The thing is the most advanced and useful plugins for this need to know more than the score/MIDI currently playing.
That means until something like ARA-for-MIDI is invented you only have two choices:

1. An specific DAW tool (Cubase/S1 chord tools, Reaper/FL extensions) or an specific-DAW plugin (Max for Live). Not an standard plugin.
2. A software that, standard plugin or not, has to handle all the score/MIDI data by itself and then send it to the DAW (Rapid Composer, Hexachords). Sucks because you have to learn a brand new MIDI editor/tool besides your DAW one.

That being said, Scaler works well to help, and some VSTis like EZDrummer, EZKeys, Ample Sound guitars are good too.

Edited: OMG, first timee I went in-topic in a massive off-topic-ed thread!!!
Later fellas, gonna see the doctor.... wish me luck...

 

etc

These are God's gifts so better than anything:

 

I refuse to answer your question as off-topic.

 

Rapid Composer looks like a complete head spin to me - did it take you long to understand it? It just doesn't look all that friendly, but perhaps i'm being unfair without using it. Curious what you think to it being suitable for people beginning though, the whole sequencer within in a sequencer thing just looks confusing.

 

Those shortcut tools, short circuit your brain and stop it from working properly. Anyway it's your choice to tag this post as off-topic and submerge yourself in their indefensible and hampering architectures.

 

I can not comment on the rest but Cthulu is great. It can really add some spice/twist to any synth/preset and add flow to your track.
I highly recommend the FrozenPlain Obelisk vst if you are not using a midi keyboard. It won't help you generate them, but it will help you to make your own and makes chords a million times easier.

 

Scaler, Sundog, and EZ Keys. With those three you will never need anything else.

 

No, I did not answer OP's question. Does that refute my point?

Yes, of course the OP's question can be answered intelligbly. Anyone who has tried the plugins can give their opinion on how well suited they are for a beginner. If they would like the definition of "beginner" or the OP to be more specific, they can always ask, couldn't they.

Why are you making things difficult for the OP? There is nothing wrong with the OP's question. No reason for you or anyone else to turn the topic into what you want rather than what OP meant.

 

Bro, you are being totally ridiculous. People are trying to help the OP in their own way. The only thing not helping the OP is your comment, creating animosity and controversy in a thread where there was none. BTW,I'm done talking about this. We are off-topic doing so.

 

Last edited: Sep 4, 2019

Those tools have been created by some non-musician developers that don't have even a tiny bit of knowledge about the music and paralyze the natural mechanism of development of a musical mind.

After some while their users get used to them and turn off their brains' sense of more explorations and delude themselves into knowing everything about the music.

My friend please be an adoring representative of Russia as you have always been.

 

Yeah, Steve Duda - never heard of him.... anyone else? LOL

Trolling is dumb mate, quit it before it becomes a worthless addiction.

 

Last edited: Sep 4, 2019

Band in a Box, nuff said. It doesnt mean there isnt a learning curve, but if you have a basic understanding of what chords you can use where, Band in a Box will do it, then prepare to spend about a week learning it. Compared to most other programs, that is a relatively short period to fully understanding its capability.

I did the basics of this piece in about 20 minutes with Band in a Box, and then spent another few days adding FX and layering some other stuff on top of it, but it largely was done in BIAB.

I forgot to mention, this is my guitar playing and piano playing, but everything else, acoustic guitar, percussion, bass, that is all band in a box. BIAB can do piano and electric guitar as well, but, I wanted to do my own flavor.

 

Last edited: Sep 4, 2019

Since when are DJs, electronic music producers, popular stuff makers called musicians?

Do you call this music?

 

Post your music. Its funny, you run around trolling my shit, youve had nothing interesting to say, no usable critiques, just useless dribble, yet, what have you created?

See, this is what I find interesting about trolls, they dont create anything, they dont contribute to anything, they dont want to risk putting themselves out there, they just want to do to others what they are afraid of someone doing to them.

Music is a loosely defined term. What is interesting is, you wouldnt dare try to define it because if you did, you might find yourself being proven wrong, instead, you attack people who write differently than you do. I dont like electronic music, traditional pop music, and certainly I dont care for most music DJs play, but that doesnt mean there isnt an art or a craft in what they do. It is different than what I do, it is not my taste of music, but I certainly am not going to shit all over their work.

I have sat with guys who do electronic music. People who use software like omnisphere, serum, or dune, to name a few, are doing things I would never think of doing. They are doing creative things with it. Whether they realize it or not, they are even using music theory to craft what they craft. I have mad crazy respect for that.

Anyone willing to put what they create out there, I respect.

The piece I shared, this is my electronic guitar playing and my piano playing. I used BIAB to generate the bass, drums, acoustic guitar. I have no interest in writing an acoustic drum track or electric bass line and luckily, software allows me to easily fill in the gaps. Its funny, we poopoo software that might generate music, yet, we dont poopoo software that does auto compression or auto-eqing. Plugins like Soothe or gullfoss, or Melda MSpectralDynamics are welcome, because they take the tedium out of mastering. Strange how that works...

 

I need a break from this place, every thread just becomes a slagging match over ridiculous things.
Have fun, and don't let this place turn like it has previously so many many times before. Laters!

 

chord progressions arent that hard to learn.... honestly everything is practically a major scale. your brain has been programmed to know that those chords "work"... minors modes all that shit are still the same scale but different tonics... any way. Man wow... your gonna get nowhere with music production tho... the constant failure however may push you further on your journey to actually understanding chords one day. Mny of these "producers" actually do understand chords. Honestly?.. just learn how chords are created from a scale... with that you can even trial and erro those chords into something that sounds "right." Then after you understand the three note chord, look into extended chords, which for me, took me into chords that still "worked" but actually started pulling in notes that werent in the original scale... then you can go into similar, yet different keys and shit.

