CHORD TRACK woes

This might have been covered in the past, but it’s still a problem. It’s extremely frustrating to input chords in the chord track and soon as I release the chord, Cubase does not register the chord right nor sounds right. Create chord events isn’t working as it should either. I’m not a piano player, just music theory here. I know it’s not perfect, but it would be nice to accurately know what is being played. Maybe some genius can shed some light of something I can do with in Cubase to remedy this issue or wait for improvements to the daw in that regard. Thanks.

Cubase User Since 1997… :nerd_face:

What exactly isn’t working? Some specifics makes it a lot easier to help.

Sure, try inputting a seven note chord and let me know if the chord track plays it back properly.

If you give me an example of a seven note chord, I’ll try.

Works here!

That’s not a chord, that’s a cluster!

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a cluster what? :rofl: :imp:

@KDEF2004 probably the Voicings param should be set to Basic.
image

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Thanks my fellow cubasers. I will give your suggestion I try. I’m no playing expert, so bare with me.:slightly_smiling_face:

To be fair, that’s a 4 note chord: G#maj7 (or Abmaj7)

AbMaj7 Add9
There’s a 9 in there too, still just a 5 note chord. And, the doubled notes are not necessarily used by the chord track to calculate the chord.

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Missed the 9.
So a Abmaj9 (or G#maj9)
A 5 note chord.

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Right. Regardless, It would be nice if whatever I input it gets registered as that. :man_shrugging:t5:

What was the chord you mentioned “registered” as?

image

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Abmaj9

That’s what we were saying. So I’m wondering what specifically do you expect, but which is not happening?

What I am inputting n the chord track is not playing the same…

That’s because Chord Events do not intrinsically contain any voicing information beyond what’s the Bass Note. When you use it to play a VSTi, the actual voicing sent to the VSTi is based on the Chord Track’s Inspector settings. It works the same as if you gave a chord progression to 5 different guitarists, they are probably all going to use different voicings. It is purposely designed to be somewhat ambiguous just like the Chord Names on a lead sheet. It is only telling you what the Chord is and not how it should be played.

If you want to capture a chord with a specific voicing, then Chord Events are the wrong way to accomplish that. The correct way is to just record it as regular old MIDI Data which is designed to capture the voicing.

In the pic below MIDI Data contains all the information displayed in the section circled green. While Chord Events contain only the info circled in red. Both approaches are useful but in different ways.

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Gotcha, Thanks