It seems the Cubase 7 chord track is incomparable?

[UncleAge]

...basically the only one to do do it as easily as cubase is cubase.

Correct. I just watched a video on that feature (news to me as I am not a Cubase user) and I think that HN2 won't intergrate as well as Chord Track does. The only thing I've seen that's more full featured is Synfire Pro.

Sucky thing is that I hate DAWs that have the look of Cubase (its a personal thing no need to dwell) but I may have to look at purchasing this beast because I could make heavy use of that feature and I know of no other viable option for equal or less money. I can't believe that not one developer has tackled this outside of Cubase.

That's sad.

I am definitely sticking with Logic for now so integration isn't really the thing as in cubase i would also need to export to midi and re import in logic anyway. I really would love to offload Cubase if harmony navigator can do the same thing, but as i suspected the interface has already completely perplexed me.

Theo, understanding how to hook it up to Logic may take a bit of hand-holding. The dev did some things behind the scenes to allow for a lot of flexibility. In my opinion, it made things unecessarily difficult too.

However, once you have it hooked up, and understand the workflow, the app ain't half bad. What I would like is someone to finally make a video showing their workflow with this app. I sold my copy quite some time ago because I was basically using it as a glorified keyboard. I sent the chords as played in the chord window out via midi to whatever host I was using. I didn't use the timline in HN2 at all. I didn't care for any of the backing tracks either. I kept hitting my head against the wall trying to get midi clips into it. And getting it to sync with my host(s) just didn't happen.

If you get things working I'd be quite pleased if you could share your experience. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat if I could make it do what I needed it to do.

[dsan@mail.com]

I bought the original HN and found it way overly complex. Did the upgrade to HN2 and find it is worse yet. These comments based on getting it to send/receive and work flow.

On the other hand, I agree it is not half bad - once you can get past the complexity issues. It does a good job providing chord progressions and suggestions and keeping to theory.

I couldn't stay with it long enough to be able to use it to its potential though.

I think there are other tools that will get you results without the over thinking. Even a simple circle of 5 drawing will provide answers in this regard.

It is obvious the dev wants only pros or those with theory background and interests using his software. I would really like to see him provide some less complex software as I think he is a great software dev and his offerings are helpful. Just not to the masses.

Theo, I perfectly understand your position on RC. It was just a thought. BTW -BIAB is not a gem when it comes to GUI's either. Archaic TBH.

Happy Musiking!
dsan

[ObsoleteAcc99]

...basically the only one to do do it as easily as cubase is cubase.

Correct. I just watched a video on that feature (news to me as I am not a Cubase user) and I think that HN2 won't intergrate as well as Chord Track does. The only thing I've seen that's more full featured is Synfire Pro.

Sucky thing is that I hate DAWs that have the look of Cubase (its a personal thing no need to dwell) but I may have to look at purchasing this beast because I could make heavy use of that feature and I know of no other viable option for equal or less money. I can't believe that not one developer has tackled this outside of Cubase.

That's sad.

I am definitely sticking with Logic for now so integration isn't really the thing as in cubase i would also need to export to midi and re import in logic anyway. I really would love to offload Cubase if harmony navigator can do the same thing, but as i suspected the interface has already completely perplexed me.

Theo, understanding how to hook it up to Logic may take a bit of hand-holding. The dev did some things behind the scenes to allow for a lot of flexibility. In my opinion, it made things unecessarily difficult too.

However, once you have it hooked up, and understand the workflow, the app ain't half bad. What I would like is someone to finally make a video showing their workflow with this app. I sold my copy quite some time ago because I was basically using it as a glorified keyboard. I sent the chords as played in the chord window out via midi to whatever host I was using. I didn't use the timline in HN2 at all. I didn't care for any of the backing tracks either. I kept hitting my head against the wall trying to get midi clips into it. And getting it to sync with my host(s) just didn't happen.

If you get things working I'd be quite pleased if you could share your experience. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat if I could make it do what I needed it to do.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not concerned about hooking it to run it in realtime with logic. I don't like the program itself, ie the standalone. It's just not my thing.

To be perfectly honest i am ashamed to even be using cubase chord track. i don't like things generating anything for me. It's just that it helps workflow in my current situation.

[decalogue]

I forgot to mention Liquid Notes:

http://www.kvraudio.com/video/liquid-no ... mpose-1608

http://www.re-compose.com/liquid-notes- ... tware.html

[spaceman]

Rapid Composer is not for me.. guaranteed. I know when i don't click with an interface. It goes against everything about mac apps in general that i am used to aesthetics wise.

It's buggy as well.

Harmony Navigator is overwhelming at first but check out the videos on the site. It's a good starting point.

