ChordGun (tool for inserting chords and scale notes)

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Thanks for the reply, no need to input all possible chords? It's already built-in?

Yes that's right, just input that series of 1s and 0s

Originally Posted by leescratchy

How do I figure out the binary series for BLUES please? E in my case

It starts from C so you can just line them up how it is:



Input it for C, then you can change to E through the Chordgun interface

[leescratchy]

Added "100101110010" in the script, all good thanks!

I've read about "power chords" in that video tutorial of yours while you were adding arabic scale, is that supported in ChordGun?

Asking because I've seen myself creating triad chords progressions in ChordGun but then they were taking too much room in my mix so I dumbed them down to single notes. Then I read that this is called "implied chords" AKA "power chords"? They take less room in the mix and create tension because humain brain expects full chords to get satisfied but they never come as it would appear?

I kinda see little point in learning chords at all when I can just use your script? I've found great chords progressions by messing with inverted chords in your script, why should I care about learning all those chords when your script does it?

Thanks again

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by leescratchy

I'm a major newbie when it comes to scales and chords as I currently use the scale mode of my KeyStep37 so out-of-scale notes don't play and ChordGun to make nice chords variations.

You can also use ChordGun for scale notes, I'm not much of a piano player so it's a lot easier for me to think in terms of the 1-7 scale degrees rather than note letters. Especially when you need to change the key of a song it makes it a lot easier. After this I sold my midi keyboard and just do everything directly, people love their external hardware for midi but unless you're already an accomplished piano player I don't really understand why, seems too cumbersome

Originally Posted by leescratchy

so I must add "100101110010" in the script and I'm good to go?

Yeah that's it, looks good

Originally Posted by leescratchy

I've read about "power chords" in that video tutorial of yours while you were adding arabic scale, is that supported in ChordGun?

Yeah that's the 5, if you see C5 that's a power chord. It's just the root and a fifth, so only two notes. I also have a flat fifth in there, 5- would be the root and then one semitone down from a fifth. That's probably the strangest chord in the set, so if you wanted to add a chord you could change that one to be something else

Originally Posted by leescratchy

I kinda see little point in learning chords at all when I can just use your script? I've found great chords progressions by messing with inverted chords in your script, why should I care about learning all those chords when your script does it?

I completely agree, learning chords is pretty meaningless when you're a composer. It's necessary if you're in a band and people expect you to know how to play things on command, like if they change key then you need to know how to play the same progression with the different notes. But when you're just composing it's about the sounds, so it's all about the context between tonic, subdominant, dominant and all that stuff. The chord names and note letters are meaningless, just a lookup table for combinations of scale degrees. I just set the key of the song so that the highest vocal note is F4 but besides that I try to avoid ever looking at the note letters and also have no idea what chords are used in my songs. I could always check but the chord names and note letters are not really important, the context and interaction with the other parts is the important thing

[leescratchy]

OK thanks for the reply, well a keyboard such as Keystep37 is way more convenient to compose melodies than a computer mouse. Also its scale mode that only allows notes in the scale to play is a huge help as I used to put round stickers on keys before to remain in-scale.

So implied chords and power chords aren't the same after all?

As I said I've spent quite a lot of time on a G Major chords variation with your script but ended up dumbing it down to single notes and it sounds great as explained on https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com...mplied-chords/

Fair enough, I just don't really understand why several courses such as prolevelbeats.com or busyworkbeats.com claim to the magical solution to everything such as learning chords when IRL that first link simply advises to learn all the scales and chords/intervals by heart duh, what a scam for $300 lol and second link says that this is the game-ending "chord code book": https://i.redd.it/csdux1rm4q421.jpg

BTW I wish I could automatically assign chords in your plugin to this kind of controller, is this possible please: https://www.thomann.de/gb/korg_nanopad_2_black.htm ?

I've got mixed feelings towards chords tbh as triad cords often take too much room in my mixes so I end up using implied ones with single notes or no chords at all and my tunes sound fine.

It's my understanding that people who do learn all those chords by heart always end up using the same ones? I've made great progressions with your script that don't sound like déjà vu as I only care about their sound, not the same-ole same-ole technique behind them.

