It’s an option under the import/export menus in either the File or Project menus, not sure which.
OK … got past import. It’s from file menu Import> Track Archive.
It does import the whole midi setup, so it tells me the midiports you use, Fireface and MIDI Yoke, are missing. (I didn’t expect to d/l your hardware!)
There does seem to be something wrong with the track archive though (or the way I imported it). Cubase appears to want to consider it as an instrument track … not MIDI, since once I remove MIDI Yoke, which it calls a “plugin,” it only shows me VSTi Instruments and none of my midi out routing in the chorder track out (with Beat Designer/ Chorder/ MIDI Mod) drop down box.
I’f I can’t fix it, I certainly have the ‘blue print’ to set it up.
I’ll get back when its working.
Thanks again!
Como
I don’t think this will work as is.
That’s because even though the right midi plugin are installed in the track, the preset that chorder refers to is not in the preset folders where cubase expects it to be … because the preset you use isn’t on my system.
When I route it directly from the track (forgetting for the moment about the chord capture track) beat designer just plays a 3 note middle chord no matter which note I select in beat designer.
When you open the Chorder plugin, which has the label from your track, “MIDI Channel Insert 3-Chorder,” what do you see in the box just to the right of where it says “Learn?”
The label in the box may have one or two words, then a hyphen, then another phrase, like: “Custom - Dynamic Fifth,” for an example. The first words are the name of the folder in Cubase6> Presets> Chorder> Custom.
The word or phrase after the hypen is the name of the preset file, in this example, Dynamic Fifth.xml.
I would have to have that same preset file in my folder (or load it from my folder.)
When I open your track archive file, and open the Chorder editor, that label is blank.
Anyway, what you on the other hand see there is the folder where the preset is and its name. Depending where you installed Cubase and which version, on a PC it will be normally under C:\Program Files (or Program Files 86 for 32 bit) Steinberg>Cubase> and as above. It can also possible in C: drive under Your User Name>AppData> Roaming (or Local)> Steinberg> Cubase> etc.
Como
I do hope Steinberg are reading these posts. Jimmy is asking a perfectly legitimate and simple question - how do I input chords and the answer comes back using drum editors and beat designer etc! How ridiculous that we have to take these routes!
Though I am sure these are very helpful answers and the best that can be done under the current circumstances, again I want to raise the point (developers are you listening?) we need some kind of library function for chords and melodies integrated into Media Bay Key and score editors. This could have all the standard scales and chords available (a bit like presets really)and have the ability, to, at the click of a button transpose a chord, or invert its voicing/range. It could also have the ability to arpeggiate chords using different note values - ascending or descending or both over x octaves. The user could also store their own bespoke chords melodies or motives, and be able to deliver them to the editors at any root/cursor position/track in a number of ways, perhaps even counterpointed across several tracks - if SB has the skill to accomplish this (imagine a string section in divisi).
The VSL APP editor (very like a key editor but far more powerful) is very like what I am banging on about (in a number of posts - ad nauseum I admit - 
)
It would be great to have a column in the key and score editors, where one could arrange say a dozen usuable library phrases/ chords and have them insertable at a click wherever needed.
There is so much repetition and modified repetition in music but all we have is copy and paste methods. This does not cover the ground adequately particularly when working in different projects - why not some function that stores motives and chords in the Media Bay?
If SB dont do this soon, maybe someone could create some kind on MIDI plugin that could accomplish this? Something with its own (more powerful key) key editor.
Zero
Humm, I knew the exported tracks wouldn’t have the right hardware, but I did expect it to bring along any preset(s) it is using. If it doesn’t export/import the entire track setup, seems fairly useless. First time using it.
Anyway here is the chorder preset
Raino chorder.zip (3.24 KB)
My first time too, was it as good for … oops! Wrong topic.
I wonder if it were a standard preset, if it would have worked. But, I’m not interested enough to export and import somewhere else to find out. On the other hand, it still would is pretty useful to export/ import your own setups from project to project where you presumably have all the right presets. I’m going to have to look further into that possibility.
