Hi all.
I’m currently using BlueARP, a VST arpeggiator, for live performance. I trigger it live using my keyboard, and it plays in sync with Cantabile’s metronome. However, I notice that sometimes the timing of BlueARP slips (some notes are played late). Did anyone ever encounter this problem? And if so, how did you solve it?
Alternatively, can anyone recommend other (free, if possible) VST arpeggiators that don’t suffer from this problem?
Thanks
Alan
Hi vellamatic,
I use BlueARP live too, and have experienced the same problem; but after a lot of testing I ultimately decided that much of what I was hearing was due to patch attack times. Most patches have a non-zero attack, meaning that if the note is triggered precisely on the beat, its peak amplitude occurs slightly late, which can make it sound annoyingly off tempo. Human keyboardists seem to have an amazing capacity to adapt to this, instinctively playing notes just a few milliseconds before the beat, so that peak amplitudes coincide with the beat.
I don’t know whether that’s what you’re hearing, but it was my experience. I experimented with several different arpeggiators and actually found BlueARP to be the best at staying on the beat (despite being free!). The only solutions I’ve found are to reduce my patch attack times and/or send BlueARP a clock signal that’s slightly early, so that it triggers notes slightly before the beat. (I really wish BlueARP had a setting for triggering notes n ms before each beat, but I haven’t seen that in any arpeggiator.)
–Kevin