Is there any tutorial info pertaining to voicing?

[Brian Collins]

I have almost completed a detail document which I shall publish here soon as a PDF about "Understanding Phrases in RC". The purpose of this document is to set down in a structured manner all I wish (as a new user) I had been able to discover quickly about phrases to learn how best to use RC. Almost all the other capabilities of the software build upon the behaviour of phrases. And in the three weeks that I have been using RC, the bulk of my effort has been getting my head around this topic.

However, the one area that I think is missing from my knowledge (and certainly missing from the current draft) is about voicing. I have totally failed in my searches for any tutorial information (videos, forum postings, etc) which make use of voicing at the level of master track, individual track or phrases. I would like to understand how the voicing capabilities of RC interact with the note mappings of phrases, and this is very far from clear. In particular, the two pages on voicing in the manual make no sense without an understanding of what it is meant to achieve.

So --- can anyone point me at anything that would help me understand the purpose of voicing and perhaps allow me to include my understanding in my document??

Thanks in advance! Brian

[BluGenes]

All voicing is, in the context of RC is, where do you want the chord played. The chord C, the root note is the lowest note for the chord. You can play that chord lower or higher on the keyboard. Voicing in RC just defines where to play that chord.

Open the voicing editor of the master track (the V) and you would see that it only allows you to turn on or off the notes of the named chord, but, you can go lower or higher. Or, you could have multiple roots played, etc.

Track voicing can follow the master track voicing, or use it's own voicing.

It just looks complicated, but, isn't.

[Brian Collins]

It just looks complicated, but, isn't.

Thank you. That was enough to let me set up some simple experiments and I believe I now understand voicing.

The points I have deduced are:

• The master track voicing alone has the special UI to allow notes to be turned on or off or for extensions (e.g. 7, 9, 6) to be added to the chord.

• Voicing for the track or phrase simply allows selection from a number of pre-built voicings applicable to any chord (Drop2 etc)

• The chord-relative notes #1, #2 etc use the specified voicing starting from the lowest note up. So #1 is the lowest note, which by default is the root, but need not be. It could be that both #1 and #2 are roots, but an octave apart

• The number of notes in the voicing should not exceed the number of chord notes in the phrase definition (N), as only the lowest N notes will play

I will mull this over a bit longer, experiment some more, and write it up in the Voicing section of my document.

[Brian Collins]

• Voicing for the track or phrase simply allows selection from a number of pre-built voicings applicable to any chord (Drop2 etc)

I am wrong here. For the track or phrase (or even the master track), the voicing can be fully edited with the voicing editor. And custom voices can be saved for re-use, adding to the factory drop-down list. The master track voicings view adds no further capability than this, but does allow the voicings for a number of chords in the master track progression to be seen and edited together.