Originally Posted by pandabot

it's all about the context between tonic, subdominant, dominant and all that stuff

I've no idea what this all means, care to elaborate please?

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by leescratchy

OK thanks for the reply, well a keyboard such as Keystep37 is way more convenient to compose melodies than a computer mouse. Also its scale mode that only allows notes in the scale to play is a huge help as I used to put round stickers on keys before to remain in-scale.

Oh no you can use the keyboard, ChordGun has 3 rows of scale notes available to it. You have z-m for lower scale notes, a-j for middle scale notes and q-u for upper scale notes. There are also separate scripts for all of these as Actions so you don't need the ChordGun window to have focus. It's so you can always think in terms of 1 through 7 without looking at note letter keys and you'll never be out of scale. Although sometimes using out of scale chromatic notes are useful during transitions

edit: oh right the note off still doesn't work, so midi keyboard might be better for you then. I do it through trial and error drawing in the midi editor myself

Originally Posted by leescratchy

So implied chords and power chords aren't the same after all?

Usually you put a lot of distortion on power chords and this brings up similar harmonics that you would have in a middle note. I've never heard of the term implied chords before but I think that's what they're talking about

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Fair enough, I just don't really understand why several courses such as prolevelbeats.com or busyworkbeats.com claim to the magical solution to everything such as learning chords when IRL that first link simply advises to learn all the scales and chords/intervals by heart duh, what a scam for $300 lol and second link says that this is the game-ending "chord code book": https://i.redd.it/csdux1rm4q421.jpg

IMO the best book is "How Music Really Works" by Wayne Chase, that one helped me the most and has important stuff in it I haven't seen anywhere else

Originally Posted by leescratchy

I've got mixed feelings towards chords tbh as triad cords often take too much room in my mixes so I end up using implied ones with single notes or no chords at all and my tunes sound fine.

Yeah I've learned the hard way that it's very difficult for chords to sound good in digital music, especially if they're supposed to be rhythmic chords. Pads sound fine but trying to do a rhythm guitar is almost impossible for some reason. It's like something happens acoustically in the air to make organic notes form into a cohesive unit that doesn't happen in digital, using different individual samples to form a chord in digital music is almost always like individual lines fighting with each other. I reworked my songs to turn the middle note of my chords into a different tone panned to the other side and then everything started working, now the chords are only two notes and everything sounds good. The chords sounded fine in my chiptunes mockup, but I ran into problems once I started using real sounds

Originally Posted by leescratchy

It's my understanding that people who do learn all those chords by heart always end up using the same ones? I've made great progressions with your script that don't sound like déjà vu as I only care about their sound, not the same-ole same-ole technique behind them.

I've found that the basic major and minor chords give you more flexibility when composing, I'll usually do the progression first and then write the other parts for it. If I use a seventh chord then it seems like it's a lot harder to write parts that fit

Originally Posted by leescratchy

I've no idea what this all means, care to elaborate please?

It's the roman numeral music theory stuff, so you start out at the tonic also known as I then you go someplace else. Typically you go to IV (subdominant) or V (dominant) and then come back home to I (tonic). Then you have vi which is kind of like the tonic, ii which is kind of like the subdominant and iii which is kind of like the dominant. All music following harmonic conventions starts out at home, goes some places and then comes home again. It's explained better in that book

[leescratchy]

OK thanks a lot, I'll be sure to check out ""How Music Really Works" by Wayne Chase"

Using computer keys to compose music wouldn't make me happy one bit lol

Chords sound fine in those videos, not just for pads: https://www.youtube.com/c/SynthsCovers/videos

I guess it's all about being an harmony expert, such as Ennio Morricone

For that matter David Guetta claims to be using Captain Chords to build chords progressions.

But I've wasted too much time on mushy-sounding VSTi's such as UHE's so I'll load up tons of Kontakt banks and we'll see, I do need a proper dulcimer for that matter as LABS's one sounds very very dead.

