Do any synths have "intelligent" oscillator pitch controls?

[zerocrossing]

Last night, I was thinking about how much I hate using an oscillator to do House chords, or fifth intervals. Hate it. Then it hit me, why the hell don't all modern synths just have an intelligent harmony mode, where you tell the oscillators, "I'm going to play in Cm" and then all the oscs after the first one will adjust their interval accordingly. Does this exist? If not, why?! Guitar players and vocalists have been using this tech in harmonizers forever, surely it would be trivial to do it on an oscillator level.

[chk071]

Spire's oscillators have a chord function, when you use unison, if that's what you're asking for.

[recursive one]

The oscillator unison in Spire can be set to minor or major triads and seventh chords, so you can make a chord with one oscillator.

Or you need the chord to change according to the scale of the song (say, if you play something in Cm it would be minor triad at C and major triad at E flat)?

[zerocrossing]

Or you need the chord to change according to the scale of the song (say, if you play something in Cm it would be minor triad at C and major triad at E flat)?

Yup, that's what I'm talking about. Sorry to not be clear.

[recursive one]

The only thing that comes to my mind is the Voicing function in Rapid. Parawave explained this as follows.

You can use 3 layers each with semi 0, and set them so each layer only play one specific note of your played chord. Now: The important thing is in the voicing tab, named "Keying".
Lets say you play C, D# and G on your keyboard. Without "Keying" every layer would play all 3 notes. But set it like the following:
1. Layer = Keying to "Lowest"
2. Layer = Keying to "+1"
3. Layer = Keying to "+2"

So the layer "filters" your incoming note and only plays the selected. You now can play every 3 chord combination you want, the layers adjust to it and play the right note

From this explanation it is not very clear if you will be getting the same kind of chord at each step of your scale or it will recognize the scale and adapt (and there is still no manual ), but you may download the demo and try if it does what you want.

[zerocrossing]

The only thing that comes to my mind is the Voicing function in Rapid. Parawave explained this as follows.

You can use 3 layers each with semi 0, and set them so each layer only play one specific note of your played chord. Now: The important thing is in the voicing tab, named "Keying".
Lets say you play C, D# and G on your keyboard. Without "Keying" every layer would play all 3 notes. But set it like the following:
1. Layer = Keying to "Lowest"
2. Layer = Keying to "+1"
3. Layer = Keying to "+2"

So the layer "filters" your incoming note and only plays the selected. You now can play every 3 chord combination you want, the layers adjust to it and play the right note

From this explanation it is not very clear if you will be getting the same kind of chord at each step of your scale or it will recognize the scale and adapt (and there is still no manual ), but you may download the demo and try if it does what you want.

Thanks. I'll look into that.

Still though, I'm a bit surprised that such a thing isn't already implemented somewhere. After I thought it it, I was like, "why did it take dumbass me to think of this?"

[recursive one]

ANA2 will also some advanced choder functions, it's not out yet but should be released in June

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjGE-uMxf3U

EDIT: most probably it won't do exactly what the OP wants unless it is able to separate the input from the chorder between the oscillators

Overall I feel you, whenever I make a cool chord preset I'm thinking "and what's next - I'll be playing only minor chords?".

Possible solution is to duplicate the synth with the patch, tune the oscillators differently and then use a midi input filter on each synth channel if you are going to play it live.

[pdxindy]

I find it easier just to play chords myself, rather than program them. I'm more intelligent than the intelligent pitch controls Plus my fingers on keys are more effective as an input device!

And if you want a chord with one key press, there are various midi tools that store chords as played. They are fast and easy to put say a 4 chord progression on 4 keys.

[recursive one]

Thing is that patches where the chord steps are played by different oscillators sound different. The midi tools you are talking about send the midi signal to all oscillators at once.

(btw I just realised that my post about ANA was useless here because it apparently has one of these midi tools built into the synth but I'm not sure it can separate midi signal between the oscillators)

[zerocrossing]

ANA2 will also some advanced choder functions, it's not out yet but should be released in June

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjGE-uMxf3U

Overall I feel you, whenever I make a cool chord preset I'm thinking "and what's next - I'll be playing only minor chords?".

Possible solution is to duplicate the synth with the patch, tune the oscillators differently and then use a midi input filter on each synth channel if you are going to play it live.

That's not quite what I have in mind. Check this out, but instead of thinking an effect on the synth's output, think of the calculation that's doing the pitch shifting just deciding what the second and third oscillators are playing, to avoid that chipmunk effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_2EmtUzRu8

[zerocrossing]

I find it easier just to play chords myself, rather than program them. I'm more intelligent than the intelligent pitch controls Plus my fingers on keys are more effective as an input device!

And if you want a chord with one key press, there are various midi tools that store chords as played. They are fast and easy to put say a 4 chord progression on 4 keys.

No, I get that, but what I'm talking about would have a totally different feel. Almost like paraphony as opposed to polyphony, as all the oscillators would be going though the same VCF and VCA and also be able to have different waveforms, levels, etc.

[recursive one]

That's not quite what I have in mind.

Yes, just realized this.

If you program things in MIDI you may use several instances of the synth with the same patch except that the oscillators are tuned to make different chords (one for minor triad, one for major triad, one for diminished chord etc). For live playing probably some combintation of a chorder, a patcher/container and midi filters may do the trick (again, with few instances of the synth).

[fluffy_little_something]

Solcito's SuperSonico synth has something similar.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vrElHm3-LDk/ ... ico5.1.jpg

[Cinebient]

Falcon.

[pdxindy]

I find it easier just to play chords myself, rather than program them. I'm more intelligent than the intelligent pitch controls Plus my fingers on keys are more effective as an input device!

And if you want a chord with one key press, there are various midi tools that store chords as played. They are fast and easy to put say a 4 chord progression on 4 keys.

No, I get that, but what I'm talking about would have a totally different feel. Almost like paraphony as opposed to polyphony, as all the oscillators would be going though the same VCF and VCA and also be able to have different waveforms, levels, etc.

Ahh... you specifically want paraphony.

I would still play the chords with a synth and then put a single filter after the synth to make a paraphonic type sound.

I suspect there is just not enough interest in that to warrant developers building a system of paraphonic chord functionality into their synths. And then of course it is limited to that synth.