How does the arpeggiator work?

[nairobiny]

I have absolutely no idea how the arpeggiator works. If I highlight some notes, I can create a brand new arpeggiator template, and I can apply this template to a chord, but I don't really understand how the template transforms the chord into the notes it does. Also, it writes something to arpeggiators.json, but I don't understand the format or what the tags are doing.

Is there a simple guide to help understand it? I think I understand musical theory, but I'm lost.

[peterrudenko]

Creating and using arpeggiators is tied to harmonic context, meaning arpeggiators rely on the key signatures at the timeline.

The idea behind it was to remember any custom sequence of notes in their in-scale keys, so that the sequence doesn't depend on the scale anymore - and later apply that scale-agnostic sequence to some chords in whatever different harmonic context.
So, to use arpeggiators:

• first, add a key signature and create any sequence under that key; select that sequence and create an arpeggiator from it,
• after that, in any other place, apply that arp to any other selection (presumably, to some chords).

For extra options you can shift-click on the aps button in the right sidebar, so that each arp will have a submenu (another [yet] undocumented feature).

Honestly, the big part of the reason why I haven't documented all that stuff is that arpeggiators are still a pain to deal with: there's no way to delete an arpeggiator other than manually editing that arpeggiators.json file, and there's no convenient way to edit an arpeggiator, and they don't even always work as expected. I made them with glue and duct tape mostly for myself, and never had the time to polish the UI since then. I'll be improving this over the next weeks or months, in the meantime if anyone reading this has suggestions on usability, I'd love to hear your ideas.

[nairobiny]

That helps a lot, thank you!