Maybe issue I could guess with your triad chords sounding wrong would be poor tuning, IME many VSTi's are very poorly tuned(especially UHE's) so I use ReaTune with mixed results on them and they usually get to behave instantly

Implied chords are perfectly explained in my link, I've been using them as single notes w/o knowning their story but they catch attention and don't take much room in the mix at all, <3 them

So is it possible to map chords in your app to a USB device such as https://www.thomann.de/gb/korg_nanopad_2_black.htm please?

Originally Posted by pandabot

reworked my songs to turn the middle note of my chords into a different tone panned to the other side

panned to the other side? what does that mean please?

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Maybe issue I could guess with your triad chords sounding wrong would be poor tuning, IME many VSTi's are very poorly tuned(especially UHE's) so I use ReaTune with mixed results on them and they usually get to behave instantly

Oh yeah I'm using ReaTune, my guitars are actually wurlitzer samples run through individual ReaTune instances. Maybe the problem is noise buildup, when you play a chord recorded through a microphone then you have the room sound and some low-end. Now when you record different individual notes as 3 different samples, trying to combine them together you'll amplify all low-end buildup and whatever noise is present. I don't know the exact reason but I know it took way too long to get my rhythm parts sounding good, and had to thin them out pretty heavily using those equal loudness curve Reafir presets before they started to work

Originally Posted by leescratchy

So is it possible to map chords in your app to a USB device such as https://www.thomann.de/gb/korg_nanopad_2_black.htm please?

If you can get your midi controller to trigger reaper Actions then you should be all set, all ChordGun functions are available as individual actions if you download through Reapack or from the github. Some people earlier in this thread were talking about that, I think they said it was possible but I never looked into it

Originally Posted by leescratchy

panned to the other side? what does that mean please?

Well I actually got 3 notes to sound pretty good panned center for my rhythm guitar parts after tons of trial and error with sample selection and different settings of the ProF.E.T. plugin for each individual note but it was too big a sound for one ear so I got rid of my lead guitar parts, took the middle note of those chords and panned it to the right and adjusted volumes. So now the left ear has the rhythm parts with just two notes and the right ear has the middle note of those same rhythm parts, then reworked the lead parts to be an organ and panned those parts to the left. I don't pan very much though, all the parts need to interact with eachother harmonically in order for it to work. If you do LCR panning on my songs then they completely fall apart

[leescratchy]

When ReaTune detects pitch properly then it's a strong asset but when it doesn't it becomes a wobbling feast, eventually disabling all FX improves this but sometimes it's a no-go no matter what. I've tried all other similar plugins including the real one from Antares but that wasn't better.

Fair enough thanks, I'll try to see if I could have them all assigned to one of those USB devices but eventually I only want compatibles ones to play. I guess I couldn't make this once and for all as they all come with their own ID?

Oh, you meant stereo hard-panning notes of a triad cord, I didn't see this one coming

BTW I've checked that book you recommended to me, about one third appears completely off-topic blabbering(maybe writer got paid a certain amount per page lol) but the rest looks great indeed so TYVM for the recommandation

Actually I'm afraid to be considered an amateur if I don't use triad chords or any dual ones either in every tune but my music appears to sound fine without them lol.

My previous link says that implied chords can be an asset because they force you to stick around as your brain expects triad chords to show up and I do make tense music, anyway my goal is to make music that doesn't sound like déjà vu and I'm growing pretty sick of those same-ole chords progressions everyone uses. They're not original one bit but I get that they take real estate in the mix both harmonically and sonically, still a cheap trick IMHO

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by leescratchy

When ReaTune detects pitch properly then it's a strong asset but when it doesn't it becomes a wobbling feast, eventually disabling all FX improves this but sometimes it's a no-go no matter what.

Changing window size to 200ms and overlap to 8x can help, and sometimes 50ms window size can sound better than 200ms for certain sounds. I use this Reatune wobble to avoid the machine gun effect, with the right samples it can bounce in a good way

Originally Posted by leescratchy

I've tried all other similar plugins including the real one from Antares but that wasn't better.