Thanks for the preset and all your work, Rodger. This makes me think that I wish there were an archive ‘files’ section here on the forum where people could post similar things, without the attached files slipping ever deeper into the back pages of the forum where no one can find them.
Como
Well I must take the blame for going into drum tool territory (with Cumo enabling). Using tools in unintended ways can be great fun.
That said, your suggestion about libraries of musical elements could be very cool. I’d love to see a tool like that.
+1 for zero(2x)
But I would still like to point up that Raino’s drum map goes way beyond what Zero(2x) requests, since it brings a dynamic progression sketch pad to operate in loop fashion while you audition different chord changes and patterns agains other material. It is what Consequence or Thesys partially due, but with infinitely more flexibility with respect to applying it to different voicings within your DAW and rapidity of changing/ reworking things.
IMO it is brilliant ‘outside the box’ thinking.
Were it a VSTi MIDI Plug-in, Raino could get rich.
Como
Como take a look at Vienna Symphonic’;s new APP editor its part of the new Pro 2 update (dont you just hate the names) but the application is really good but unfortunately limited to VSL I believe
Quite amazing! But it still doesn’t have any easy method of single midi key input for chord variations. Yes it does some major/ minor modulations with key switches … but that isn’t the simple, straight forward chord entry I’d like. Don’t, get me wrong. I’d love to have something like the APP in Cubase.
@Raino … I’m having difficulty working things out with the Chord Capture track. It works fine with placing the Chorder track directly out to my synth, but short of adding another midi cable to the synth through and routing it back through Cubase or flattening the track, I can’t seem to route any midi from the Chorder track to the Chorder Capture track. I’ve tried various things such as using a real midi in and out pair and a virtual midi in and out pair from Chorder to Chord Capture, but no luck.
It looks like you were using an Instrument track, not a midi track in your setup. What I don’t understand is why Midi Yoke appears as a MIDI VSTi in the out from Chorder and in to Chorder Capture in the Track Archive you sent? Is something lost in xml translation? I thought MIDI Yoke was just a virtual midi cable, not a VSTi?
Could you clarify exactly how your set up works with respect to Instrument or MIDI tracks and where the Chorder sources its output and the Chorder Capture sources its input so I can be sure that the archived track is identical to your setup?
Also, the main problem with the Beat Designer set up is that the Chord lengths are quite short. Obviously, they will need to be stretched and groomed in the key editor after entry.
I played around abit with routing StepDesigner to Raino Chorder to ArpacheSX and was getting some very good results very quickly. Of course you lose the easly visualization of the drum map, but I suppose with practice you could learn the key tied to the note and then really get working quickly with the StepDesigner.
Still … I’ve got to figure out how to capture that track out put to another mid track to easily and quicly record the results.
Como
These posts are getting very interesting
^Agreed … its a great topic.
I’m planning to piggy back on Raino’s Chorder preset. TBH I haven’t taken the time to ‘sus’ it all out yet. It may already do what I need.
This is what I am imagining for a preset.
First, to make this work cleanly, you need to just pick one key and then after you output your progression, transpose the sequence (or a subsection of it) to a different key if that’s what you want.
Set up chorder so that the lowest octave uses which ever is the lowest C note available in StepDesigner. Then place on that lowest note, lets call it Cx1 for now, 3 note Major C. Continue up the white keys with Dx1= Dm/ ii, Ex1= Em/ iii, etc.
At Cx2 add the tetrachord Cmaj7, etc.
At Cx3 add C7
Etc. for the six or seven available octaves. You could probably create 95% of the chords you ever use doing this. You could use the black keys for variants of the chord on the white key immediately below them for harmonic and/ or melodic minors.
You wouldn’t need any ‘C minor’ on the white keys, you’d just build your minor progressions of off the relaltive ‘A minor.’