It does need some effort, I have to admit and it's not a "get me that magic chord progression at the hit of a button" sort of tool

[Compyfox]

Do you have any issues with it?

To be honest, I tested a really old version with Cubase 5 or so back in the days. But since I didn't have the funds, I let it be. I don't know how it works these days in C7 and the likes.

I only go by videos, and by them... it's a ton more intuitive than other tools. At least regarding "telling" you which Chords you could use next.


RapidComposer is great if you know your scales already, and what chord correlates to what. Then you can throw around ideas easily. But you need to know some basic harmonic knowledge.


ChordSpace (which is somewhat discontinued) and Hamony Improvisator on the other hand, make things a ton more simpler. Everything else, you need to have at least some basic understanding of harmony.

Of course, if you use something like Cubase - you should have that already. But it's not guaranteed. Some people only get Cubase/Logic/etc for Audio Engineering, not for songwriting. The bridge is there, but it didn't fill the gap yet.

[juffi]

Well i tried chord track in cubase it is quite ok. What i miss is a progression editor for songs and something like that the arranger track will work together with the chord track feature. Lets say i have intro and verse, working on chorus and the chorus sounds not interesting enough and cubase could recompose that part or the whole song.

Also Halion Sonic Se is quite nice with its chord trigger pads, there are lots of patches with pre-defined chords on the pads and you can drag chords from the chord track onto Halion Sonic Se pads and save that pads and recall them to toy around in the next song.

Another "Harmony Improvisator" is Ludwig, i stumbled upon in a media store. You can test it for free here:

http://www.write-music.com/

[Gonga]

Well it seems everything has it's limitations. Here is the main chord sequence of my new track, and cubase simply couldn't get the eighth and "finishing" chord. I tried every combination. I knew in my head what i wanted and easily just adjusted a piano roll note to do it, but i am surprised it couldn't find it, which has happened a couple of times now, as in, i find it has a hard time "ending them" logically.


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/926 ... quence.mp3

Someone should write a book on endings. There are a few tricks, such as ending on the dominant (5th chord), or just cutting off abruptly and continuing with percussion, or a solo over the chorus, or starting a completely different, short progression at the end.

what are you saying? This isn't the ending of a song, it's just the ending of an 8 bar loop. I decided to turn it into a dance track but just liked the nexus preset for the demo, and it works really well as a pop dance, i just wanted to see where cubase would take a cmajor chord at it's most complex settings options, you don't think the final one i chose is correct?

Sorry, my bad, I hadn't even listened.

[kresbeatz]

I bought RapidComposer on the 40% sale and like it very much. Few stability bugs, but everything else is fast and awesome

[dsan@mail.com]

One thing for sure kresbeatz.....if you have any problems you will find the dev, Attila, is one great guy. Very responsive and constantly working to improve the program....I mean constantly!

Attila thrives on feedback and is quick to implement changes, fixes and feature requests.

Check out the Music Developments forum here at KVR. You will find there are very many users that will help too. Great group of people.

Glad to hear you like RC

Happy Musiking!
dsan

[ObsoleteAcc99]

For me I realised the whole idea was a mistake. There are so many variations it misses, and it can't replace the order I could come up with on my own. Even at its most complex mode, it's very simple, and it seems to be throwing me off when I have an idea in mind. The only thing I need to test now, is that I have vocal samples and I am wondering if I put my main chords of my own creation as a chord track, if cubase can automatically match the lead vocal to be in key. That would be sick and worth keeping for to then import into logic. I also have melodyne DNA but I've never used the DNA feature before, but I'm guessing it could display my chords as midi and I could move the vocal to automatically match them as well.

Matching sample vocals to my songs has always been a nightmare, but I really want to concentrate on logic x now which is far more stable and way less bugs than cubase in the latest version. I'd love to just sell c and move on from it, and apple will probably implement a chord track soon anyway. But yeah wanted to post, as after all this time and using it daily, I'm actually finding the chord track, when using it to create the chords for a song, is actually counter productive. I'm curious to see if anyone has a similar experience. I've never used before this any "harmony help tools" in my life, but I can see they could be beneficial for someone who is new to music creation.

[donato]

I bought RapidComposer on the 40% sale and like it very much. Few stability bugs, but everything else is fast and awesome

Agreed. I think it's the best out there and the generators are extremely useful. One just needs to watch the tutorial videos to come to terms with the interface. It wasn't immediately clear for me either, but after watching them it's pretty simple. The idea generator is also really neat.

I also like the iPhone options listed and Cthulu but they are more limited. I have ezkeys as well, but use it in other ways than composing from scratch.

They're all just tools to help in coming up with ideas. Sometimes these tools inspire you in ways you might not originally think of...they're also quite fast.

[crossovercable]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COPSqrezqnY