Yeah the Antares stuff seems to apply a very thick IR on any sound you give it so it's not really suited for tuning instruments. Melodyne is actually pretty good, it can impart a sound to it too (more grainy/airy) but it's not nearly as noticeable. It's too bad because I really liked the Antares THROAT Evo, your ears adjust over time and you don't notice it but then you come back the next day and all your tones sound locked in the basement

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Oh, you meant stereo hard-panning notes of a triad cord, I didn't see this one coming

Not hard panned, just panned a little bit. Yeah so that's also been my experience, to make the chords fit in the mix I had to adjust my composition. It took forever playing with Reatune and different samples to even find something that sounded good enough for me and when I did, it was spectrally huge so I had to move other parts around until it worked for my songs. A real guitar player downstrumming eighth note chords can sound great and spectrally compact but this is very difficult to recreate with samples for whatever reason, it's not something I anticipated when composing using these dinky little midibank instruments

Originally Posted by leescratchy

BTW I've checked that book you recommended to me, about one third appears completely off-topic blabbering(maybe writer got paid a certain amount per page lol) but the rest looks great indeed so TYVM for the recommandation

Yeah the first few chapters are a little slow presenting the history but it actually ends up being very relevant, gives you the right context and insight into our lizard brain. No it's definitely not a cash grab type of book, seems to be a labor of love written by the one guy

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Actually I'm afraid to be considered an amateur if I don't use triad chords or any dual ones either in every tune but my music appears to sound fine without them lol.

If it sounds good that's all that matters, although I guess in general if you don't have harmony then the rhythm parts would need to be a lot stronger

Originally Posted by leescratchy

anyway my goal is to make music that doesn't sound like déjà vu and I'm growing pretty sick of those same-ole chords progressions everyone uses.

I think it's more about the tones and timbres you use, if those are unique then you can use any popular chord progression without fear of sounding like anything else. I'd rather come up with my own chord progression through trial and error though, it doesn't take that much time at all especially compared to everything else. It's a drop in the bucket next to to all the time spent finding tones that work well together

Originally Posted by leescratchy

They're not original one bit but I get that they take real estate in the mix both harmonically and sonically, still a cheap trick IMHO

The book goes into why certain chord progressions are strong, and avoiding the strong progressions because they are a "cheap trick" is silly. That trick is the foundation of popular music and you should use it, it's impossible to create a strong chord progression that doesn't resemble some other popular one in some way and that's okay. The choice of chord progression is not really important, as long as it's not a problem. Some progressions are harmonically weak and are poor foundations, that's why people go out of scale for the V in minor keys. So they can have that strong V to I chord change, going v to I is too weak

[Afanasyev]

Great tool, thank you very much, Pandabot!
But is it possible to make it's window a bit smaller? Right now it is way too big for me...
Thanks in advance!

[Pintspiller]

Chord Gun is something I probably use in most songs I create. Primarily just regular triads that I adjust to the inversion I like at the time and add bass notes as necessary.

[leescratchy]

Originally Posted by pandabot

Changing window size to 200ms and overlap to 8x can help, and sometimes 50ms window size can sound better than 200ms for certain sounds. I use this Reatune wobble to avoid the machine gun effect, with the right samples it can bounce in a good way

OK thanks I'll give it a shot as my best tunes had every VSTi going through ReaTune, perfectly in-tune rules but sometimes ReaTune gives wobble and that's it

Originally Posted by pandabot

Yeah the Antares stuff seems to apply a very thick IR on any sound you give it so it's not really suited for tuning instruments. Melodyne is actually pretty good, it can impart a sound to it too (more grainy/airy) but it's not nearly as noticeable. It's too bad because I really liked the Antares THROAT Evo, your ears adjust over time and you don't notice it but then you come back the next day and all your tones sound locked in the basement

Melodyne is not realtime I think? So did you get Antares THROAT Evo to work somehow?

Originally Posted by pandabot

If it sounds good that's all that matters, although I guess in general if you don't have harmony then the rhythm parts would need to be a lot stronger

Well, Erik Satie is my all-time reference when it comes to melodies and whatever his Gnossiennes & Gymnopedies got killer melodies + lower-tuned chords to make up for the lack of accompaniment but I would certainly prefer having proper lower instruments such as bass playing other melodies instead of lower-tuned chords tbh. To me those useless chords make the melodies less catchy and take too much room, there was nothing else to add on top so I guess that's fine, my point is that most of the time to my ears chords are only useful if you're lazy and/or not inspired coz they won't require you to come up with more catchy additional melodies.

