Modules

The modules view is available in the tab view by clicking the leftmost tab. Its icon is a little puzzle piece. Some modules (Chroma and Pentrix) have a rhythm section as seen above to the left. Gregorian, however, uses a voices section which is shown to the right above.

 

Modules and Keys

The modules and keys section is right at the top of the modules view. Notably Quincy does not have a traditional concept of tonality or key like when we say "concerto in c minor" for example. The word key here is more akin to what is understood as root. Anything else is a function of the tone material or scales. Since there are at least 20 different minor scales in Gregorian for example we'd be hard pressed to define tonality in a traditional way.

Note: There is an option to express the key with syllables which can be found in preferences.

 

Tone Material (Scales)

A very import thing to understand about modules is that they all come with their very own tone material or selection of scales. Chroma uses a bunch of symmetric scale, Gregorian uses around 30 scales that are church modes or variations thereof and Pentrix finally features close to 40 pentatonic scales. A full listing of modules and they scales they include can be found in Appendix A of this documentation.As seen above the current scale for our tone material is 5. Dorian #4.

 

Voices

The Gregorian module uses voices when generating music. It can render 4 voices simultaneously - Bass, Tenor, Alto and Soprano. The volume sliders use MIDI native values and go up to 127. As you can see these voices also have on/off switches. The benefit here is that you can turn off a voice while still maintianing the volume setting it has. The differentiation of voices as shown above does not correspond to the classical concept of ranges. If you remember, in Quincy the size of the grid determines the overall range of available pitches. That is the "master range" you are working with. Now imagine that master range divided into 4 equal parts and you have an accurate picture of voices in Quincy.

NOTE: When working in Quincy in general it is almost never a good idea to just turn everything on. Especially in the module settings you might want to start listening to one voice alone before adding another one. The same holds true for the rhythm section. Get an idea of what one thing does before adding another one.

 

Rhythm

Rhythm settings are available in the Chroma and the Pentrix modules. These modules can generate half -, quarter - and eighth notes simultaneously. And again you can mix and match. Other than when using voices, you are not guaranteed a note event per ryhthmic setting on notes other than quarter notes. So if you select eighth notes exclusively for example you will most likely not hear an uninterrupted line of eighth notes. There will be rests between some notes depending on your composition. This is another place where we like to say, that's a good thing, because it makes for a more organic rendition. The same thing holds for half notes. You are, however, guaranteed a quarter note event. So, if you wanted to build yourself a metronome using the Chroma module, you'd be best of selecting only the quarter note in this section.

 

Summary

Quincy's modular architecture can be a bit intimidating at first, but it is a concept that allows you to narrow down your compositional goals or change the character of composition.