Cx4 - Cx5 would give you room for 9ths, 13th, diminished and augmented … or some other selection of your choice.
Now, you only have to remember the progression of chord variants you setup, i.e., Cx1=C Major, Ax1=A Minor, Cx3=C Dominant 7ths, etc.
Since the white key will always be a chord built on it’s own name, only the chordal function of the octave needs be learned.
I think it would be a snap to learn to do this quickly. I’m going to be working on it.
Como
Yes, I did only use instrument tracks for this. So I’d never looked at the instrument rack, and yes indeed it does show midi Yoke as a VSTi, which could be useful I suspect. Anyway I poked around on my DAW and the setup is pretty much the same on both instrument and mid tracks.
On the track with chorder set the midi output to be midiYoke1 (or whatever number you like). On the capture track set its midi input to be midiYoke1. Also, and this is important, make sure that the midi input of the chorder track is NOT set midiYoke1 or you will create a nasty data feedback loop - and remember the default “all midi inputs” includes all the midiYoke ports. Best to not connect it at all.
Then I just record enable the capture track. Usually I use the loop markers to punch in and out of the recording so I only get one iteration of the loop. After, make sure to mute the chorder track to not play the midi track twice.
Yeah, you’re right - the Beat Designer notes are short. But if you are only doing chord changes on say 1/4 notes, then set that as the BD quantize and you’ll get those notes 1/4 long. But in the end all it really produces is a simple harmonic sketch that needs additional work. Setting the quantization to 1/4 or even 1/2 notes also has the benefit of letting more measures of the part (I’m regularly using 64 step patterns in BD) be visible on the screen.
I have found that this setup is conducive to those happy accidents, like selecting the next lane down from what you intended and that chord sounds way cooler than what you wanted.
I made this same assumption (and a bunch of other similar ones) in the first iteration. Then when I used it awhile and discovered how often I’d want a chord that wasn’t included because I shouldn’t need it in the key of C. Even a simple old song like 96 Tears has it’s hook built on a I-Im chord riff. By being too key-centric in the choice of included chords, I’d created a bunch of chords which I couldn’t use, even if I wanted to. I once had to use the “proper” minor chord when I really wanted its major form. Then I had to hand edit the change in capture track.
Before I did the newer version that you have, I spent time studying the vast variety of progressions in use nowadays. Independent of building this tool, just examining the range of progressions was both educational and creatively stimulating. Also I spent time just playing different 2 chord combinations. I came to the conclusion that I needed to make all 12 major and all 12 minor chords available even if the tonal center is C. I also included all 12 chromatic notes as “1-note” chords.
So there are really 3 different groups of chords included
- The most commonly used chords in the key of C - susses, extensions, etc. Admittedly a subjective selection.
- All the remaining major and minor triads not included in group 1.
- Chord components, single notes and fifths, for all 12 chromatic steps.
The idea is that most of the time you are only using chords in group 1. But when you need any other chord you should be able to find or build it using what’s in groups 2 & 3. So for example if you wanted a Iadd2, which isn’t in group one, just use the I chord and add the II as a single note, just like making a kick and snare hit at the same time.
Also there is no musical relationship between a chord and the note it is assigned to in chorder. I just used chorder as an array to hold a list of chords. It is designed to use with Beat Designer and not a midi keyboard. There was an article in Sound On Sound awhile back on setting up chorder to use with a midi keyboard. Worth looking up. One approach they took was using the velocity layers (ignored in my setup) to trigger chord variants. Hit the key softly and you get a Dm, harder and you get a Dm7.
Rodger,
Thanks so much for explicating the thought and consideration that went into this great preset. I am grateful to benefit from your hard work and experience. And of course, you’re right, you couldn’t even chord ‘Desperado’ by the Eagles without a Cm!
But the key … no pun intended … issue for me is that the way you have created this is only really useful with the Beat Creator drum map. Otherwise there is no easy reference to which key/note triggers which key/ chord.
