Request for comments: chords

[stryd_one]

Is somebody interested in maintaining (improving, writing documentation) for this "magic chords" app?

I'm interested.... Reminds me of the Waldorf Gekko boxes :) I don't have a lot of time, but if there is enough demand for the app, then I will volunteer to support/expand/document it as best I can..

[cheater]

TK great, magic chords... thanks! :)

Regarding the CS: it's not about ease of use - sure, the keyboard is great... but... no way I'm taking my Fatar to the club! Weights too much :)

It's more about visualizing the concept of the chord, great for people who are "sighters" (wrong word?) - who think in terms of images. The SEQ's supposed to be a stand-alone sequencer right? :)

Thanks and cheers :)

[widdly]

With those scale charts I'm not sure the force to scale is correct.

For example... C Major has  C D E F G A B C.  I would expect C#, which is a minor second should be transposed to a major second which would be D.  Likewise I'd expect the D# to be forced to E since D# is a minor third.  Same with the 6th and 7th.

Something like....

;;              0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11

;;              C  C#  D  D#  E  F  F#  G  G#  A  A#  B

SCALE_ENTRY 0, 2, 2, 4,4,5,5,7,9,9,11,11 ; Major

[audiocommander]

this seems like a good musical point :)

if the input is random-based, this will make no difference...

but on the other hand, if the input is well thought out (composed), this might be an issue;

Cheers,

Michael

[stryd_one]

I think you're right yaknow. Thanks dude! :)

I mean, either way you get the right notes, but yours is more musically correct...

I'll re-write them this week. D'oh!

Edit: actually if you're talking about transposition, you wouldn't get the right notes at all..... So yeh, this definitely needs to be re-done. Appreciate you catching that one, widdly!

[stryd_one]

The SEQ's supposed to be a stand-alone sequencer right? :)

sequencer != controller :)

[TK.]

Thank you Widdly, it's good that an expert looks over these tables :)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[DrBunsen]

This is beginning to sound like my other favourite sequencer, the Roland PMA-5. 

I love/hate this box.  Great sounds, great software, awful control surface (non-backlit touchscreen and pen).  Seeing something like this developed for the MBHP is a dream come true.

I'll try and write a bit here about the sequencer, to see if it adds anything to the discussion.

You have eight tracks, four for patterns, and four for song-length sequences.  The pattern tracks are drum, bass and two chord/poly tracks.  A pattern groups all four of these tracks together into a 1 bar to 8 bar loop.

User and preset patterns are all defined in Cmajor, and transposed as you play.  IE you write a chain of patterns in song mode, and define the chord for each one as you go.  There is a large library of chords, but no provision for user defined chords.

You then write your song-length instrumental lines into the other four tracks.

You can also drop into pattern mode, and loop a single pattern.  From here you can transpose the pattern into any other scale on the fly (although it is tricky to get it to change over right on the bar end, as it is not bar locked, and there are multiple pressed involved to select a chord).  You can mute or solo each channel and play with the FX and mixer controls.

There's also a transpose control, for cheap key-change joy.

With a MIDI controller, the on-screen keyboard, or the chord-locked "jam bar" (a small strip along the bottom of the touch screen) you can jam to any track's assigned instrument - a track that is muted internally will still play the notes you send it, but not the notes in its pattern.  There's no chord locking for input notes except for the jam bar.

I think the paradigm of sequencing chords rather than defining scales seems more musically familiar, as it is basically identical to guitar tablature, and many musicians will feel at home with both programming patterns and jamming alongside.

Or to put it another way:

* ... Styles, each of which is up to eight measures long and is made up of four parts: Drums, Bass, Accompaniment 1 and Accompaniment 2.

* Six tracks are used to create a finished Song: the Style track (which itself contains four tracks, remember), the Chord track, and four Sequence tracks.

* Use the Style track to select and chain Preset or User Styles to make up a Song's complete backing.

* Then, with the Chord track, assign chords to the Styles chosen for the Style track.

* Once your backing track of Styles and Chord progressions is finished, you can overdub up to four personal Sequence tracks...

Recording of Styles and Songs can be in step time or real time ... Individual notes and events are edited in step time ... you can edit controller information, tempo, pitch-bend, program change, and velocity information. ... transposition, track merging, copying and erasing measures ...

... a total of 26 types of chord ... Maj; M7; M9; 7; 7/b5; 7/13; 7/b9; 7/+9; 6; 6/9; m6; m6/9; 9; add9; madd9; mM9; m; mM7; m7; m7/b5; m7/b9; dim; sus4; 7sus4; aug; aug7.

... touching the stylus to the chord type in the main display ... and dragging in either direction until the desired chord is selected. When you touch and change a chord or its type, the chord sounds, giving you audio proof of your choice.

[TK.]

Sounds similar (not equal) to how I've implemented chord mode 2 (see last sneak preview #3)

A big difference is, that you can use any track (of 16) to control the transpose (of you don't want to use an external keyboard). The advantage is, that you can quickly switch between different parts of the song (e.g. chorus, break, etc...) just by changing the track group from where the transposing is done. This track group cannot only contain the transpose line, but also additional drums (for filling the beats), additional licks, or whatever.

Transpose can also be done from multiple tracks which are running at different speeds, with random gates and/or random steps for very experimental results. :)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[audiocommander]

Hi everyone,

sorry to re-activate this topic, but I've found an error, that should be corrected:

the minor scale is wrong:

SCALE_ENTRY     0, 0, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9, 11 ; Minor

SCALE_ENTRY     0, 0, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 11 ; Harmonic Minor

As the natural minor is Aeolian, it should be:

{ 0, 0, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 } // Minor

{ 0, 0, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 11, 11 } // Harmonic Minor

The minor scale on the pianoworld.com page seems to be wrong :-\

Anyway, while I'm currently working on my harmonizer, here's an C-equivalent of this table (not exactly, only scales I personally like to use); it's not yet tested (may be errors, too) and the distribution of the notes is not musically straight (like suggested from widdly) but more equally spreaded, because I want to use it with (guess what?  ;D ) sensors...

const unsigned char	scaleNames[SCALE_MAX][4] = {
	{ " - " },
	{ "MAJ" },	// Major
	{ "min" },	// Natural Minor
	{ "hrm" },	// Harmonic Minor
 { "blu" },	// Blues Minor
 { "BLU" },	// Blues Major
 { "DOR" },	// Dorian
 { "JAP" },	// Japanese
 { "jap" },	// Japanese Diminshed
 { "KUM" },	// Kumoi
 { "LOC" },	// Locrian
 { "LYD" },	// Lydian
 { "MSH" },	// Mi-Sheberach
 { "MIX" },	// Mixolydian
 { "PLG" },	// Pelog
 { "PNT" },	// Pentatonic Neutral
 { "PBL" },	// Pentatonic Blues
 { "PMA" },	// Pentatonic Major
 { "Pmi" },	// Pentatonic Minor
 { "PHR" },	// Phrygian
 { "SPA" }	// Spanish
};

const unsigned char scale_set[SCALE_MAX][12] = {
	//	C	C#	D	D#	E	F	F#	G	G#	A	A#	B
	{	0,	1,	2,	3,	4,	5,	6,	7,	8,	9,	10,	11	},	// not harmonized
	{	0,	0,	2,	4,	4,	5,	5,	7,	9,	9,	11,	11	},	// Major
	{	0,	0,	2,	3,	3,	5,	5,	7,	8,	8,	10,	10	},	// Natural Minor = Aeolian
	{	0,	0,	2,	3,	3,	5,	5,	7,	8,	8,	11,	11	},	// Harmonic Minor
	{	0,	0,	3,	3,	5,	5,	6,	7,	7,	10,	10,	10	},	// Blues Minor
	{	0,	0,	3,	3,	4,	4,	7,	7,	9,	9,	10,	10	},	// Blues Major
	{	0,	2,	2,	3,	3,	5,	5,	7,	7,	9,	10,	10	},	// Dorian
	{	0,	0,	2,	2,	5,	5,	5,	7,	7,	7,	10,	10	},	// Japanese
	{	0,	1,	1,	1,	5,	5,	5,	7,	7,	7,	10,	10	},	// Japanese Diminished
	{	0,	2,	2,	3,	3,	3,	7,	7,	7,	9,	9,	9	},	// Kumoi
	{	0,	0,	2,	2,	4,	4,	6,	7,	7,	9,	9,	11	},	// Lydian
	{	0,	1,	1,	3,	3,	5,	6,	6,	8,	8,	10,	10	},	// Locrian
	{	0,	0,	2,	3,	3,	6,	6,	7,	7,	9,	10,	10	},	// Mi-Sheberach (Jewish)
	{	0,	0,	2,	2,	4,	5,	5,	7,	7,	9,	10,	10	},	// Mixolydian
	{	0,	1,	1,	3,	3,	3,	7,	7,	8,	8,	8,	8	},	// Pelog
	{	0,	0,	2,	2,	2,	5,	5,	7,	7,	7,	10,	10	},	// Pentatonic Neutral
	{	0,	0,	3,	3,	5,	5,	6,	7,	7,	7,	10,	10	},	// Pentatonic Blues
	{	0,	0,	2,	2,	4,	4,	7,	7,	7,	9,	9,	9	},	// Pentatonic Major
	{	0,	0,	3,	3,	5,	5,	5,	7,	7,	7,	10,	10	},	// Pentatonic Minor
	{	0,	1,	1,	3,	3,	5,	5,	7,	8,	8,	10,	10	},	// Phrygian
	{	0,	1,	1,	4,	4,	5,	5,	7,	8,	8,	10,	10	}	// Spanish
	//	C	Db	D	Eb	E	F	Gb	G	Ab	A	Bb	B
};

Cheers,

Michael

[stryd_one]

Thx for the C translation! ;)

FWIW I haven't forgotten the tables for the scales... I'm doing them little bit-by-bit, they're a bit low on my list, but I'll be sure to have them ready when TK says he will be releasing the new SEQ. In the meantime, I'm soldering so that I can hear the results and spot errors like those - thanks AC!

[TK.]

Thanks! I changed this in seq_scale.inc, a new build will be available soon

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[stryd_one]

I came across this link while I was searching for a reference.... Great stuff, so I had to share.

Encyclopedia of Microtonal Music Theory

The full set of scales including the ethnic ones will be posted tonight.

[TheAncientOne]

Thanks very much for including the Pelog, Stryd. Did you find the Neil Ardley?

Best wishes

Mike

[stryd_one]

Hi Professor Mike :) There's a few more in there for those of us with unusual tastes now...

Re: MBSEQ V3 talk

Found some brief Ardley snippets but nothing complete... Stupid record stores have like 1000 copies of BackStreet Boys though hehehe