Strawberry playing notes on strings and frets that I don't want. How to choose where to play notes.

[bouncetohead]

Hi again.

I thought i'd create a new topic instead of putting this in my previous post, just so other people that may need help can easily see this other problem I have.

I am having a problem with where the notes are played on the fretboard. Imagine that i am playing 4 simple powerchords. These are 3 string powerchords, so I have plotted 3 notes per powerchord in my DAW's MIDI editor. The powerchords are as follows:

F C# G# D#

A very popular, overused chord progression as you can see

When I look at the fretboard, it plays the chords in positions that I don't want them to be played. It also uses other strings instead of just the top 3 / 4. I have tried changing the fret position within Strawberry and it does sometimes help. But I often find that it still uses different positions using other strings, even though I change the fret position.

Here is where I want the 4 chords to be played (standard tuning):

F - 1st Fret. - Top 3 strings.
C# - 4th Fret. - A, D, G strings
G# - 4th Fret. - Top 3 strings
D# - 6th Fret. - A, D, G strings

How would I make Strawberry play the notes on these exact strings at the exact frets? Is there a way I can custom choose where the notes are played?

Thanks alot!

[bouncetohead]

Sorry to add another message but I'm just wondering if there's anyone that can help with what I said in my first post? A response from Greg or anyone else would be greatly appreciated!

Is there anyway to choose where the notes are played on the fretboard or is the only way by adjusting the Fretting Position in Strawberry? If there's no-way to choose where the notes are played, I could maybe automate the Fretting Position control so it plays the notes closer to where I want them to be played.

Thanks!

[Gregjazz]

There are a few routes you could take to achieve this. You could use the MIDI guitar mode, which puts each string on a separate MIDI channel. That way you can determine the exact string you want each note to play by the MIDI channel that note belongs to.

Another route would be to use the custom chords mode to define those powerchord voicings in advance. There's even already a factory preset called "One Note Powerchords" (or something like that), the lets you hold a single note on the keyboard and selects a root-fifth-octave powerchord voicing. That might at least be a good starting point.

[bouncetohead]

Hey Greg thanks for replying!

Okay i'm slightly confused... If I use MIDI guitar mode putting each string on a separate MIDI channel, how do I assign strumming if I were to create chords with each note on the separate MIDI channels? Maybe MIDI guitar mode isn't good for chords and instead I should use your second option - using the custom chords.

I checked out the custom chord feature and it looks perfect! I used the 'One Note Powerchords' preset. I'm just having some difficulty with actually playing the chords on the keys after i've created them. How do I assign the created chords to the keys so I can plot them out in my MIDI editor? They sometimes play on one key but then it weirdly changes to another chord near by. I want to be able to play my custom created F chord on the F key, C Chord on the C key, and etc..

If you could also let me know how I assign individual strings to separate MIDI channels as you mentioned first, that would be great.

I think it would be great to see screen capture videos of you showing us how to do this stuff!

Thanks

[Gregjazz]

Ah, the MIDI guitar mode would be more for a note-by-note sequencing approach. Just enable the MIDI guitar mode in the Evolution Strawberry setup page, and then also set the instrument to "omni" mode (in the instrument's header section in Kontakt--let me know if you need help finding that). Then you can use MIDI channels 1-6 to play notes on each string, each MIDI channel corresponding to each string.

You should be able to change the input chord by just re-learning the chord voicing (which is just a single root note in the case of the One Note Powerchords preset). I might be misunderstanding what you're trying to do, though. The way the One Note Powerchords preset works is that you can hold a C key to select the voicing for a full C powerchord. Then use the strum downstroke/upstroke keys to actually play the voicing. Bear in mind, you'll need to play the strum keys at a fairly high velocity to ensure that all the strings in the voicing get strummed.

[bouncetohead]

Okay thanks alot! I have a go at the MIDI guitar mode later on. Doesn't sound too hard

Sorry if I was unclear about what I wanted to do with the custom chords. Imagine that i've created 4 custom chords in the engine. Am I able to get each chord to play from the correct keys on the keyboard?.. just like I would with individual notes without using the Custom Chords. I would like to input the key MIDI notes in my MIDI editor so the chords play. They don't seem to play when i test them by pressing the keys in using Kontakt's keyboard layout. The first one might, but the rest don't. I'm not using Evolution Strawberry to play live off a keyboard, I'm inputting everything into the MIDI editor. So I can adjust things like the velocities myself.

Thanks Greg!

[Gregjazz]

Yeah, you could play each of the four chords just using the correct single keys on the keyboard. However, the chord is only selected by playing the single keys on the keyboard, and would need to be paired with playing the strum downstroke/upstroke keys to actually trigger the notes.

[driverdave63]

Greg,

Been following this thread with interest, and I'm with the OP, just when I think I understand what your saying, you immediately follow it with a confusing disclaimer or a seeming contradiction. Is there a video you could point us to for clarity/example sake?

