ULTRA FAST ARPEGGIO TECHNIQUE (Page 1 of 2)

You can find some fast arpeggios in baroque music for stringed instrument like violin or cello.
For example, in Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, there are things like this. I'm at work right now, i'll try to find an example on youtube this evening.

the analog version for this is:

sometimes my hands aren't big enough to play all the notes of a chord at the same time on the piano so I arpeggiate it

it's just a technique borne of technical limitations -- if you can't do polyphony because you literally can't play more than one voice per channel, just fake it

most instruments can't really do multiple voices easily; at the very least, polyphony isn't the default m.o. of the instrument. and if you don't have other people to help you play a chord, you just arpeggiate it

people can play arpeggios pretty fast tho

think about what an arpeggio actually is -- it's literally just a broken chord. arpeggios don't "simulate" chords, they ARE chords

I think what you mean is less simulating CHORDS and more simulating polyphony, in which case you'll probably want to take a look at j.s. bach's two and three part inventions as an early form of that

There are some chip-speed arpeggios in this 80s Tangerine Dream track:

Probably wasn't the first, but it's an early example?

btw, it's worth checking out the rest of that album, especially if you're a fan of Amiga music..

EDIT: actually here's an earlier example, first track and probably elsewhere on the album as well:

EDIT again: just remembered this 1980 Genesis track, arp starts at 5:46 but the whole track is essentially a proto-Megaman soundtrack piece:

Last edited by pselodux (Oct 20, 2016 11:02 pm)

Martin Galway is widely credited as the father of the chiptune arpeggio effect. His song for Kong Strikes Back is allegedly the first time the effect was used:

As far as similarities with other arpeggios in more traditional music, I think the chip arp stands on its own. The original intention of arpeggios in classical music was more along the lines of not wanting to put a chord with all notes played simultaneously and give more movement to a part but retain a certain simplicity because layering too many "unique" melodies over one another can become chaotic quickly. Whereas the original intention of the chip arp is kind of the opposite, you WANT to have a chord, but you just don't have the means to do it. Of course overtime it became such a staple sound that people when beyond emulating chords and started using them fairly creatively.

There's also a wide variety of chip arps. The "classic" one is three notes played quickly and it's probably the most used because that's what a lot of trackers are limited to with the three digit effect format. But simple two notes octaves are also common, although I tend to think of them more as a sound "texture" rather than an arpeggio since they don't really convey the idea of a chord. With software that allows you to program properly synthesized instruments, you usually have no limits to the number of notes so you can do more complex chords that step outside the min/maj/aug/dim realm. There's also many other creative uses. You can use the first two notes of an arp to play intervals that carry most of a chord's "flavour" and use the third note to add a layer of melody. That means that one a single channel, you not only are cramming a full-ish chord, but also a melody, really maxing out what you can play out of whatever machine you're using.

All in all, I find that chiptune arps are much more complex and unique that just reducing them to "a faster version of traditional arpeggios"

This one is winning so far. It is from 1978!

Wow this is was I needed to know!! Do you have the source of this data? Kong Strikes Back was released in 1985, at that date the Famicom in Japan was already 2 years old and the NES was being released in America. It is really strange this is the first time an arpeggio was used in a game though.

Yeah I agree, probably soundfx got at this first because it's an easy and short bit of code to add a pitch value per frame.  Add half your pitch maximum every other frame and you have an octave toggle going. (though not musical, good for drums though)

I'm assuming OP means instrument-based arpeggio like we use today, because note-based has been around forever.  (and electronically probably have to dial back to whenever modular sequencers became available for examples in the '40s-'50s)  The first instrument-based arps were probably octave based as with sfx, because from a code POV you just need to toggle it on and off every other frame/half your tempo.

If we're talking home electronics I've heard of a few examples bandied about as fairly early.  (though all c64 so not extensive) Martin Galway had it in Kong Strikes Back and Bob Landwehr's P.A.S.S music system also does it in a few of the demos.  (both 1984)  Fred Gray also used octave-based arps extensively and his stuff is quite early too.   Looking at a few early sound drivers I wouldn't think it's done with the traditional table-based setup we all use nowadays though. (where pitch/wave tables became general purpose for arps, drums etc.) Probably bespoke code in the driver.

Arcade games tend to add more soundchips to get around the problem (some early '80s games have 2 or 3 AY/SN chips in there) but Do Run Run does have octave-based arps in, and sounds quite different to arcade music from the time.  However it's 1984 again so seems a bit late for first in that regard.

This sounds like something goto80 would know.  Anders?