Barker on OT

my fave combo +ND2
~about 4 minutes in, maybe relevant for some folks on here

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I’m a big fan of his music. This video has really peaked my interest in building some solenoid triggers. I may need to rework my eurorack drums…

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this was awesome. i’m interested in his chord sequencing technique on the OT. seems super efficient. anyone know where i could find such a midi file so i can sample synths i come across like he does? i assume you’d need a daw to do this?

Yeah I was wondering which chord does he have in it? Like all scales?
Nice trick though.

I’ve done something similar sending midi from my daw and stringing together a ton of chords using Plugin Boutique’s Scaler. You literally just drag the chords you want into your timeline. Super fast.

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I was just about to start laying up chords in Ableton by hand so I can make my own chains of chords. Scaler 2 will be purchased today! This looks like an amazing tool!

I was using ChordPolyPad on the iPad to send chords to trigs on the A4. It works well. I was thinking of setting up a MIDI bank on a default OT project on the last bank/pattern where each step was a different chord. I could then copy the trig into a working pattern to make chord progressions for my MIDI sequenced instruments.

You could store a lot of chords on all 8x64 trigs for just one pattern! More than I imagine I would ever need to use. Hell, you could even separate chord types per track i.e Track 7 stores 7th chords, Track 3 for triads. Or whatever. Typing as I think here. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Scaler has really changed melodic composition for me. Even just being able to test out chord variations of the key you are working in is amazing. There are so many chords that I had no idea even existed. I think a lot of people look at a plugin like that and think it’s just for people who know nothing about music theory but I think it’s a really great tool for anybody, really.

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plus that pad makes a hell of a mouse pad! :rofl:

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Seems quite neat, thanks! Really fed up with doing chord progressions with my track pad (whenever I’m on the laptop) lol

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I had already listened his sound, but had forgotten him… Amazing albums! Ordered ^^

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@d4ydream
How do u send chors to trigs on your A4?
And would it be possible on DT or DN?
I did not understand hiw barker stores his midi chords on the OT so he can load them on any track.
Thanks :slight_smile:

I’m just out at a BBQ today but I can reply with some detailed info tomorrow. :slight_smile:

IIRC he has a sequence of chords on a midi track in his OT and always uses this sequence of chords to sample synths into OT.

So it’s always the same order of chords, but sampled from different synths.

Also his OT is always ready to sample new synths using the midi track.

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I have an OT project for exactly that, with some patterns with chords and some others with scales. So far I’ve only sampled the Korg Prologue. I should share the sample chains and the project, might be useful for someone else. Also it would be interesting to discuss what’s a good choice for chords, in the chains I made I used (if I remember correctly) : single note C, C5, C, Cm, Cdim, Cmaj7, C7, C7b5, Cmin7, Cdim7 and also first and second inversions for the triads. Another option I considered is sampling all the triads in a scale, for example for C major: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim, and perhaps the inversions too, not sure which approach is best.

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Yes please :))

One way that you can use the OT, DN, DT, and/or A4 to store chords would be to dedicate the last Bank/Pattern as a chord storage bank. You can program chords on each step by using methods native to each machine OR by press and holding a step while in grid recording mode and sending MIDI notes to the autochannel of your device. On the DN for example, if I hold down the first trig, set my Keystep to MIDI channel 10 (default auto-channel for this device), then play a 4 note chord, that chord is stored on that step. The size of the chords you can store is limited by the amount of notes per step the device supports; 4 notes on the OT, DT, and A4 and 8 on the DN IIRC.

Now, you can build up a library of chords in a default project. You could either play these manually using a MIDI controller or use a VST in your DAW like Scaler 2 or an app in iOS like ChordPolyPad to generate chords and progressions. The concept is the same; send the MIDI information to the auto-channel of your device while holding down a trig in grid recording mode.

Once you have a library of chords stored in a default project, you can start your new projects by loading the default and saving it as a new project. Now, you can copy the trigs to any track on your device to quickly and easily structure chord progressions together (or for use with arps).

What Barker does, I believe, is he has an OT project where he has a progression of chords laid out on a MIDI track. When he wants to sample those chords, he sets up his OT to record whatever inputs has whichever synth he wants to record and he sends the OT MIDI track to that synth. So, he can just change up the patch on the synth then quickly capture his chord progression into the OT. From there it’s just setting up the slices so that he can perform with those newly recorded chords.

For any instructions on setting up the OT/DT to record, you are best to search the forum. There are many threads that discuss this in great detail. The manual is also a great help :).

Apologies for the late reply. It’s been a busy few days!

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Always nice to see an Akai S-5000 in the wild.

@d4ydream
OmG! Thank you sooooo much. Thats been a great help…i now have my own midi-chord-project on my digitone! Thaaaaaaanks :))

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Funny seeing this again. I finally got around to making my own chord templates the other day and was wondering who else was doing them.

64 slices of long sustained chords makes quite a large sample. It’d be nice if I had the musical knowledge to refine this into something half the size but as equally useful to my style of music.

A basic template is nice to have for your monophonic synths too. The two octave pitch range for samples isn’t much, but 64 slices of different notes will get you 5 1/3 octaves. Use the pitch controls in combination with slices and you can traverse about 7 octaves. Not too shabby…

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Cool. I explained my approach in this other thread, and included links to the project and sample chains: