Automatic midi accompaniment generator based on live or pre-recorded midi input?

annahahn

Hello!

I am hoping to find a tool that automatically generates midi accompaniment based on an incoming midi melody~ for example something that would create a chord progression backing for whatever I was playing as the incoming midi signal

I’ve poked around the App Store a little and found all sorts of accompaniment apps but nothing quite like what I’m describing.

I’m sure there are many many approaches as far as the types of accompaniment + the generation technique so I would love to hear about any/ all tools that people have found useful for generating accompaniment live or in response to pre-recorded midi

McD

There are some MIDI based accompaniment tools but they take their clues from the
notes you input. The idea is that you supply a root note and additional notes to indicate
the chord your like to can generated in the rhythmic parts.

The idea idea is you can use the left hand to indicate the chord sequencing and then
have a free hand to add a melody or improvised solo.

The notes of a melody do not immediately provide the best clues for generating traditional music.

I and others have crafted some "one finger" Moziac scripts (The Chordulator by @wim is the clear creme de la creme) that follow the "give me a root" input and I'll give you a chord
output. Then you can feed that stream into one of the great randomizer scripts to prune
notes out and make it sound more organic and less predictable.

I'm thinking about making a simple sequencer that offers knobs for the top chord progressions and some rhythm patterns... but I tend to think about things until I drift off to
sleep and perform very little actual work.

Here's my concept:

Create a set of arp patterns (they can be applied using scale steps and this work over any chord type)

Create root progression sequences (1,6,4,5 or 1,6,2,b7, etc)

Create baselines

Hit start and arp patterns for the chords and provide a baseline (drums optional)

As you can imagine... the idea is easy to describe and takes some real work to code.
But very do-able. I suspect the resulting music might be coherent but sound a lot like the
typical arranger app since that's what they do.

Thanks for the great writing prompt... as always... @annahahn, you have great problems that provoke thought.

Poppadocrock

@McD said:
There are some MIDI based accompaniment tools but they take their clues from the
notes you input. The idea is that you supply a root note and additional notes to indicate
the chord your like to can generated in the rhythmic parts.

The idea idea is you can use the left hand to indicate the chord sequencing and then
have a free hand to add a melody or improvised solo.

The notes of a melody do not immediately provide the best clues for generating traditional music.

I and others have crafted some "one finger" Moziac scripts (The Chordulator by @wim is the clear creme de la creme) that follow the "give me a root" input and I'll give you a chord
output. Then you can feed that stream into one of the great randomizer scripts to prune
notes out and make it sound more organic and less predictable.

I'm thinking about making a simple sequencer that offers knobs for the top chord progressions and some rhythm patterns... but I tend to think about things until I drift off to
sleep and perform very little actual work.

Here's my concept:

Create a set of arp patterns (they can be applied using scale steps and this work over any chord type)

Create root progression sequences (1,6,4,5 or 1,6,2,b7, etc)

Create baselines

Hit start and arp patterns for the chords and provide a baseline (drums optional)

As you can imagine... the idea is easy to describe and takes some real work to code.
But very do-able. I suspect the resulting music might be coherent but sound a lot like the
typical arranger app since that's what they do.

Thanks for the great writing prompt... as always... @annahahn, you have great problems that provoke thought.

I love that Mozaic sequencer concept idea. Sounds interesting and useful.

mojozart

Searching for auto accompaniment, I find this old thread:

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/36784/ipad-as-an-arranger-keyboard-how-to-your-ideas

And these apps:

• Band Creator
• One Man Band
• xMure

Masanga

You might like to check out the free OMB app (different from the One Man Band app mentioned by @mojozart, which is a more traditional auto-accompaniment app). It's the companion to the One Man Band MIDI guitars, but works perfectly well with any MIDI controller; I had a lot of fun of it with my Artiphon Instrument 1, though I haven't fired it up in a while.

Poppadocrock

I think that’s what 4Pockets evolver does but I might be wrong since I don’t own that app.

mojozart

I saw that OMB and xMure can be used together.

hes

@Poppadocrock said:

@McD said:

Here's my concept:

Create a set of arp patterns (they can be applied using scale steps and this work over any chord type)

Create root progression sequences (1,6,4,5 or 1,6,2,b7, etc)

Create baselines

Hit start and arp patterns for the chords and provide a baseline (drums optional)

As you can imagine... the idea is easy to describe and takes some real work to code.
But very do-able. I suspect the resulting music might be coherent but sound a lot like the
typical arranger app since that's what they do.

Thanks for the great writing prompt... as always... @annahahn, you have great problems that provoke thought.

I love that Mozaic sequencer concept idea. Sounds interesting and useful.

I think Lumbeats' iBassist is pretty close to this already. Obviously, it has a huge amount of pre-programmed basslines, and they operate according to a chord progression, which is user creatable/modifiable. Then it can output the chords or root via midi to any separate app, with some very basic rhythmic variation options, I think. But I think you can get just about all the way to what McD describes by having it output the chord or just the root to something like Rozeta. (And of course it links up great to drums.)

You can see how it works in this video, which starts showing the bassline sequencer, briefly shows the chord progression page, then links up an outside app playing chords, then links up Jazz Drummer. This might not at all be the sound you're looking for, but you can change the styles and sounds to suit your taste. There could still be interesting roles for a Mozaic plugin to play in processing the midi that iBassist sends to outside apps:

audiblevideo

Evolver is your quickest bet. Also check out the threads mentioning Navichord as the basis of a One Man Band.