[bouncetohead]

Thanks for the reply Greg. Greg i've asked you a question at the bottom of this post so it would be great if you could answer! Thanks man. Also hi to Dave! I've just recently gotten around to trying to figure the custom chords out. I've managed to do it, so i thought i'd let you know what I do here.

Okay.. so you've got Strawberry loaded into Kontakt. Now here's what you have to do...

Go to the 'Chords' section
Click 'CUSTOM CHORDS'
Now you can use a preset here but I will tell you how to create your own.
Click the first 'Empty' space.
Click 'LEARN NEW CHORD'.

Now press down the root note of the chord you want to create. You can either press the root note on your MIDI keyboard or by using Kontakt's keyboard. I would personally use a higher key note for the chords that are higher up the fretboard, and the lower keys (closer to the strum keys) for the lower chords. After you've pressed the root note, you should see that 'Empty' is no longer empty and now tells you the root note you've just pressed.

To the side of where it shows you your root note, you will see each string lettered vertically. Here is where you create your chord. Use the up and down arrows above and below the numbers when you hover over them with your mouse. You can look at the guitar fretboard for help when creating the chord.

After you have finished creating your chord, what you must do to strum it is FIRST press down that root note that you pressed a couple of steps back. This is what lets Strawberry know what chord you want to play. After you've pressed down that root note, you can now use the strum keys to strum it up and down. I find it's good to view Kontakt's Keyboard. The strum keys are usually at the very far left of the keyboard.

Now if you want to play more than one chord. You must go through everything again. Create the next chord in the 'Empty' spot below the one you just created. To switch between the chords you play, you must press down the root note just once before pressing the strum keys to strum the chord.

So if I was to map 4 chords out in my MIDI editor. I would create 4 chords in Strawberry's 'Custom Chord' feature, doing everything I explained above. Then in my DAW's MIDI edtitor I would first input the MIDI root note of my first chord (to tell strawberry which chord i want to play) and then I would input MIDI at the up and down strum keys to strum the chord. Then when I want to switch to the next chord, I would again input the root note of the chord into the MIDI editor and then input the strum keys again. When inputting the root note in the MIDI, you might need to bring the MIDI root note back slightly just before the first strum, so Strawberry recognizes the chord change before starting to strum.

I hope that's easy enough for you to understand. Sorry if i've confused anyone!

The custom chord feature seems pretty good for playing chords but if you're wanting to go from a chord straight to picking a few strings, I don't think it's possible. You might need to set up another instance of Strawberry for picking individual notes.

Here's just a simple question for Greg. I was wondering about the strumming in Strawberry.. are the note samples all played at the same time or is there a slight delay with each note to give a more realistic strum? I presume it's the latter.

Thanks alot!

[Gregjazz]

That's a good step-by-step instructional on how the custom chord mode works. I like to think of that input chord/root as a simple condition for what it takes to trigger your custom voicing (created using the value edit controls for each string). So technically there's nothing stopping you from creating an E major voicing that's triggered by holding down the C root. The one important thing to note is that while the custom chords can distinguish between chord types and inversions, they don't differentiate which octave the chord is played. This is true for the automatic chord mode as well--that way if you have a smaller keyboard, you can play the chord voicings in the lowest octave and you still get the same chords.

Regarding the slight delay, yes, the strum keys automatically stagger the notes to create a more realistic strum sound. If it's a downstroke, the strings are staggered from the lowest pitched string first to the highest pitched string. An upstroke happens in the opposite direction, with the highest pitched string getting played first. The speed of the strum (which equates to the delay between each staggered note) is affected by the velocity of the strumming key. As I mentioned in some other posts, I'm interested in adding settings that allow you to customize this element so it's not just hard-coded. In the case of a strumming pattern, you can determine the exact speed independently of velocity.

[bouncetohead]

Thanks for clearing that up for me, Greg!

[rrichard63]

Just to make sure I understand this, it means that you can define up to 12 one-note chords (chords triggered by pressing a single key), but not 13 or more. Ne c'est pas?

That's correct--it doesn't take the octave into consideration, so there are only 12 possible chords triggered by pressing a single key. Of course, you could always add more voicings triggered by two keys after that.

A related question: is there an upper limit to the total number of chords you can define in a set by using varying numbers of keys to trigger them?

Right now there's an artificial limit of 120 user-definable voicings, although I can definitely boost that limit if needed.

[rrichard63]

... Right now there's an artificial limit of 120 user-definable voicings, although I can definitely boost that limit if needed.

120 is a lot. I suspect that nobody will ever ask for more.

[Keyloid]

Greg - I am interested in a first-time purchase for OTS Evolution Guitars; I am very impressed with the quality of the product. I am a seasoned user of Vir2 guitars and am used to having full MIDI Learn functionality within the Setup page - Looking through the PDF manuals and Vid tutorials it is not clear as to whether you can assign MIDI CC control to the Setup pages - one pre-requisite for me is the ability to select a fret position on the fly so I can dictate rather than the scripting engine making an educated guess... if this is the case, then you will have a new order by end of the day!