Song Mode; where the full experience comes together

The preceding 5 components of your song’s narrative are laid out (arranged) in song mode. It’s where that “cool loop” gets transformed into a compelling, complex, full piece that plays out over multiple bars and minutes of music.

Song mode is where you turn up/down the temperature, expound on your narrative by giving some instruments room to tell their story in the context of others, or set up introduction or conclusions by invoking risers or fallers, beat repeat effects and filter sweeps.

For completeness sake; Song mode allows you to program a sequence of fragments, where each fragments mutes/plays/fades/filters/gates/DJ effects/chord locks any of the 16 patterns for any of the 16 tracks for a specified duration. Upon completion of a fragment duration the next fragment is played. And so on, and so forth. Pattern chaining is respected. So if you have a chain of four patterns on a track, with the first pattern of your four-pattern chain starting at pattern 1, then instructing a song fragment to start playing pattern 1, will still see it play pattern 2 once pattern 1 has completed playing, and so forth, for the duration of the fragment.

The 2-loop rule

A great rule-of-thumb for arranging your song’s fragments, is that, in order to keep the interest of your audience, something “new” needs to happen within - at most - 2 playthroughs of a loop (aka the “2-loop rule”). This “something new” can be as simple as bringing in (or dropping) an instrument, or as complex as entering a second movement with a completely new melody and/or chords from a different pattern.

Transitions are like the seasoning that makes fragments go together. For example, you can introduce instruments by a fade-in or opening a track's filters. Vice-versa, you can conclude a instrument’s part by doing a fade-out or closing its filter. Another great way to conclude a instrument’s part, is by playing it for one bar using a re-triggering effect and/or a gater effect. The latter (re-triggering and/or gating) is also a great way to get more mileage out of a pattern, as it can radically transform a pattern while still making it recognizable and “fit” the song.

In the common case of a 4-bar loop playing twice, an easy way to do a transition, is to do something different on the 8th bar (drop something, choose a retrigger pattern, etc.). To do so, make a 7 bar fragment, and clone the fragment. For the cloned fragment reduce the length to 1 bar and make your change (drop, retrigger, etc.).

Semi-automatic improvisation of melodies

There are many, many ways in which things interact to form new (but musically meaningful!) sounds. For example, if you have a chord progression and have a chord-following melody spread out over a four pattern chain, you can make your Woovebox “improvise” something new by starting the melody playback at the second, third, or fourth pattern of the chain, rather than the first. All while starting chord playback as normal E.g. this causes your melody to be “out of sync” with the chords. However, you will hear the “out of sync” melody be adapted to the playing chord (“follow chord” FTW!), which generates a brand new sequence of notes that is unique, yet seems to fit the melodic theme of your song eerily well.

Going back and forth between song mode and track (pattern creation / sequencer) mode

As you refine and build out your song, expect to go back and forth between Song mode and the individual tracks a lot.

For example, as you arrange your song from your 256 (16 patterns x 16 tracks) potential patterns, you will likely find areas in your song where you want to add or change things beyond what your current patterns contain/do. E.g. you may want to create additional patterns, or maybe make a tweak to one of the fragment’s patterns.

While you have a specific fragment playing in Song mode, you can “import” that fragment’s pattern configuration (e.g. with the right patterns selected, tracks muted/playing, etc.) by holding the value button in and long-pressing the track (01/Cd - 16/A8) you wish to switch to. After switching to that track, the fragment configuration will keep playing (minus any scheduled play effects such as filters, fades, etc.). To switch to yet another track, switch to Live mode, then repeat; e.g. hold the value button in and long-pressing the track (01/Cd - 16/A8) you wish to switch to next. And so on, and so forth. This way you can work on a fragment and hear what it would sound like in Song mode.

Using the DJ effects and dual audio loop buffer

To create and keep interest, also consider using the DJ effects and dual loop buffers. The DJ effects allow for easy build-ups and break-downs commonly created by DJs mixing tracks in real-time. Such DJ effects include typical high-pass or low-pass filtering, noise swooshes or (sine wave) drone tones and whistlers.

The dual audio loop buffer allows you to record up to two audio fragments of your playing song, and then replay that the audio, in various ways, over the top of subsequent song fragments. Typical uses include playing recorded audio in reverse, or performing buffer stutters/re-triggers. It can make your songs sound very rich and full, with lots going on, while actually freeing up tracks and DSP resources.