I already searched google for "making music without chords" and ended up on reddit and what-not with people explaining that if it sounds good and there's no triad/dual chords then you can rest assured that there are implied chords and/or arp

Originally Posted by pandabot

I think it's more about the tones and timbres you use, if those are unique then you can use any popular chord progression without fear of sounding like anything else. I'd rather come up with my own chord progression through trial and error though, it doesn't take that much time at all especially compared to everything else. It's a drop in the bucket next to to all the time spent finding tones that work well together

Oh I've made great chords progressions with your plugin for sure, I'll soon have a 6 tunes EP posted, I'll gladly take your opinion in due time please

Originally Posted by pandabot

The book goes into why certain chord progressions are strong, and avoiding the strong progressions because they are a "cheap trick" is silly. That trick is the foundation of popular music and you should use it, it's impossible to create a strong chord progression that doesn't resemble some other popular one in some way and that's okay. The choice of chord progression is not really important, as long as it's not a problem. Some progressions are harmonically weak and are poor foundations, that's why people go out of scale for the V in minor keys. So they can have that strong V to I chord change, going v to I is too weak

Currently listening to one of my tunes where I made a great chords progression with your plugin but it ended up taking WAY too much room so I dumbed it down to single-note implied chords and it sounds really great to my ears. No pointless tones trying to interfere with the rest TYVM, everything's crystal-clear and not harmonically-weak one bit to my ears, anyway we'll soon get to know whether I'm right or so very wrong lol

This said I'm a sucker for Fender Rhodes and Bob James is my living god, Rhodes doesn't need chords to sound harmonically rich to my ears

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by Afanasyev

Great tool, thank you very much, Pandabot!
But is it possible to make it's window a bit smaller? Right now it is way too big for me...
Thanks in advance!

No I talked about it earlier in this thread, making it resizable is not something I'm interested in doing

Originally Posted by Pintspiller

Chord Gun is something I probably use in most songs I create. Primarily just regular triads that I adjust to the inversion I like at the time and add bass notes as necessary.

That's good to hear, it makes me happy to know people are using it

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Melodyne is not realtime I think? So did you get Antares THROAT Evo to work somehow?

Melodyne has ARA now so everything shows up right away, you just need to drag the blobs to whatever note you want. Yeah THROAT Evo works but it puts all your sounds inside of a tiny box, you can do cool stuff within that tiny box but it will always sound dark and small. It affected the tone of the instruments way too much for it to be usable in my songs but all this stuff depends on the context so it might work for you

[leescratchy]

Originally Posted by pandabot

Melodyne has ARA now so everything shows up right away, you just need to drag the blobs to whatever note you want. Yeah THROAT Evo works but it puts all your sounds inside of a tiny box, you can do cool stuff within that tiny box but it will always sound dark and small. It affected the tone of the instruments way too much for it to be usable in my songs but all this stuff depends on the context so it might work for you

Cool thanks, so does ARA replace ReaTune for you then? Sometimes ReaTune can't detect pitch no matter what, is that also your experience? So the only option in that case is to mess with window size and overlap and otherwise you use ARA or?

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Cool thanks, so does ARA replace ReaTune for you then?

No Reatune works better for the samples I ended up going with, just using Melodyne on vocals

Originally Posted by leescratchy

Sometimes ReaTune can't detect pitch no matter what, is that also your experience?

Yeah that's true, some pitches are out of range and sometimes just the sound itself will cause it to glitch out even if it's not too high or low. Melodyne has a greater range than Reatune, so if something doesn't work in Reatune it will probably work in Melodyne. I usually like the sound of Reatune better than Melodyne though. So not only do you have to find samples that sound good, you have to find samples that sound good and also work well with Reatune. The consistency in tone that you end up getting is worth it though, in my experience almost all sample libraries sound too different in timbre from note to note for them to be used normally. This approach of Reatuning each note works best for me

Originally Posted by leescratchy

So the only option in that case is to mess with window size and overlap and otherwise you use ARA or?

