Hello,
I am working on a Pop Rock song of my friend. The song has piano in the first verse section which is a piano riff taken from EZkeys Ballad MIDI pack.
I can't play keys so I basically transpose and change the chord progression in the EZkeys player, (it's quite easy). In the background, I want to fill in the space with atmospheric pads and strings. I might use Omnisphere 2 for it or maybe something else but the point is I can't play keys. :P
So is there any midi triggering chords software which can play chords?
Other than Cthulhu.

 

Are you on ableton?

 

Chord Trigger if you are on logic X, Mucoder Tonespace ,NI Komplete Kontrol or NI Maschine
Chtulhu is the best chord generator i have tested.

 

Last edited: Jan 11, 2016

Synleor Harmony Improvisator, ChordSpace, Cognitone Harmony Navigator...

 

ChordPulse -> Export to MIDI

It's easy to fine-tune a chord progression with inversions and chord extensions. I've got some great ideas out of it.

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

I don't understand why you aren't using Ezkeys to also generate your chord patterns?

 

If you´re on Ableton, this might be interesting http://fabriziopoce.com/progressive.html

 

i would recommend Toontrack EZ Keys, they have an impressive library of various chord progressions that you can highly customize and simply import their midi clips to your project and make them play with any vsti, or simply create your own progressions

 

Last edited: Jan 11, 2016

just checked Cognitone Synfire and Synleor Harmony Improvisator, why in the fuck none of those are available cracked? doh..

synfire pro is fucking €996 !.. wtf are they kidding ? man, thats a bitch of a price

 

they not cracked for years because ilock.

 

Sorry man for asking but just out of curiosity why not Cthulhu? You could find yourself some nice midi's with pop chords and import them right in there. You could be the new Kid Massive with the one finger action.

 

Check Rapid Composer, there's been a gift from R2R lately....You can choose key, scale of your project etc...Then you generate chords, melodys, according to what you gave him as infos. It follows the progression you give (you put I, V, IV, in the master of Rapid composer for example, and If you throw a chord generator as it is called in the software, it fills your composition with chords as you told him). It is an entire composition environnement, you can use it as vsti in your DAW, set its midi output to controll your instruments, or just generate a few chords and drag and drop them in your projet. It works in stand alone too, with the possibility to work with your vstis in standalone, or use the soundfonts instruments included. I really enjoy to check a few progressions in different keys before I start a project, this way when I begin I just set the key, pick a few chord progressions good for what I'm aiming (if I want chords of course), and I'm good to go.

I know my way around music theory, but I can't play keyboard good, it's the best fixe I found...

EDIT: oh and less complicated and that can do both chord generator and arpegiator, you have Kirnu Cream, which is nice and cheap (30 euros I think, same in dollars), there are a few tutorials on the website of Kirnu that show how to use it to sequence, arpeggiate, preset chords or use it as CC sequencer...http://www.kirnuarp.com/media
I like kirnu, it's fun !

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

+1 here. I'm investing a lot of time looking for "creative MIDI tools" (for the record, it's not because I don't have a clue about music theory) .

RapidComposer seems to be the great unknown. I haven't tested it yet, but it's impressive judging for the raw feature list and the nice tutorials.

 

I want this.

 

I spent a bit of time now on the thing, I even ended up buying it as it was 40% discount for xmas, so I'm using the version 3 beta 10 , it's more stable, less messy and there is even more features.
It is really nice if you know music theory, than you can really control and fine tune in a nice interface the way your composition evolves, you can mix different keys in, scales or modes, it does the inversion in your chords for you where you want (you pick a base note then you go up or down on the grid and it inverses your chord automaticly), you can throw arpeggios, dyade run, free hand drawing, "generic" generator (it jus randomly throw notes but they are all in the key you picked), guitar stuff, bass lines, violin staccatos (!!), etc. When you change a chord in the master rule, it changes every thing you've composed so far in the previous chord to the new one ! You can test every chord mouvement you can think of. So you can just try a simple tryad first than add2 or 4 or go for the 7th, the 9th, or just try another chord, all while listening live to what it does to your composition.
It is also nice to just preview modes, scales, chords, it has them all and you can just use it as music theory dictionary.
But even if you don't know what your doing you can just pick a key, a chord progression and let it propose you stuff, and if you like it you export it. I use it like that when I don't really know what I'm going to do, writers blocks, etc.
And I've just been using it for a month or so, I'm just scratching the surface so far (I've studied music theory for a couple of years only, and it is still a pretty complicated soft), and indeed the forum is very active, people do tutorials and share them, they share phrases, it's really cool. .

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

I didn't see AuthoTheory mentionned here but i think it's probably one of the best and cheapest to get that kind of things done

 

Wow, thanks a lot for the input and for the offer. In fact I was overstating, I've a minimum theory base (and growing, like my English but even slower) and even less keyboard skills. Like I said, I haven't tested it yet, but I've looked all the videotutorials I've found in YT and I'm very impressed. Generators, phrases, what an arsenal of musical possibilities man...

For sure at the moment I can't even exploit half of its potential, but the benefits would begin soon. And the VSTi feature, wow, that's the ice on the cake. No need of complex MIDI routing or repetitive MIDI files saving/loading.

 

Out of all the apps about Cubase chord track is the best, I know cause I test all the ones that work for mac.
Chord track is fast and easy, it also suggest next chord by comparing the before and after chord if there is one.
I think you will need the cubase pro to get chord track
You can also use chord track on wav file, say you want to make some vocal harmony to match the chords in a location, easy peesy and it sounds really good, same feature as revoice pro but in a daw.
I have synfire which is great for complicated arrangements but takes long to learn and not really pop orientated but is very good to find sweet matching not popular pop chords.

Combine cubase chord track and ezkeys and you have a winner for creating pop hits for a none key player.

Its a reason why you do not see many post about cubase chord track, reason being every one who knows about it try to keep it a secret as it make it so easy to create good commercial sounding music.
Check chord track on youtube.
Get cubase chord track make some pop rock hits get rich, don't forget to drop me a mill£ or 2. This info is worth gold

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

I agree. If we talk about DAW specific only MIDI creative tools Cubase has the upper hand, but Studio One 3 features a chorder and an arpeggiator (which combined would make a mini-Cthulhu I guess). I'm sure is inferior to its Cubase counterpart, for price and for experience, but it exists. I don't know about the other major DAWS. Locic Pro has equivalents for sure.

The real winner for Cubase is the VST Expression maps and another related feature which name I don't remember right now. But this two last tools are for easy and productive management of VSTi's articulations/keyswitches. This tools really stand out, and I don't know if even Logic Pro has a match for them.

So for at least non Cubase PC DAWs, productive complex articulation management has to resort to third party VSTs or tools. In fact for my needs I'd kill to get something equivalent. Bome's MIDI translator seems the only equivalent, but AFAIK is notably harder to use. In Reaper you can program almost anything, but it's very low level (for a DAW or even VST standards) and complex program this kind of things and even harder give them an usable UI.

 

Synleor used to be called Cochleor, before they changed their name. Hope that helps.