SQ-80 — Musician's Manual
SONG MODE
The SQ-80' s Song Mode allows you to chain Sequences together in any order to create up to 20 Songs.
Each Song can be given a name of up to six characters. You name a Song when you Create it (see
CREATE Page, p. 109), much as you name a Program when Writing it to Memory. You can also change a
Song's name at any time from the
SONG EDIT Page.
Songs are constructed in
Steps. Each Step of a Song consists of:
1) A Sequence
that will be played during that Step;
2) The number of times the Sequence will be Repeated
during the Step; and
3) The Transpose
value, which allows you to Transpose the entire Sequence up or down by as
much as an octave for the duration of the Step.
Either a Song or a Sequence is selected at any given time — never both. When a Song is selected, the
SQ-80 is in
Song Mode. Pressing Play will cause the selected Song to play. You cannot Record in Song
Mode — a Song is really just a series of instructions to the Sequencer, telling it to play certain Sequences
in a certain order.
Each time a new Sequence starts playing as a Step in a Song, each Track of the new Sequence sends out a
Program Change and MIDI Volume instructions on its selected Midi Channel (unless the Track is
assigned LOCAL Status). This allows you to change the Patch that a remote instrument is playing for
each Song Step, if you wish.
Any Sequence can be connected to any other in a Song — they don't have to have the same Tempo or
Time Signature. The
SQ-80 will simply play the Sequences in the order you program them in.
When a Song is selected, you can make changes to a Sequence within the Song, but, unless the Song is
stopped, those changes will be forgotten as soon as the next Step begins to play. For example, while
laying a Song, you might change the Tempo of the Sequence that's currently playing, or change the
Program that's playing on a Track. Those changes will only remain as long as that Step is playing. The
next time the same Step comes around, the Sequence will be as it was originally.
If you make these changes while the Sequencer is stopped. or you Stop the Sequencer before the Song
Step is over, the
SQ-80 will ask you whether you want to save those changes when you next press Play
or select a new Sequence or Song (see
SAVE CHANGES TO OLD SEQUENCE, p. 91.)
Note: All changes made to a Sequence must be made with the Sequence selected, or when the
Sequence is the Current Step in a Song
and the Song is stopped. If you find yourself trying to make
changes to a Sequence, and the SQ-80 keeps changing them back, or otherwise reacting strangely, make
sure you are not in Song Mode.
Section 4 — The Sequencer 135
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