Hello,
Not being a musician I am looking for easy ways to do most things in my DAW. I was searching for a way for Cubase to analyze my piano parts that I had played and tell me what key the song is in. On YouTube I finally found a video that showed me what i was looking for. In the video the guy said that we could go to “Chord Track” and choose “Create Chord Symbols”. Then the chords of the song would appear in the chord track and…down in the left corner of the chord track there would be a viewing of the key of the song. I was of course going to do this and thought my troubles were gone but to my big disappointment it was not possible to choose “Create Chord Symbols” anymore.
I have Cubase 13 and it seems like this has disappeared. I have used ChatGPT intensively the last few days and asked it how to do things, and it tells me that the new version of Cubase has replaced the “Create Chord Symbol” with another work flow. ChatGPT tells me that it`s supposed to still be able to find the key to my song but it seems much more complex and it seems to be a lot more steps to get it done. And so far I have not succeeded at all. I have with the help of ChatGPT tried to detect the MIDI with the chord track but it does not work. I have a couple of questions:
First of all: why has Cubase removed the solution of seeing the key of the song in the Chord Track when it seems to have been a possebility before?
And is there an easy way to get the same result, for Cubase to detect the key of my already played parts?
Hi - you may want to consider Antares Auto-Key. Not free though, but cheap. And it does more than just key detection. While I usually know the keys of my own stuff , I find it useful to analyze imported / undocumented audio material. However, I presume you’ve done some research yourself and found this already.
I did not know about Antares AutoKey but I knew about other external solutions that i have read about. The point is that I have recently purchased the most expensive and best version of Cubase, which is not cheap at all. And I discovered that there was a way to find the key in a much easier way before in Cubase in earlier versions that now has been removed. And this is to me extremely disappointing. I get that its somehow going to be possible to do this in the latest version as well, but this seems to be much more complicated and I am not sure if the key shows in the down left corner either like it did before. Just that it analyzes the chords. I think its very unnecessary to remove a useful solution that was there in the first place and make it more difficult to do what you want. I had an expectation when I chose my new DAW that it could help me with all the things I needed to do with my limited musical skills and make it easy, and when I chose the top version of Cubase I was sure that a simple thing like telling me the key of the song I am working in would be the simplest task. That I might have to add other expernal plugins and pay even more was unexpected but I might have to consider it then - so thank you for mentioning AutoKey, I might have to check it out.
I still have not been able to find out of this based on the advice I have gotten. I have tried to transfer my piano part into the chord track but that did not work. And I tried to get some “chord detention” to work but it did not happen. I am sure I must be doing something wrong but it`s a bit frustrating.
I know that it would be much better to know the key you are working in and know music theory but today in our AI world it should be easy to work with music if you dont also. I would think its better to use tools to help you with these things to get the music that you have inside you out instead of just using AI to create the music for you. And this is the case for me, I just want to use today`s technology to help me with my challenges in the DAW so I can create my own music the best way I can
Hi,
Yes, I have Cubase Pro. I have just watched a YouTube video that shows that I am supposed to be able to drag an instrument track into the chord track and it’s supposed to analyze the track and show all the chords. But it just does not work for me. What happens when i am trying to do the same is that I mark the piano parts i have recorded and try to drag it over to the chord track just like the guy in the video did. But when I do it I just get up a window that says" create chord events" with “include bass notes”, and “include tensions” marked and “detect arpeggios” and “interpret sustain pedal” unmarked. It also says “ignore notes shorter than…”. If I click OK nothing happens at all. No MIDI is moved over to the chord track and there is nothing being analyzed. The guy in the video says nothing about any setting of the track info before doing this but I am thinking that maybe there is something that I have to do in any of the tracks - but I can`t figure out what it is.
Does anybody know what i am doing wrong when nothing is moved over to the chord track? I would be very thankful for some help here because I am very frustrated right now.
So the appropriate dialog appears. That is good.
When nothing happens it could be that there are actually no chords in the material that you try to analyze. Cubase only recognizes chords where the notes are played together, not arpeggiated. It also does not recognize “power chords”, ie. chords with an omited third.
Could you maybe make a screenshot showing the material that you drag onto the chord track for analysis? If it is MIDI please show it opened in the Key Editor.
Just my opinion outside of the feature request… You’ve already presented the fact that you “need” to find the key of any given song, but don’t possess the required theory skills to do so (that’s not a criticism, just saying back what you’ve said). I think your example of AI-created material actually supports why you should learn theory. For one, key identification from a chord progression is going to be wrong sometimes; potentially very wrong, and potentially often. Even Antares (which will use audio melody analysis instead of chord progression) will also get it wrong sometimes. If you “need” to know the key, then I would say that means that you “need” to know how to identify when the “assistants” are wrong.
Not to wax philosophical, but to me, this is a journey and not a destination. The theory track I took at Berklee was brutal. But holy cow, it was amazing. If discerning the key of a given piece is important to you, then I submit that learning why and how that key was arrived at, as well as what variations can apply to different parts, could change the way you look at music. It could change the way you interpret music.
