ARPIE - MIDI Arpeggiator Kit

Build it yourself or buy it pre-assembled, here is a funny MIDI Arpeggiator !

Tiny, but big on features… an excellent creative tool for MIDI musicians

ARPIE is minimal, compact, hackable MIDI arpeggiator

An arpeggiator it is a device which takes chords (From a MIDI keyboard, for example) and converts them into rapid sequences of notes, which can then be played through MIDI-compatible synthesizer hardware or software. Arpeggiation is a very common technique in electronica and chiptune music and is an excellent creative technique.

With an ARPIE kit you can build your own fully-featured arpeggiator for much less than the costs of a commercial hardware arpeggiator. In your ARPIE kit you will receive two, high-quality printed circuit boards and all the components and hardware required to assemble the device, including two ready-programmed microcontrollers (Atmega328 and PIC12F1822). A PP3 is required for battery operation (not included) or you can run from a DC supply.

Soldering is required to complete this kit. Surface-mounts will be pre-soldered so you will only need to fit the through-hole components.

Arpie – MIDI arpeggiator Kit

ARPIE’s firmware has been improved with version 4, which adds several new features. Here is the low-down on what your ARPIE can do:

Arpeggio modes: Up/Down/Up-Down/Randomised/Manual

NEW Polyphonic gated chord mode

Octave span: 1 – 4 octaves

Note insertion modes: None/Lowest/Highest/3 forward-1 back/4 forward-2 back

NEW Force to scale option – 7 musical modes/11 root
notes/selectable out-of-scale note handling

Step length: 1 beat thru 1/32 beat including dotted and triplet time steps

Octave transpose: –3 thru +3 octaves

Chromatic transpose: –3 thru +12 semitones

NEW Transpose by MIDI keypress

Chord hold mode

1-16 step play/rest pattern (selected steps played or muted)

NEW 1-16 step accent pattern (selected steps played at full velocity)

NEW 1-16 step glide pattern (selected step played at full duration or tied to next note)

Selectable MIDI transmit/receive channel + OMNI receive mode + MIDI thru + MIDI panic + NEW MIDI “Channel Mode” message filter

Interactive control over MIDI note velocity, note length, tied notes mode

Internal MIDI clock with BPM select and tap tempo/send master clock/slave to clock input

Clock input from main MIDI input or separate dedicated MIDI clock input socket

MIDI lock mode to ignore note input (useful when controlling multiple ARPIEs in a chain)

Performance possible without attached MIDI controller using chord insert feature

Works great with other ARPIES.

Cheap enough to use a bank of hardware arpeggiators in a composition or performance setup for hands-on tweaking.

Minimal, but easy-to-use control surface is based on 16 data LEDS, 16 data buttons, 13 command buttons

6 pin “Hack Header” expansion port breaks out power and four GPIO lines.

NEW Standard firmware allows three standard potentiometers to be wired up to hack header and configured to control MIDI CC’s, Mod, Bend, BPM, Velocity etc

Three standard 5-pin DIN sockets for MIDI IN, MIDI OUT, SYNC IN

Receive, Transmit, Beat Clock and Chord Hold LEDs on control surface, firmware diagnostic/power LEDs on main board, reset button.

Integral 9V PP3 battery holder and 9V DC socket (2.1mm barrel) which works with either polarity plug.

Small size (98mm x 87mm x 35mm approx dimensions) and light weight (approx 125g without battery)

More informations :

Arpie

Pre-assembled :

Arpie