Do you use chord generator tools or similar plugins to create chords? Which ones?

[kelvyn]

I use Scaler 2 and Cthulhu... not exclusively but when I need a little inspiration.
Because of Covid lockdowns and even before Covid lockdowns a lot of us have become one man bands. If you are a guitarist- for example - technology has enabled you to lay down drums, bass, keys and vocals - with the help of Forman’s and pitch correction if needed - in the DAW of your choice. What technology can’t do is create the same kind of spontaneous feedback that working in a room with other musicians can do. The singer starts a melody someone adds some chords, the bass player picks up on things and the drummer supplies the groove. Voila things happen:)
I find that using a program like Scaler sometimes gives me chords that I myself wouldn’t normally come up with and like the guitar or keyboard player that noodles around with something in rehearsals inspires me to start developing an idea.
It’s only a crutch if you see it as such. The most important thing is what you end up with and not how you start IMO.

[javierosr]

I use some tools for inspiration but I prefer play it by myself, some software can give ideas but I my opinion is more faster use your fingers and mind

[kelvyn]

I use some tools for inspiration but I prefer play it by myself, some software can give ideas but I my opinion is more faster use your fingers and mind

Of course! The thing is that it’s very easy to get into a kind of harmonic comfort zone that can be quite difficult to get out of when just working on your own. Which is why I think that products like Scaler can be a good springboard for ideas that then get taken further using ones brain and fingers.

[ValliSoftware]

I look at those tools for ideas.
So far, this is my prototype using Logic Pro X scripter.
This will eventully become an Objective-C MIDIFX.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C654wWZN3KE

[riqzy]

I had music theory training many years ago, and with the lack of practice, most of it was forgotten. Because of that, I find Scaler really useful on my process.

[ValliSoftware]

http://tones.wolfram.com
http://www.melodybrains.com
https://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/melody-generator/

[Michael L]

I use some tools for inspiration but I prefer to play it by myself, some software can give ideas but in my opinion it is faster to use your fingers and mind

Of course! The thing is that it’s very easy to get into a kind of harmonic comfort zone that can be quite difficult to get out of when just working on your own. Which is why I think that products like Scaler can be a good springboard for ideas that then get taken further using ones brain and fingers.

Computer-based musicmaking tends to isolate people, so we look to software for inspiration. I don't think its healthy.
I look for inspiration from people who are very different from me through live music, Spotify, Bandcamp, Internet Radio, and YouTube performers like Ableton Push virtuoso Thomas Piper.

[CF432]

I use Scaler 2 and Cthulhu... not exclusively but when I need a little inspiration.
Because of Covid lockdowns and even before Covid lockdowns a lot of us have become one man bands. If you are a guitarist- for example - technology has enabled you to lay down drums, bass, keys and vocals - with the help of Forman’s and pitch correction if needed - in the DAW of your choice. What technology can’t do is create the same kind of spontaneous feedback that working in a room with other musicians can do. The singer starts a melody someone adds some chords, the bass player picks up on things and the drummer supplies the groove. Voila things happen:)
I find that using a program like Scaler sometimes gives me chords that I myself wouldn’t normally come up with and like the guitar or keyboard player that noodles around with something in rehearsals inspires me to start developing an idea.
It’s only a crutch if you see it as such. The most important thing is what you end up with and not how you start IMO.

Hi Kelvyn, I am looking at getting one or possibly both of these. If you were to keep just one, which would it be and why? And what do you consider to be the advantages of one over the other? Scaler 2 is currently on sale, Cthulu is not but I don't recall ever seeing Xfer having a sale anyway. Both have a trial which is handy but I would be interested to know your thoughts. I already have Captain Chords and whilst it is ok, I like the idea of a tool which will suggest chords for me, and also the humanise function is lacking in CC. Thanks

[jancivil]

Scaler has apparently far exceeded its original goal, which was essentially a tool for people that haven't the ability - yet - to do it themselves,
I'm of two minds here as you can see.

I became a decent musician first. NB: I worked with someone else's ideas, making it work for the session or the band subsequently as the arranger and practically the producer. I had a knack, but I didn't think about it as the songwriter, not my sensibility or inclination at that stage. So I did the requisite 10 years of woodshedding and then I had things I wanted from music I should execute myself so I began in earnest to write.

If you have ideas you aren't desperate to replace your own thought with a robot's. But a tool looked at objectively, it could be a good primer and a tool for learning. That one is geared more to intermediate or even experienced users than it began with. There, one 'kelvyn' is using it to shake things up, absent the input from a band member or jam sessions. It's not how I would, but I do other things which are not purely cause/effect that are stimulating in a way I can make use of. And I had a great time with someone else's harmony and performance recently, which I miss. There's a dimension there that 'adds value'. I actually learned so much from this individual I can 'be' him enough to not be hurting for it so much.

So as to the other point, right, no tool is going to replace the give-and-take or feedback from other musicians in a room. So the notion that one, with no such experience at all is going to acquire a DAW and get busy creating music ex nihilo, here we've just an insufficient conception of music. Music by a solipsistic mindset would tend to be pretty barren, I think.

I don't 'see it' as anything one way or another, it's entirely evident that some people posting here do use it as a crutch, that do not know what to do. There's no sin in not knowing, few of us are born knowing after all, but the healthy thing to do at this point is f**king learn the thing. It's not rocket surgery. Some people aren't going to have the aptitude and there's no shame in that. but I suggest refraining from acting like it's not what it is, like you're doing music regardless.

[jancivil]

Computer-based musicmaking tends to isolate people, so we look to software for inspiration. I don't think its healthy.
I look for inspiration from people who are very different from me through [...]

Well, looking to people with inner lives, a store of memories and emotional responses and experience in reality with music has to be dramatically richer than looking to what is at most going to be machine-learning, but primarily an algorithm that has no real clue.

that said, my giving Cubase some audio for its audio-to-MIDI in a way it had no real clue how to do shook things up for me and generated its version of what I gave it. NB: what I gave it to do. This is where generative music should begin IME, the machine knows f**k-all, but its mistakes might be funny.

thank you guys for dealing in real ideas finally, it is very refreshing.

[Hink]

ty Jan, you because you have made a difference too and I do appreciate it

[Michael L]

the machine knows f**k-all, but its mistakes might be funny.

What Would JohnCage Do?
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... perhaps make the machine a player in an indeterminate composition ...?

[jancivil]

[N__K]

Computer-based musicmaking tends to isolate people, so we look to software for inspiration. I don't think its healthy.

Computers are made by people. Software is made by people. They are a reflection of humanity in any case - just not as immediate as face-to-face interaction (nor do they need to be).

One might as well claim that books isolate people. They do, in a sense - but in another, someone who has read a thousand books might have experiences of a thousand lifetimes lived in a thousand worlds; while someone who's only ever conversed with their immediate friends and family will only have the experience of that reality. To each their own, of course - but personally, I rather like the mediated multiverses

Anyway, some day humanity evolves past wetware as we know it, I suspect, and beyond that point delineating "human" from "computer" will be a silly exercise. I bet part of "the smartphone generation" already feels that way.

(sorry for offtopic, it was too tasty not to react to)

[jancivil]

If you type, do you want to hunt and peck or do you want your fingers to find the words from muscle memory so your thoughts can be expressed ASAP...