Arpeggionome Pro | matrix arpeggiator User Reviews

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Awful

If I could get a refund I would take it. Waste of sonic energy.

Outstanding

Clever, inspiring, useful.

Excellent but doesn’t play well with others

Would really like to use as an instrument in iMPC Pro 2. Or even work with Audiobus 3. But, it doesn’t.

Other than that, it’s really really fun to play with!

Crippled

This app is perhaps fun to use and as such, a toy, it’s pretty well designed. Unfortunately, it is seriously crippled if you want to use it for more serious applications. The reason is the lack of ability to create your own scales. Any decent arpeggio generator allows at the minimum a creation of your own scale. This app is missing all 7th chord scales which are a must in any music, same goes for augmented and diminished scales. Yes, you can create some of those by using a chromatic scale and then finding a combination of notes distance but then you are limited only to that very specific note distance (I was able to create a diminished scale this way but that is only because of its symmetrical nature, very hard if not impossible to create 7th scale). In addition, surprisingly the app does NOT offer ability to create arpeggios on the fly based on the notes you press on a MIDI keyboard or the built in keyboard (which is there only to provide visual representation of the arpeggio) - this is something that almost every arpeggio generator has, both software and hardware. All you can control with the incoming MIDI is either changes of patterns or programs, NOT individual notes! I noticed that this developer does not like 7th chords / scales as they are also missing in the Fugue Machine preset scales, but since in Fugue Machine you can input your own notes using chromatic scale, this is not a big problem. Phrygian scale is included but nothing 7th scale (Phrygian scale can be achieved simply by starting on the 3rd degree of a major scale, no separate scale needed). All in all, this app has a great potential but is leaning on the side of being a gimmick, a toy and not a more serious music creation app. Another note, the video included in the Preview above on the App Store is misleading and suggests that the matrix can take multi touch (there are two points in performance matrix and two flashing cross hairs). This is not how the app works, in fact it states in the manual that “when the performance matrix receives multiple touches, only the last touch is active”.
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Response from developer

Hi Matreve, Arpeggionome is a "matrix-controlled" arpeggiator, not a "keyboard-controlled" arpeggiator. Perhaps I should clarify this more in the description, apologies for this.  Allowing a keyboard to control the notes in the arpeggiator would actually break the fundamental concepts of the project, making most of the parameters unusable. This includes the x-axis of the matrix itself. There are other great arpeggiator apps that work with keyboard input (check out StepPolyArp if you haven't yet). With Arpeggionome, I was intentionally rethinking the input mechanism of an arpeggiator. Re:preview, that's a screen grab of me playing! So definitely not intended to be misleading. Arpeggionome is designed to be held in your hands and played with your thumbs. So those white circles are my thumbs playing super fast. I recommend trying it out, by keeping one thumb down on a point, and tapping around with your other thumb to quickly change notes and timing. It's super fun. Anyway, apologies for the trouble and confusion. I'll consider adding more scales and perhaps a custom scale option in the future. All the best, Alexander

Needs new update

I use this all the time. Sounds great with Bose Speakers. But it’s time for an update. Last 1 was 4 years ago. Maybe more colors.
Please add all you avid users of this app. Let’s keep this going.

Not intuitive

To use it with garage band it's tricky and the registration on it it is elaborate to do. I do not feel I spent my money in the right way. If I could, I would ask for a refund. Do not like it

This app has glitches

One glitch is that when you use Siri assistant while it’s playing it goes really fast way faster than normal.

Fun, but missing a very basic control option.

Had a lot of fun playing with this and showing it to my son, but then hit a brick wall that ruined it for us. I was trying to show him how the Stranger Things theme was made and in setting up the basic arpeggio of C2,E2,G2,B2,C3 I found that it was basically impossible in Arpeggionome Pro. I can set the key to Ionic, the number of notes to 5 and the note pattern to up and down, and the note steps to 2. But that does a pattern of C2,E2,G2,B2,D3, not C3. Just one note off. It’s using steps instead of actually trying to play the chord. And as far as I can tell, there’s no way to specify exactly which notes are played in your arpeggio pattern. You can only control it with the steps and scales. So there’s no way to actually get that exact chord to play. Ironic that Arpeggionome Pro can’t play probably the most well-known arpeggio of the last 10 years.
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Wonderful!!!!

And works well with other apps

A great take on the ARP

This is just a great overall arpeggio app. Take the time to go through the built in documentation (which was simple but clear) and you will be rewarded with a very useful tool for inspiration and playing music. Or just dive in and have fun. It isn’t hard to get good results in minutes.

I used it to run synths on my iPad as well as hooked it up to synths through my DAW on my Mac using USB Midi and it was a joy to use.

There are many different ways to make an arp tool. This is one of the more unique ones I have tried and is a welcome addition to my music gear. My only complaint is no AU support. But it is still a 5 star app regardless of that.
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