Michael New has a youtube channel... everything you need to know is there.

 

Try Rick Beato too, very good teacher.

As for Chord Progressions not being hard to learn, people that have been playing for decades find it hard to come out of the C Major Scale - once you start adding in different modes and keys depending on whether you play keys or open chord guitar, shit changes REAL quick. That's why most cover bands transpose songs to suit.

In regards to the math and what these plugins do, then i agree that the structure behind it, is quite simple - it's applying it musically on an instrument basis where the skill and difficulty in learning is. And that's why people fall on plugins to immediately return the performance data for the sound they're searching - you don't need to be able to play or know of the existence of such chords, scales or modes to be able to compose a song that sounds good 'if' you have a good ear for music, of course.

 

My apologies, but this warrants a lengthy response. my first paragraph, Im going to get a little ranty, then, I have words for everyone else that are important, especially if you are not an artist.

Normally, Id agree, but this shithead has never had anything constructive to say. In another thread, this nutjob contributed to shitting all over a piece I spent just over a month working on, because, well, lets just say, he is a troll. This is what he does. He runs around shitting all over people. He is an ungrateful prick, sitting in the basement of his mommies house, with nothing intelligent to say and he certainly doesnt have the balls to risk putting any of his work, if he has even ever done anything creative in the first place, out there for other people to possibly do what he does to other people's work. That is to say, for as much of an opinion this guy seems to have, he certainly doesnt seem to have anything creative to even say, let alone put into a project, and even if he did, he wouldnt risk putting it out there for other people to shit all over.

Here is the thing people need to understand. We, as in people, need validation. Musicians, as much as they would like to disagree with this statement, we thrive on people validating our work. We thrive on people providing constructive criticism. We thrive on constructive praise. Notice the adjective there before criticism and praise? Constructive. This means, what SPECIFICALLY did you like or dislike? A general, this sounds good, this sounds amazing, this sounds like shit, those dont mean much to a musician. What we want to hear is something like, hey, that part where it gets louder and the strings play this really cool line over the top of the orchestra, that part gave me goosebumps, or, hey, that bassline seems too loud and it sounds like the trumpet is hitting a wrong note at x time.

You dont have to be a musician to provide constructive criticism. You dont even have to understand music to provide constructive criticism. However, saying more than, this sounds like shit, or, in the case of this douchenozzle's comment, "You call this music?" is just insulting. There is nothing specific to even indicate tardface even listened to the track.

There are all sorts of genres of music I dont like. This doesnt mean I would shit all over people who write that genre of music. When commenting on a genre of music I dont like, I make a specific point NOT to mention that I dont like that genre of music. I DO make it a point to be specific about what I like or dislike, because that is what musicians want to hear, that is what we NEED to improve.

I am also going to get slightly religious here, dont worry, no bible thumping, but just as an interesting point to note. We can take a valuable lesson from Paul in scripture. Before every negative critique should come something the artist is doing right. In every letter Paul writes critiquing the various churches, he begins by telling that church he is writing to, what they are doing right, then proceeds to tell them places they can improve. Always start with what you like, then what you dont like, then end with re-enforcing what you like. This helps to keep your critique from becoming negative. We are looking for critiques that are coming from a genuine place of wanting that musician to improve. Perhaps, there is nothing the musician needs to improve, great, still be specific about what you like, and ffs, dont listen to a piece and then not comment on it.

You dont need to write a novel, three or four sentences will do. We love long responses tho, so the longer, more detailed, the better, however, if you dont have time to write more, dont feel like you need to.

I am a very expressive person. I am also wordy. I have been told I need an editor for everything I write, as you can tell in this post. However, let me share one more thought on this subject and why it is such a touchy subject for me.

Being an artist requires skill. Pissing in a jar with an upside down cross is not art, there is zero skill in that. There is nothing embarrassing about working with less expensive tools, in fact, you should always start at the bottom with the cheapest tools and work your way up. A furl's crochet hook (a very expensive brand of crochet hooks ranging from $20 to $200 per hook) is going to do very little for someone just starting to crochet, but for someone who is a master in the craft of crocheting, they will do wonders. The orchestral tools main libraries will do very little for someone who doesnt know the basics. The part that takes real courage is risking something you may have spent months or even years working on and putting that out into the world for people to tell you if it is good or bad. We as artists tend to get real defensive about anything negative because what we create is a representation of who we are as one of God's creatures. When you are critiquing our work, you are critiquing the artist in a vague way.

The part that is touchy is, non-artists have no idea how what they are saying impacts the artist, because they have no idea what it feels like to have their work judged. Non-artists have no idea how to constructively critique in a way that benefits the artist. Constructive criticism is an art in itself, this is why people are paid to do it. Look at any review for a product, any good reviewer should start with what they like, what they dont like, what can be done to improve the product, and finally a recap of what they like.

All of this and I still didnt even touch on the aspect of active listening... Let me just say this, if you are going to critique someones work, at least give that artist the decency of consuming their entire work with your undivided attention.

Having said all this, Band in a Box, that is my answer.

 

For me the best plugin is my lamp plugged into the socket. It gives nice light. I can write songs all the night

 

Last edited: Sep 5, 2019

This plugin works pretty damn good for songwriting and also works for composition as well!