- Guides, tutorials and docs
- Learning the Woovebox
- The very basics
- Quick start guide and video
- Tempo and BPM
- Tracks
- Patterns
- Live pattern recording
- Conditional triggering and modification
- Chords
- Arpeggios
- Scales and modes
- Full song writing
- Genres
- Presets
- Sound design
- Paraphonic parts
- Multi-instrument mode
- Risers, fallers, sweeps & ear candy
- Live mode
- Song mode
- Sampler
- Sidechaining, gating, ducking and compression
- Mastering
- Lo-fi & vintage analog and digital emulation
- Randomization
- Advanced techniques
- Undo
- Boot modes
- MIDI, Sync and connecting other gear
- Wireless MIDI over BLE
- Battery and charging
- Hardware quirks and limitations
- Understanding DSP load
- Looking after your Woovebox
- Firmware updates
- Guides, tutorials and docs
- Scales and modes
Scales and modes
Scales allow you to more easily dial in a musical flavor or mood for your chords and melodies. Your Woovebox supports many scales, from well known scales to more exotic scales.
Different musical scales can create different emotions or feelings in the listener. For example, a major scale is generally considered to be happy or cheerful, while a minor scale is often described as sad or serious. This is because the major scale has a specific pattern of whole and half steps, which creates a sense of resolution and stability, while the minor scale has a slightly different pattern, which creates a sense of tension and dissonance. Other scales, such as the pentatonic scale, which only uses five notes, can create a simpler, more primal feeling, while modes like Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian can give music a specific cultural or ethnic character.
Also, different cultures have different scales and modes which can have different emotional impact.
It's important to note that these are generalizations and that the emotional impact of a piece of music depends on many factors, including the melody, harmony, rhythm, and instrumentation. Also, different cultures have different scales and modes which can have different emotional impact.
Modes, scales and tonalities
A fantastic video by David Bennett on his David Bennett Piano Channel, explains an easy to understand concept of "brightness" of a scale or mode. Please consider subscribing to David's channel for more super helpful and accessible nuggets of music theory.
In summary, modes and scales are closely related, with modes being a specific type of scale, and tonality is the overall feeling and organization of a piece of music, which can be determined by the mode or scale used in the piece.
Setting a scale
You can set the scale of your song, by changing the "Scal" parameter under the 3/Ld key on the first page of Song mode.
The following scales/modes are available;
- "Maj" Major ("Happy")
- "nMin" Natural minor
- "HMin" Harmonic minor ("Latin", "Spanish", "Arabic")
- "MMin" Melodic minor (Jazz, Film scoring)
- "MaPE" Major pentatonic
- "MiPE" Minor pentatonic
- "hirA" Hirajoshi
- "Miya" In scale / Miyako-bushi
- Insen
- Iwato
- Yo
- Dorian
- Phrygian
- Mixolidyan
- Locrian
- Flamenco
- Gypsy
- Half diminished
- Persian
- Ukrainian
- "TE.PO" TE PO scale (firmware 2817+)
- Chromatic (firmware 2817+)
(firmware 2421+) You may set the "free chord" ('FrE.C' under 4/Ar) to enable free chord root note selection and playback on the Cd track outside of the selected scale. If set to 'no', any chord root note may be selected, but will be forced to conform to the selected scale.
You may also be interested in...
- "Sea Caves of Arcadia" (under Sound demos)
- 5. noi.F Noise Floor (under Glob (song globals) page)
Sets a base noise floor (0-127) below which artificially introduced noise is always audible.
- Genres (under Guides, tutorials and docs)
Your Woovebox is the perfect tool for exploring a range of musical genres.
- Chord progression with random inversions (under Example)
- Chord progression without inversions (under Example)
- Guides, tutorials and docs
- Learning the Woovebox
- The very basics
- Quick start guide and video
- Tempo and BPM
- Tracks
- Patterns
- Live pattern recording
- Conditional triggering and modification
- Chords
- Arpeggios
- Scales and modes
- Full song writing
- Genres
- Presets
- Sound design
- Paraphonic parts
- Multi-instrument mode
- Risers, fallers, sweeps & ear candy
- Live mode
- Song mode
- Sampler
- Sidechaining, gating, ducking and compression
- Mastering
- Lo-fi & vintage analog and digital emulation
- Randomization
- Advanced techniques
- Undo
- Boot modes
- MIDI, Sync and connecting other gear
- Wireless MIDI over BLE
- Battery and charging
- Hardware quirks and limitations
- Understanding DSP load
- Looking after your Woovebox
- Firmware updates