That is why I am trying to create for my self a diatonic system using the key of C based upon an association between the specific key/ note, e.g., A3, and a specific key/ chord, e.g., A minor 7th … with like like variants for other key/ notes in the octave as D3 for D minor 7th, etc.
That is the only way I see that I could learn to quickly use Chorder directly with midi keyboard input and not having to refer to some documentation to prompt my memory.
I’m not seeing this as either/ or … but both/ and.
This exercise has prompted me to delve deeper into Chorder and though I previously read the manual and ‘understood’ how it works, I’ve never really thought until now about how to make it really useful to me.
‘Really useful’ must mean using it in more than one way, but with a common input method. And for that, ‘common input,’ the link between the key/ note name and the key/ chord name seems to me the only practical solution alternatively to what you have done with the drum map.
Still, 10.6 octaves or 128 chords should give ample opportunity to find one of the remote octaves with necessary variants like Cmin, Ab, etc., and still cover most of what you want using the key/name to key/ chord link.
My experiments so far are working really well in StepDesigner … another tool I’ve neglected … and I can use it in BeatDesigner too, without the drum map. I just started using a midi track to change the selected part in the StepDesigner. Powerful stuff when you can setup multiple parts within one preset of StepDesigner.
But, wait! There’s more! Call right now and well send you two Layers!
OK, here’s the real ‘nirvana’ of Chorder … which none of the presets seem to display very well. Intervals. Not musical intervals, but the interval triggering that permits you to place up to 8 layers of different chord variations on one key note.
How it works is, after selecting the layer function in the right most drop down box and sliding the little slider all the way to the right, you see 8 layers in the main screen where you view the chords. For an example, place a C Major on layer one of note C1, 1st Inversion on layer two of C1, 2nd inversion on layer 3, big wide chord with the 5th an octave below the normal 1st inversion on layer 4, etc.
Now when you sequence in the midi editor draw a long note, bar or more on C1. Add C#1 above it. It plays the C Major chord when fed through the Chorder insert. A quarter note later add D1 above the C1. It plays your 1sth inversion of C Major. Add an E note over the last two 1/4 beats. There is your ‘big fat’ 1st inversion.
I tried to use two instances of StepDesigner to trigger layers, but unfortunately it didn’t work. Maybe it would If I used one on the track and another from a send on a different track. Still messing with it.
I think you can see where I plan to go with this. Let me see, 128 times 8 = 1024. That’s a good number of chords to have at hand to sequence quickly, no?
Como
I left out one really important little part in explaining my ‘C Diatonic’ scheme I’m working on.
After Chorder place a midi modifier to transpose all notes to what ever key you want to actually use.
+2 gives you D. -12 gives you a lower voicing of your C chords. Etc.
You cannot do this with the limit notes to key and scale in midi modifier, because that will only move individual notes a semitone, if necessary, to a note in the that selected scale and key.
But! You can do some fun things by matching the selected key in the midi modifier, i.e., transpose +2 semitones, select D as your key, and then play with adjusting the scales to see what instersting sounding chords you can come up with.
Transpose alone moves them in their entirety and preserves all relationships.
Como
Not sure if this has been already been added as I read most of the posts but not all. If you are having trouble and dont have a midi keyboard you can always right click on the transport bar and select virtual keyboard this allows you to use your pc/mac keyboard as a midi keyboard so you can use the a-z buttons to play like a keyboard this will help you out for now and give you a quick way of playing the notes and not having to draw them in all the time.
Go to the menu at the top and then select (devices > virtual keyboard ) or ( alt + k ) once this opens you will see the keyboard on the transport bar just under the keys you will see a (.) clicking this turns the view from lettered 1 octive to a full keyboard layout.
Its not a ideal way to play but once you get used to the keys layout you will be able to hit chords quickly.
Hope this helps you in the mean time to speed things up.
Here’s a link to my interval based, C diatonic Chorder preset described above in this thread.
You can download a zip file with the preset at the link.
Como
Great thread!