Just may way of saying “don’t let the technology steal the joy from you.” You may be on the precipice of an amazing opportunity for yourself. Sure, use the tools out there, but you might take this as a sign that you should dive into theory on your own and see where it takes you.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program
Hi and thanks for replying.
OK, then that`s probably the reason why it does not work because I have only played my vocal melody with the piano instrument with single notes (see picture)
That was not what I expected. However, I did try to drag over to chord track a vocal track that I had gotten from ACE Studio (AI vocals). I used the same piano vocal track and sent it to ACE, turned it into vocals, and sent it back into Cubase again. That vocal track did give me some chords but there is also a lot of chords missing throughout the song. But in the chord track, after dragging over the vocals, down in the left corner it says F Major. Does that mean that F Major is the key of the song, that the vocals I created are in F?
IF the song key is showing down in the left corner then that was somehow what I was looking for, only that I had planned for a different process by using the instruments first and then the ACE vocals. But I could perhaps do it another way.
Hi,
I absolutely agree with you, of course its much better to learn the craft properly. And I know that its not always perfectly accurate. But in my case now I don`t have the time and patience to do that so I need to use the tools in the DAW to try to “cheat” the best I can
F major is a scale, not a key. The key would be F.
From your screenshots it could also be a C major scale. That is the beauty of music theory - sometimes there are different possibilities.
More like most of the time & not just sometimes. One difficulty is that it can be pretty ambiguous to determine a scale based solely on the notes used for several reasons. For example different scales can use the exact same notes but they will be different scales based on which pitch you are using as its tonal center (for example C Major & A Minor). Also in the real world chords & pitches which are outside a scale are frequently used to add a different flavor to a song.
Determining a scale is not just a simple mechanistic process, it also involves judgment about what the intention of the piece is.
Nothing wrong with that, and to my mind using whatever tools are available isn’t cheating. But I’m wondering to what end do you want to know the scale? The scale is super useful within the context of music theory, but outside that not so much.
For anyone looking for a very gentle introduction to music theory this is a good choice.
Without getting too theoretical, I think it’s important to understand that keys overlap in many ways (sharing notes and chords). The closer they are to each other, the more they will have in common.
So again while this may not make sense to you at this stage, you could play a melody or chords which could fit within the key of C, G, or F – because they are “next” to each other in terms of commonalities. Therefore this makes it more difficult for AI to narrow things down for you in a specific and precise way.
Also a lot of music can (and I personally think should!) have modulation and “borrowed” tonalities, meaning a brief shift to another key. So for example many songs can be in the key of C but briefly sound like they are in the key of G (by using an F#). This can be viewed a myriad of ways which I won’t get into here, but the point is, just because you play a melodic note or a chordal note outside of the key, doesn’t mean you fully switched keys. However, to AI, it won’t quite undertstand this creative application, and therefore if you decide to play some colorful “chromatic” notes you may ultimately get a lot of “false positives” of various keys - and no clear answer.
My broader point being, it may seem like it would save you time and effort, but it will more than likely create confusion and thus defeat the point. I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but in the long run you’ll actually save yourself more time and bring yourself a lot more joy by having the basic skills of theory and ear training, so that you can know where you’re at instantaneously and never need a computer to tell you a bunch of potentially incorrect or unuseful answers.
Finally, I will say that “knowing what key you’re in” is only one way of looking at it. Lots of music doesn’t stick to one key, and you don’t have to either. Plenty of successful musicians never learn theory and manage to do this intuitively, but I’d argue it just takes a lot more time to get there. A small investment up front will be worth it for a lifetime of reward.
Thank you very much to Johnny, Raino and Wing for your answers. I really appreciate you doing that and explaining to me, and for the book recommendation.
So I do now at least understand that the way I was hoping could work for me in Cubase by using technology in the DAW to find key is not so easy after all. And yes, I am the first one to admit that I really should take time to learn the music theory before getting into this. But Ill also be the first one to admit that I probably wont do that because learning it takes a lot of time and at the place I`m in now I just want to create music and try to get the music I have inside me out the best way I can. So I have to try to find a working process somehow for myself in Cubase that I can think will work.
About this specific song that I am working on now that I was showing in the screen shot as one of my two first songs in Cubase; I first worked out from the assumption that the song was in F (which it of course could be) and tried to set F in the chord pad and tried different chords under the imported vocal melody. It did not sound completely right to me. Then I tried to change it to the key of C and tried the same and I think it sound a bit better - but my experience is that I think it`s very difficult to find chords that i think sound right under the vocals. I somehow know how I want the chord to sound and what I am looking for but none of the chords I am auditioning seem “right” in a way. If I had known music theory I know I would probably know why and how to solve it so this is a good example on why all of you are correct and my lazyness and impatience makes it much harder for myself. So it proves that you are all right and I agree with you totally. Learning theory so you know what you are doing is always best and I will probably struggle with this a lot in the time ahead. But I am trying
Take one step at a time, basic music theory is not rocket science!
You can learn the basics very quickly, there is nothing to be afraid of. Most important thing: HEAR what you learn, in other words always have a keyboard, guitar, or whatever at your side. This way it will turn from a pain in the bottom to a very cool journey .
, I find it useful to analyze imported / undocumented audio material. However, I presume you’ve done some research yourself and found this already.
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