Yeah pretty much, one other thing you can do is "freeze" samples and create RS5K instruments based on that. Reatune has some strange behavior where the resulting tone will be different depending on where you start from, I guess it's part of how it varies the tone slightly as it goes along. I talked about it here a little bit: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=244629

This behavior is good to avoid the machine gun effect but sometimes you'll have something that sounds alternately amazing and terrible. What you can do then is render out each note from a specific start position in order to just capture the amazing sound, and create a RS5K instrument off these samples. However these will then of course have the machine gun effect, so this approach is better suited for leads. I'm actually not using any of these anymore but I made a ton of instruments with this approach

https://i.imgur.com/Ebw4Sup.png
https://i.imgur.com/4Du2r6I.png
https://i.imgur.com/6vZVxrx.png


edit: Besides slightly adjusting timing of glitched notes (shift left or right by 1/128th note increments), another thing you can do is add more instances. Reatune actually is deterministic but the input to it changes how it behaves, so it's like it has an internal oscillation but if you feed it notes then it changes the oscillation. So you can add additional Reatune instances for a note on a different track, and since this new one hasn't encountered any notes yet it will behave differently than the one you've been using and it might not glitch out

[pandabot]

Man this whole time I should've been using ReaPitch for the notes instead of Reatune, the slight pitch variations make the instruments sound so much better. Now I can use just intonation instead of equal temperament too

[leescratchy]

OK thanks for the tips, ReaPitch instead of ReaTune? How so please?

Just got a deal on an open box APC MINI, looking forward having it play Chordgun as I would certainly rather hit its pads than using the mouse

[pandabot]

Reapitch and Reatune use the same algorithms but they work slightly differently. Reapitch just shifts it by that amount, maintaining any pitch drift that's in the original sample. Reatune locks the sample into an A440 equal temperament note slot, eliminating all pitch drift (assuming attack time of 0ms, which is how I've been using it). Here's a visual example using Melodyne:



Reapitch doesn't iron out that natural swooping of the pitches that's present in your original sample, so everything sounds more alive. However this also means it takes up more space spectrally in the mix. On the other hand Reatune is more spectrally compact but also seems to generate more artifacts as it locks the pitches into that exact frequency and these artifacts can sometimes sound really good.

Reapitch also lets you adjust by cents so you can play with just intonation for purer harmonies, detuned A references and microtonal stuff. For example I'm using an A reference of 437 Hz for my verse, and then the normal A reference of 440 Hz for the chorus and this makes the chorus sound bigger and brighter. Adjusting some of the intervals to be just intonation also makes a big difference, but you have to do trial and error because sometimes having two notes be in perfect harmony sounds worse overall.

I'm using a combination of Reapitch and Reatune now, trying to get a better feel for when to use each for different samples in different situations. I also tried using Reapitch after Reatune so I could use those Reatune instances in the detuned verse section without being too sharp but I think the degradation in tone quality from running it through twice becomes too much

[Judders]

Originally Posted by pandabot

It's the roman numeral music theory stuff, so you start out at the tonic also known as I then you go someplace else. Typically you go to IV (subdominant) or V (dominant) and then come back home to I (tonic). Then you have vi which is kind of like the tonic, ii which is kind of like the subdominant and iii which is kind of like the dominant. All music following harmonic conventions starts out at home, goes some places and then comes home again. It's explained better in that book

Plenty of songs using Western diatonic harmony start on a chord other than the I.

Some examples here: https://www.musical-u.com/learn/song...chael-mingoia/

[pandabot]

Yeah that's true, I'd consider those to be a little unconventional though. Like those jazz people with their ii–V–I

[leescratchy]

Cool thanks, I'll be sure to check it all out as soon as my new 3600XT rig will be up and running.

BTW, I now have an AKAI APC Mini and would like to map 8x7 buttons to what's shown in Chordgun. You said it's possible but I don't quite see all 56 actions so I could remap each pad easily.

Could you please explain how to do it? I'd have to create 56 actions apparently?

