SonicLAB: midicake UNA - Intelligent Arp + Sequencer

Chris joins us in the studio to show us the new midicake Una, a compact MIDI processor and sequencer that takes ideas from MIDI Cake ARP and puts them into a smaller keyboard-focused format with three intelligent parts driven by MIDI input.

Note: UNA has gained a number of new features and UI improvements since this was filmed, including the Patch Chain and Program Change features mentioned in the video. Head to [midicake.com/una] for what's in the shipping firmware.

 UNA is designed to be a musical idea capture device. It uses incoming notes as a harmonic source for three parts: chord, melody and bass. The chord track drives rhythm and harmony, the melody track works as a more complex arpeggiator/sequencer, and the bass track adds generated or edited bass movement. It reverse-engineers played ideas into its parametric sequencing engine rather than simply recording MIDI. It can also be attached to a low cost Android tablet directly for a larger interactive UI to expand control options.

Key features include per-parameter sequencing for pitch, gate, velocity, slice, octave, MIDI channel and delay. It supports ratchets, trills, swing, Euclidean-style mutes and accents, probability-based variation, chord chains, chord suggestions and live play with sustain. Luna also has two MIDI outputs and can route or sequence across multiple MIDI channels.

Here's what Chris ran us through:
Capturing a chord rhythm, record or generate a melody pattern, load a bass pattern, then use played chords to steer the whole arrangement. Modulators can target internal parameters, other modulators or external MIDI CCs, so Una also works as a MIDI modulation source.
The browser-based Connect app gives larger visual feedback, patch management, routing and contextual help over USB.

Una early bird launch offer £399 / $519 / €479 for the first 150 units and sells direct from

https://midicake.com.
 

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