Midi joystick / Analog Four scales : GusGus gear/method

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

I’m looking for a way to recreate what Biggy Veira from GusGus is doing on his Doepfer modular system. It’s heard across most of their music but particularly in the album 24/7 and maybe mostly in the songs On The Job and Add This Song (the extended version).

Basically, he uses a joystick (two of them actually) to modulate the pitch of an oscillator relative to its base, if that makes sense. If the midi note is C for that trig, the sound is C + whatever value the joystick provides.

However another essential part of the trick is - the joystick values do not glide smoothly but they jump from set value to set value (I think 3rd, 5th, 7th notes) across a musical scale (major, minor etc.)

I once managed to achieve a similar effect with Digitone, assigning keystep’s modwheel to ratio. It worked because Digitone’s FM ratios are set values, rather than free flowing, if you know what I mean.

But can I achieve something similar with a midi joystick controller (and where to find one) and Analog Four?

And if not, what’s my best bet that doesn’t involve building a eurorack?

Any comment is appreciated.
Sorry if the terminology is off some places, English is my second language.

#2

In the modular world this feature is simply done by using a scale quantizer module to restrict the continuous output of the joystick (cv signal) to a fixed number of values.

There is nothing like this in the A4. I guess an external MIDI processor could accomplish this task (add quantized values to notes depending on the last CC value from the joystick).

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#3

Arduino would probably be cheapest, but you would have to program it, not too difficult if you have the patience, you can buy a cheap joystick, a midi shield and the Arduino clone for probably about €|$|£40.

There is a midi library and mapping functions which when combined could do the job.

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#4

Have you tried a midi CC to note converter plugin? Not sure if there is one that allows to set custom range/scale quantization, though.

Probaply can be done in Reaper (Reascript) and Ableton Live (Max4Live), maybe also in Reaktor???

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