 VELO its velocity, K3 LENGTH its length in steps, K4 CHANCE how likely it plays. Fix a wrong note or shape it as you go, then let go and the cursor moves on. With a chord held, K1 moves the whole chord in key, every note by the same number of scale steps (C E G becomes D F A, then E G B), and K2 sets all its notes' velocities together; K3 and K4 are the step's anyway. A held chord pad works the same way: K1 moves its whole chord in key. Turning ALGORITHM while the key is down moves the cursor as usual, and letting go then does not step on.

With the knobs. Put the cursor on a step with ALGORITHM. K1 NOTE on an empty cell adds a note there; on a note it moves the note up or down in your key. K2 VELO sets that note's velocity, K3 LENGTH the step's length in steps, K4 CHANCE how likely the step is to play (see Conditions).

With DICE. See DICE and GENERATE.

Typing can be undone. A tap of SHIFT+REC takes back the notes you typed with the keys. A run of typing is one undo, chords and rests included: it brings back the pattern as it was before you started (UNDO T2 NOTES), so eight notes typed over a line DICE wrote come off in one go and the line is back. The run ends when you change the pattern any other way, with a knob or a DICE roll for example; the next notes you type start a new one.

Show it on the FM-1

Show it on the FM-1

Which step. While you move the cursor (with ALGORITHM, a key or a knob), the header names the step: STEP 11 OF 32. Two seconds after the last move it shows the bar again (BAR 1 OF 2).

The hint line names the moves for where the cursor is, in turns: on an empty step KEYS: WRITE · SEQ+KEY: REST, then SEL+KEY: GO TO STEP · SEL+OCT: BAR; on a step with notes KEYS: STACK · SEL: STEP MENU, then HOLD KEY+K1-K4: EDIT IT, then SEQ+KEY: REST · SEL+OCT: BAR. See One rule for shortcuts.

FOLLOW. While the music plays, the grid shows the bar being played. Moving the cursor, turning a knob or pressing a step key holds the view still for two seconds; SEL lets it follow at once.

Show it on the FM-1

The pattern row

Move the cursor above step 1 to the pattern row. The body is an 8 by 8 overview of the whole pattern, two rows a bar, stacked notes as lines. K1 to K4 are the pattern's own settings:

While the music plays, a new LENGTH or RATE waits for the end of the pattern, so no step ever plays half old and half new. SHIFT with the keys F3, G3 and A3 also sets the pattern's length to one, two or four bars.

Growing a pattern of whole bars to more whole bars repeats what is there: a one-bar bass line made two bars long plays twice, and you only change what should differ. It repeats only when every new step is empty: if the bars you add back still hold notes from before you shortened the pattern, you get those notes instead. A length that is not whole bars just adds empty steps. The repeat is one undo step: a tap of SHIFT+REC takes the copies and the length back (UNDO T1 PATTERN).

The pattern plays inside its track's loop (the track's LENGTH on TRACKS): it starts at the top of the loop and restarts there. A pattern that no longer fits the loop makes the loop longer, by whole bars up to eight (the toast says T3 2 BARS); a shorter pattern repeats inside the loop, and the loop is never shortened for you. Shorten the track's LENGTH on TRACKS and the loop's end cuts the pattern there. See Length and loops.

Show it on the FM-1

The STEP menu

With the cursor on a step, SEL opens its menu. It reopens on the row you used last.

Show it on the FM-1

All the notes of a step share its length; each keeps its own velocity.

Conditions and chance

A step does not have to play every time. K4 CHANCE sets how likely it is (ALWAYS, then 95 % down to 5 % in 5 % steps), and turned past the bottom it becomes a condition instead (the same list is the CONDITION row of the STEP menu):

Conditions turn a short pattern into a long one: a hat on 1:2 and a different one on 2:2 make a two-bar phrase out of one.

Parameter locks

Hold SEQ on the grid and turn K1 to K4. The legend turns into the track's four macros, each showing the cursor step's lock (or, without one, the track's own value). Turning one locks that macro on that step: the step plays with those values, and the track keeps its own. A dot over the step's column marks it.

Show it on the FM-1

Show it on the FM-1

Hold SEQ only on the grid itself; releasing it then does nothing else. STEP > CLEAR LOCKS removes a step's locks.

DICE and GENERATE

SHIFT+SEQ rolls a new idea onto the selected track, with that track's own DICE settings (below; a new track starts on AUTO everywhere). On a sound track it writes a new line in key; on a kit it writes a new beat on the same drums. Each roll is one undo, so a tap of SHIFT+REC takes it back. The PATTERN menu's DICE row (and the KIT menu's, on a kit) does the same, so you can roll again and again from the menu.

DICE fills every bar the loop plays. A pattern shorter than its track grows to the track's length first, so on a two-bar track a one-bar pattern becomes two bars (at most 64 steps; a pattern that isn't whole bars, such as 12 steps, keeps its length). The bars share one rhythm with new notes in each, the line walking on from bar to bar, and the last bar gets a rhythm of its own, the way a kit's last bar varies. With KEEP on RHYTHM, a bar with no notes takes the rhythm of the bar before it. The undo takes the length back too.

Each track keeps its own DICE settings, under PATTERN menu > GENERATE ▸ (on a kit, KIT menu > GENERATE ▸). Turning them changes nothing yet: the next roll uses them, from the menu, the DICE row or SHIFT+SEQ. They are saved with the song and follow the track when you move or duplicate it. A sound track shows NOTE DICE:

The song's key and scale always apply. A KEEP other than AUTO on an empty pattern says NOTHING TO ROLL. A kit's settings are DRUM DICE: see KIT.

The PATTERN menu

From the pattern row, SEL opens the PATTERN menu. Many of its changes land at the end of the pattern while the music plays, and asking for the same thing again before it lands cancels it.

Show it on the FM-1

Show it on the FM-1

Stored patterns and chains

A project holds 16 stored patterns, A to P, which the sound tracks can play. Store a pattern, make a variation, store that too, and switch between them at the pattern's end, or chain them so the track steps through them on its own. Scenes on PERFORM do the switching for a whole song at once: capture a scene while the tracks play the patterns you want, and its black key brings every one of those patterns back on the bar line, with the mutes.

A scene overrules a switch you queued on a track, and a chain's next step that was waiting. The track's SEQ comes on, and edits you had not stored go into the pattern it was on. A scene remembers the slot, not a copy: store something else into that slot and the scene plays the new pattern. A track that plays a chain keeps stepping through it: the scene puts the track on its pattern, and at that pattern's end the chain moves on. To hold a scene's pattern, clear that track's chain (CHAIN ▸, CLEAR).

PRINT: pattern to recording

SHIFT + SAVE (or PRINT in the PATTERN menu) turns the pattern into a recording on the track, over the track's whole length, in one press and one undoable take (PRINTED 2 BARS -> T1). Printing the same pattern twice says ALREADY PRINTED; an empty pattern says PATTERN EMPTY. After that you can record over it, clear it or leave the pattern off.

Troubleshooting