And also a way to setup +/- inversions for each pad? Possibly by keeping the pad pushed in and clicking on +/- please?

[cjewellstudios]

I set up an osc template with three rows of 7 pads to match up with the chord/bass/high note scripts. Really cool! When I did this initially I wrongly assumed I could use these three rows at the same time. But in reality each script cuts off the note before it (which makes sense in hindsight)

I neglected to ask for a while but I always come back to I think that would be a pretty cool thing to be able to do. I'm sure there are probably coding hurdles to jump through to implement something like this. I just imagine it would be an even better composition tool in my mind if I could tap the chords and a melody at the same time.

Just a suggestion. Love this script so much and having it laid out on a controller is just a dream Many thanks.

[leescratchy]

Originally Posted by cjewellstudios

I set up an osc template with three rows of 7 pads to match up with the chord/bass/high note scripts. Really cool! When I did this initially I wrongly assumed I could use these three rows at the same time. But in reality each script cuts off the note before it (which makes sense in hindsight)

I neglected to ask for a while but I always come back to I think that would be a pretty cool thing to be able to do. I'm sure there are probably coding hurdles to jump through to implement something like this. I just imagine it would be an even better composition tool in my mind if I could tap the chords and a melody at the same time.

Just a suggestion. Love this script so much and having it laid out on a controller is just a dream Many thanks.

which controller please? I find the APC MINI pads pretty stiff, I need something smoother

when I use the mouse on ChordGun, I don't think every new chord cuts the previous one?

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by cjewellstudios

I just imagine it would be an even better composition tool in my mind if I could tap the chords and a melody at the same time.

You can look for the functions "playScaleNote" and "playScaleChord" in each Action and then delete or comment out the line that says stopNotesFromPlaying()



I think that should work but then you'll really have to use that "stop all notes from playing" action with the chord changes. It might make more sense to just remove it from the playScaleNote function and leave the playScaleChord one alone


edit: oh right, doing it on scale note would also quickly turn into a mess because all the scale notes would just keep playing. I guess I'd just leave it as is, then record your chords first in the midi editor and solo scale notes over it

[leescratchy]

oh well I can't find a proper USB device with plenty of comfy pads, you said that you like to use your computer keyboard to compose music so how could I map the first 3x7 = 21 chords to a regular PC keyboard please? Gotta add actions manually apparently so I can map each of them separately?

[pandabot]

If you download through Reapack or from the github then there are separate actions for everything, it's not set up for accessing chords directly on a grid like that but you can cycle through chords back and forth for a given scale degree.

You could create those actions pretty easily though, for example open up "pandabot_ChordGun scale chord 1.lua" scroll all the way to the bottom and add the line "setSelectedChordType(1,x)" before the line with "scaleChordAction(1)". You'd create 3 separate Actions and replace x with 1, 2 and 3 and I think that should work

[leescratchy]

ouh sounds like rocket science to me

just wanna map the 3*7 first chords in ChordGun to QWERTYU / ASDFGHJ / ZXCVBN, now that would rock hard

so you like to compose with your keyboard, it's your own plugin and you're not doing this?

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by leescratchy

ouh sounds like rocket science to me

Lol no it's just adding a single line of code

Originally Posted by leescratchy

just wanna map the 3*7 first chords in ChordGun to QWERTYU / ASDFGHJ / ZXCVBN, now that would rock hard

Yeah I know just do the above, you just have to create a bunch of actions with that additional line to select a different chord type before it fires and then map them to keyboard shortcuts like you do for any other action

Originally Posted by leescratchy

so you like to compose with your keyboard, it's your own plugin and you're not doing this?

No I don't use it like that, I insert the progression into the midi editor with the mouse or number keys and then build on top of it

[Tuba]

Pandabot,

Your script is insanely useful, congrats on the great service you've done to the whole community! 👍

Do you plan on adding Esc support to close the script?
I'm working on a single-window laptop keyboard-operated config and I'm trying to integrate your script in it, but the lack of a keyboard option to close it (or alternate focus with the main window via keystroke) is holding me back a bit.

If it is not something you plan on doing, would you allow me to try and implement this feature on a personal version of it?

