KVR Audio

Kalamata Kid · Post by **Kalamata Kid** » Fri Jun 19, 2020 8:41 pm

^^^
Thanks for the trust you have on my judgment but not sure I deserve it.
Oh well.
On midi I kinda follow David's lead.
I know he really like the Toy Box Piano Roll so I may get it if the price offered is a no brainer.

courtjestr · Post by **courtjestr** » Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:23 am

So ChordPotion 2 is out. Does anybody know how it compares to Scaler 2? Do they cover different ground?

BluesMuse · Post by **BluesMuse** » Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:06 pm

courtjestr wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:23 am So ChordPotion 2 is out. Does anybody know how it compares to Scaler 2? Do they cover different ground?

I have both. Scaler 2 is more of a chord/song arranging tool IMHO with many "canned" arps included to play with- also a "lock to scale" feature to "noodle" in key. Potion 2 has no chord tools- you feed it a MIDI stream of chords. Potion then allows quite detailed customization of arps, including a lot of canned arps that can be customized. New in Version 2 are per note probability settings, so you can get "unique" output on each play-through.

David · Post by **David** » Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:22 pm

As both of these have developed they begin to have some functional overlap, mainly from Scaler's side, with its growing options for playing back the chords and progressions it offers, less so from the CP side, which still doesn't offer to provide chords or progressions for itself to manipulate, AFAIK, anyway and if it does or will do, it's hard to imagine it could ever catch up with Scaler in this area. Same with Scaler going after CP's MIDI phrase creation smarts.

So at heart they remain quite different, IMO, not at all alternative versions of the same thing. CP is a chord-track playback manipulator and sequence editor/randomizer, not a harmony/progression analyzer and chord source/player/designer like Scaler. They work really well in combination:) Scaler makes the chords, CP converts them into inventive patterns and phrases.

The current product that seems best to combine both functions in one is probably the Captain Chords suite, but the CP/Scaler combo seems much more powerful overall, IMO, at the moment.

courtjestr · Post by **courtjestr** » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:22 pm

Thanks for the comments. I have Scaler 2. Harvest is the other plugin I am considering right now. It is $29 at Plugin Boutique. Would Harvest/Scaler give me most of what I could cover with CP/Scaler? Or if I got CP/Scaler, would I want Harvest? Trying to limit the GAS but still keep my options open.

David · Post by **David** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:21 am

Can you import MIDI (from Scaler, for instance) into Harvest? I don't recall that as an option, as it's more of a generator than a MIDI effect that can process existing MIDI. So, AFAICT…No, not similar to what CP and Scaler can do together.

Dirtgrain · Post by **Dirtgrain** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:46 am

Where would Cthulu fit into this comparison: Cthulu, Scaler 2, Chord Potion, and Harvest (never seen it)?

fairlyclose · Post by **fairlyclose** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:55 am

David wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:21 am Can you import MIDI (from Scaler, for instance) into Harvest? I don't recall that as an option, as it's more of a generator than a MIDI effect that can process existing MIDI. So, AFAICT…No, not similar to what CP and Scaler can do together.

Harvest has a "live" mode which can process incoming midi - either live playing or a midi clip.

Harvest have a few videos that show the features quite well. Here is another
I think chordpotion looks quite interesting but is a bit pricey at the moment for me. Not having it I cant say what the overlap would be

David · Post by **David** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 3:29 am

Wow, sorry, I was completely wrong—this is really cool, so yeah, the less costly ChordPotion is right here, with lots of unique and powerful, truly live MIDI-FX-type features that even CP doesn't have…but also not multi-track like CP. Thanks fairlyclose; great stuff!

David · Post by **David** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 3:46 am

Dirtgrain wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:46 am Where would Cthulu fit into this comparison: Cthulu, Scaler 2, Chord Potion, and Harvest (never seen it)?

I don't know how you do it, but people do sell progression sets for Cthulu, so there's very likely a way to leverage Scaler's smarts with chords into it. Of course it's also a very neat arpeggiator and no doubt you can disable its own chord engine, so a Scaler track would feed it perfectly well. But Harvest clearly has much more than even neat basic arp functions, like performing unique rhythms into it that allow for completely fresh arp effects, and CP itself is way more than just an arp. Cool as Cthulu is, it's pretty old by now… CP and Harvest seem like next-gen MIDI devices to me, compared to it.

I'll admit to being more of a collector than a virtuoso with most stuff like this, so I tend to focus on features over deep expertise. But any of these tools, alone AND in combination, can certainly still be taken in new and fresh directions with some fresh thinking…

fairlyclose · Post by **fairlyclose** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 3:57 am

I used to have some stability problems when automating parameters with Harvest using Reaper but that is no longer the case since switching to Bitwig

damayor · Post by **damayor** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 6:36 am

How is harvest mini? Its free. But is it that much crippled compare to the retail version?

Dirtgrain · Post by **Dirtgrain** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:25 pm

Here is a comparison of Harvest and Harvest Mini:

I would suggest trying the mini version. After using it a bit, you could then see what the full version has and consider how useful it would be to you.

WatchTheGuitar · Post by **WatchTheGuitar** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:55 pm

Anyone into generative stuff who has Reason Rack (and you need it to use this) should check out the Evolution Sequencer player

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... evolution/
It's on offer for £34 at the moment (RRP £48) and I've found it's much better and tweakable than a load of MIDI generators out there and a damn sight easier to use to generate listenable things.

I also 'humanized' some of the output by passing it through Enlightenspeed Note Humanizer

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... humanizer/

Although it's Reason Rack you can of course now pipe the MIDI out into a DAW these days.
I generated the Saz part in this using it, with the Drum parts from Beat Map
https://soundcloud.com/user-470387013/far-too-long-song

JiggSaw · Post by **JiggSaw** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:24 pm

Just fired up Riffer 2 again after not using it for awhile. I realized that there is no way to lock the actual rhythm. So if I click in the rhythm using a single note, I would want to lock that rhythm and just have it generate different notes within the scale. That doesn't seem to be possible and now basically it's useless to me.

Anything and everything about MIDI - arp, mapper, mangler, generator, chorder, controller, utility, fx etc.