chord assistance for professionals is little unprofessional

I don’t understand why chord assistance is included in Cubase 8 Pro only.
The name “Pro” stands for Professional.
Who needs chord assistance more, professionals or beginers?
This decision makes less sense.

Beginners may well need it more, but, even a ‘pro’ gets stuck for ideas at times.
For me, I can put a set of chords into action, and wham, ideas start to flow.
The finished cue might not resemble anything from the original chord structure at times.
but having the chord track handy spurred me into something and a direction.

In short, it can be useful to all, regardless of your musical status.

But, isn’t chord assistance and chord pads/track available in all versions?

No chord assistance isn’t.
Not even in Cubase 8 Artist.

Beginers need it more, but it’s included in Professional only.

Ok, I see what you mean, Proximity Chord Assistant (Intelligent composing assistance).
Not sure why it is omitted, but I now see your point.

On a lighter note, you could do what I did 35 years ago.
Go to music collage, practise and study hard, get a job assisting a composer,
and become an ‘Intelligent Composing Assistant’. :smiley:

Sorry, but that feature is misplaced. Not even in Artist 8 !

If you use the argument that beginners (and by beginners, we mean people with less musical ability) need it more, then the same argument could be used for vari-audio and audio quantize. Beginners need them more, so they should be included in Elements. :slight_smile:

Professional is defined as

“engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as an amateur.”

I’m still getting acquainted with Cubase Pro 8, but see lots of potential for Chord Assistant. I think it can be equally useful for beginners and professional (experienced musicians) alike and each will use it according to their needs.

As an experienced musician, a few things I like about Chord Assistant and Chord Track so far include: 1) Creating interesting and quick voice leading for progressions which can be easily dragged into an instrument/midi track and then dissolved and rendered as needed; 2) Finding interesting chord substitutions, voicings, and alterations I may not have thought of on my own; Chord Assistant has been be a good F5 (re-fresh) for the ear.

My current Chord Track questions: 1) Can we have notes in Chord Assistant and Circle of Fifths display read in Flats rather than Sharps? i can’t find a setting for this or instructions in the Operations Manual (or I read it didn’t stick yet). I most often work in flat keys and would rather see Bb than A# and so on. This might be an issue a beginner would find confusing. I can think enharmonically, but I’d rather see Flats than Sharps. Thankfully, on the Chord Track itself, I’m able to display Flat chords. 2) Is it possible to create and save my own harmonic set-ups, for example Quartal voicings? (CFBbEb, etc.). Thanks for any tips or references relevant pages in the to the Operations Manual (which is gradually starting to sink in – heh)

In sum, I think Chord Assistant is valuable to both professionals and beginners, but including it in the Pro version only seems a good incentive for users to move up to Pro 8. I can’t blame the company for adopting this upgrade incentive strategy. A similar strategy is what got me to upgrade to the professional version of Voyetra’s Sequences+ and I was very glad I did.

BTW, this is my first post to the forum. Greetings fellow Cubase users. I’m glad to be here.

It might be marketing. Got to spend the extra cash to get all the nice toys in Cubase Pro 8… Everything is listed in the Cubase comparison chart. Very useful before you buy.

Bingo… things like this used to irk me when I only had Cubase Studio years ago… had to go full to be assured of all the toys.(and useful tools)

Totally valid question/comment from the OP all the same. However, IMHO even a pro needs all the tools he can get his hands on.