In this case, I'd also gladly accept any information you may have on how to add this bit to the script hahaha

[pandabot]

That's a good improvement I'll add that right now 👍

Yeah I encourage everyone to make their own versions and implement whatever they want, for this change you'll be able to see the diff in the ReaTeam github pull request

[Tuba]

Originally Posted by pandabot

That's a good improvement I'll add that right now 👍

Yeah I encourage everyone to make their own versions and implement whatever they want, for this change you'll be able to see the diff in the ReaTeam github pull request

Thank you for considering my request, I'm glad to help improve this already amazing tool! 😀

[Tuba]

Just tested it and it's working perfectly, thank you, pandabot!

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by Tuba

Just tested it and it's working perfectly, thank you, pandabot!

🙌‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

[vanhaze]

Works here also, very happy too that i now can close Chordgun with ESC key !

[Spookye]

Thanks 1000 Pandabot for the updates! It works wonders. I know that you always listen to everyone, so this is not a pretentious request: In the future, do you think it is possible to have "markers" that write the chord in the midi editor? (Above, so to speak ...) It is just an idea .... Greetings from Italy. Spookye

[NandyC]

Hi Pandabot,

I found your script a week ago and installed it. It is fantastic - really useful as a quick way to get chord sequences down. I will use this a lot! Thank you very much!

One small thing I encountered was 'shift' plus the keys '2' or '3' didn't work and I spent ages trying to figure out why. I eventually realised I have a UK keyboard, and that was the issue. I changed a couple of lines of code, and it now works perfectly. I have attached the changes as a .txt in case it is useful for anybody else in the UK having the same problem.

Cheers,
Nandy.

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by Spookye

Thanks 1000 Pandabot for the updates! It works wonders. I know that you always listen to everyone, so this is not a pretentious request: In the future, do you think it is possible to have "markers" that write the chord in the midi editor? (Above, so to speak ...) It is just an idea .... Greetings from Italy. Spookye

No this is not something I believe in, a big part of why this was created was so I didn't have to ever look at any note letters. I like to work in terms of 1-7 with the roman numerals as individual scale notes. This guy did something similar to what you're describing though, you might want to use his version: https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=138

Originally Posted by NandyC

One small thing I encountered was the keys '2' and '3' weren't working and I spent ages trying to figure out why. I eventually realised I have a UK keyboard, and that was the issue. I changed a couple of lines of code, and it now works perfectly. I have attached the changes as a .txt in case it is useful for anybody else in the UK having the same problem.

Thanks I was wondering what that was all about, saw some comments on youtube and had no idea

[Spookye]

[QUOTE=pandabot;2432262]No this is not something I believe in, a big part of why this was created was so I didn't have to ever look at any note letters. I like to work in terms of 1-7 with the roman numerals as individual scale notes. This guy did something similar to what you're describing though, you might want to use his version: https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=138




OK received. Thank you again for Chordgun ... great job.

[dreaminglife]

Hi Pandabot, I love chord Gun. Only two suggestions.

1) Can you make it a bit smaller.[ Maybe a 2nd version with a smaller GUI ] I dont think the chord buttons need to be that big. I have a 22 inch monitor. Once you insert chordgun & the midi editor theres not much room left.

2) Somehow integrate it with windowsets so's you can have a chordgun screenset with the midi editor & chordgun.

It is a great tool. Thanks

[pandabot]

Originally Posted by dreaminglife

1) Can you make it a bit smaller.[ Maybe a 2nd version with a smaller GUI ] I dont think the chord buttons need to be that big. I have a 22 inch monitor. Once you insert chordgun & the midi editor theres not much room left.

You know I probably made it the right size because I've been asked to make it both bigger and smaller. If you want you can adjust the dimensions in the code through trial and error, they're all statically defined in there

Originally Posted by dreaminglife

2) Somehow integrate it with windowsets so's you can have a chordgun screenset with the midi editor & chordgun.

I think it's because Reaper screensets don't include script window positions, I don't think there's anything I can do about that. Chordgun does remember the docking state and position for a given project though, maybe you can somehow create a custom action to launch the script and also trigger the window set