Making melodies
At the most basic level, SynthMaster One’s Arpeggiator/Sequencer works as a straight-up arp, with all standard directional modes present and correct – Up, Down, Up+Down, As Played, etc. You get up to four octaves of range, up to 16 volume-adjustable steps, the gamut of playback speed note values from 1/32 to 2/1 including dotted and triplet options, swing timing, and gate time control by extending/shortening individual steps in the bar display or twisting the Duration knob.
Rather more interesting, though, are the other three arpeggiation and sequencing modes. Ported over from SynthMaster 2.8, the ingenious – if at times mildly baffling – Arpeggiate mode hands you full control of the note-to-note progression of the arpeggio, specifying which note from the chord should be played on each step (1st, 2nd, 3rd, Last, one or two steps above/below the previous step, or Random), with Slide and Hold toggles. Steps can be left empty, too, for rests.
Sequence mode is a conventional piano roll step sequencer boasting up to four notes of polyphony and, again, per-step Slide and Hold. You can draw notes in by hand or activate Record mode and play them in step by step, either at their played velocities or fixed at 127.
Finally, Chord mode plays back the held chord, as opposed to its constituent notes, in a rhythmic sequence – just the thing for big trancegate-style pads.