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Easiest way to get a chord progression into a MIDI roll
I have lots of iOS apps that'll do chords and chord progressions. And I few DAW-like programs that have MIDI piano rolls.
What do you believe is the easiest way to quickly get a chord progression into that MIDI piano roll? Take it as a given it's for a user who knows music and chords, but not doesn't know how to play a piano keyboard.
I have ideas, but none of them completely feel good enough.
Thanks,
- Joe
Comments
If you have MultitrackStudio, you can play put one note in the piano roll, and it has a chord function that will convert it to a chord.
ChordPolyPad is a good MIDI controller app for chords.
Apps that I actually own that to come mind: Guide Track and Chord Bot will export MIDI files which you can open in a piano roll. You could program a chord progression into ChordPolyPad and then play it into a piano roll which give you some control over the rhythms of those chords. I think Cubasis has a chord pad feature too.
It's hard to say which is the easiest method as that's very subjective. You didn't mention which apps you already have and which ones you want to use. What is your piano roll app?
I love Chordbot! You can export its midi into an app like Gadget or Beatmaker?
I just play midi at Gadget and hit record (it listens for all midi, on all channels which is a blessing and also a curse).
Then I drag it around in Gadget to tidy it up.
@Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
Hadn't thought of this. Sounds far too straightforward
Will waddle over with pie in hand and poke the machine now to try it out...
Cubasis has a row of customizable chords that can be recorded into the piano roll.
I believe Music Studio also has customizable chords that ca be recorded into the piano roll.
Chordpolypad into any app that can record midi into piano roll (Cubasis, BM2 etc)
I reinstalled ChordPadPoly. Works nicely. That and Fiddlewax Pro are reasonably good into Gadget. IMO, it seems like midi piano roll software should make it easier to do chords and step sequencing.
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@joegrant413 (and @all) Forgive my ignorance, which 'gadget' are you importing them into?
Guitar capo + will now do guitar chords with one press of midi keyboard key adjust the strum and record into midi piano roll of choice
@JohnnyGoodyear
"Forgive my ignorance, which 'gadget' are you importing them into?"
Any gadget (in Gadget) you like (apart from the drum ones - unless you're firing drum midi at them)...
You just hit record in that gadget's piano roll and play midi at it from FiddleWax Pro, ChordPolyPad, Chordian, StepPolyArp or whatever your favourite Midi Controller / App is.
Is that what you meant?
Matt_Fletcher_2000 wrote:
You just hit record in that gadget's piano roll and play midi at it from FiddleWax Pro, ChordPolyPad, Chordian, StepPolyArp or whatever your favourite Midi Controller / App is.
Is that what you meant?
Yes.
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I like gadget's general workflow.ideally, I would like to do something like a step sequencer workflow within gadget.that is, lay down a chord. Then go to the next measure, and lay down a chord. Ideally, without having to worry about performing in real time.once I get a basic chord progression down, then I like to improvise over gadget in real time or slowed down time. Right now, fiddle waxed pro is the best way on the iPad for me to improvise over chords. And I will also improvise using my guitar if I move everything over to an audio DAW.
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@joegrant413
One trick you might not be aware of is that the Marseilles gadget gives you a button that produces basic chords from the keyboard in Gadget. They are triads, I think, but with some inversions going on.
You have to play them in live (best to do this on a 16 bar clip). But then you can shuffle them around pretty easily to produce the step sequencer type of workflow you want.
You can then come out of Marseilles gadget and change it to any other synth gadget, so you don't have to stick with Marseilles - you just need it to print you the chords in the first place.
Thanks, Matt. Yeah, I've been aware of the Marseilles trick, and then in general you can switch instruments using the same midi / piano roll content.
Some of the chords I use are outside of the usual types, or outside of the key. But what you describe might be something I revisit.
Cheers,
With all the Gadget chat recently I thought this was a great tip to re-highlight.
Did not know/realize. Double plus good.
Actually all gadgets have a chord function, Marseille is the only one which has a quick button access to it on the gadget. For the rest, you can turn on chords under the scale settings menu. Me personally, I don't like the way the chords are voiced, the note you hit is not the top note of the chord, which would be ideal for smooth voice leading. There's some interval added on top that I find annoying. That being said, it's super easy to record in from chord playing apps, soundprism, etc
If you are a guitar player, don't overlook this little app for an "out of the box" option. I think it can send arps too, right?
I agree on this, I use the chord function because my sausage fingers are not up to playing chords on that screen, but I don't care for the voicings either, I usually ended up doing a lot of editing.
i get why they voice them that way, so if you hit c you get a c chord, but it leads to bad voicing. If you hit c, c should be the top note, not the root, meaning that you could simply play a descending or ascending scale and get smooth voice leading, folks using the function won't care that it's not always a direct correlation between note name/chord name, it will just sound good.
That's a good'n. Need to get to know that app again and try driving SPA and fam with it.
In Gadget, when I don’t have a keyboard connected, I enter a chord manually (draw) and then select-copy-drag it to the next hit. If the chord changes, drag individual notes vertically. Lends itself to best voice-leading. I don’t expect automatic chords to give me what I want, but they can be a starting point just to get something in quickly to alter.
For those who own Thesys, if you set the wanted progression of root notes in the first stripe (from up), and then set the chords in the third row of the performance stripe, you can the send MIDI to what
ever app is able to receive it. I used it in Gadget, Cubasis and Auria and it works. Maybe not the easiest way to do it, but the choice of chords is insanely huge
If you guys want the sound come out of chord progression at the start of clock and be quantized well without you moving the midi data after recording to piano roll, I guess there is no easy way to do that!
You can do Fugue to Gadget relying on IAA on AUM playhead with Link, you can do that! But what else? Can you do without IAA with Link? Can you do without Modstep? Can you do beautiful chord progression purely on MIDI?
I guess it is too hard because all third party arping app has no playhead with the key for the start of clock.
The solution hint for you is to use Midiflow app with Lemur (or without) with chord progression apps in between. Then you can have great alignment to Gadget or to any a Daw which can be driven by other playhead command by release the first note.
Cheers, Kaikoo
No matter what is in use for doing above mentioned, there must be a command to hold both both first notes and CC command to the playhead start from which sent by chord progression app to do so to MidiFlow. In this case, I refer to Lemur. Then you can have first note with playhead alignment.
It is very pitiful that iOS world has no such function for apps in a straight fashion. That is what I've seen from what you are doing and from my found out how this can be done. To speak clearly, the question is how do you align your StepPolyArp to Gadget? SPA can do progression part of chord progression. So then how this can be done is for your further research (no Modstep). I am not doing Gadget's owned chord and arp, they are vanilla taste, wishing you guys doing well.
I like ChordPolyPad, but imo the quickest and easiest method to punch out a lot of chords voiced exactly the way I want is to use chord memory thingy above the keyboard in Cubasis. If you know chords, learning how they look on a piano keyboard shoudn't be that big an exercise. Another method is to write them into Notion; I love its midi step-input, which is the only one I'm aware of on ios.