Hi, I'm a beginner, I'm looking for a program to use as inspiration for musical composition. Pop music, rock, pop music, funk so I am not a DJ and I am not looking for electronic music but I am looking for inspiration for the composition of songs to compose new songs to be played live with the band.

I found several plugins on the net, I discovered Captain Plugin (with the various melody, bass, chord and beat) could you tell me if it can do for me or is it only recommended for DJs?

any other suggestions?

thank you very much for the informations

 

First of this Plugin is pretty uninspired and generic (so no not really inspiration imho ) And it doesn't teach you the basics you'll need

a good beginning would be a proper (short) course in music theory specially for a total beginner

It really doesn't matter if your genre is pop, Rock, metal, electro or what ever Chords are Chords and chord progressions are chord progressions

Learn how the Circle Of Fifths works and you could write nearly every Chord progression ever

From there you can start with something like Xfers Cthulhu(with preset packs ), Plugin Boutique Scaler W.A Insta Chord, (or big gun Loomer Architect) (last one is high level experimental and complex but freaking flexibly) just to get the feeling for the Chords / for quick prototyping ideas, in the synth/sampler of your choice
If it works here. I will work with your Band.


All cost much less than Captain Plugin (except Loomer )

and

https://www.codefn42.com/chordz/index.html is free


They all similar to each other

They give you scales and Chords (Loomer only with a Preset I wrote on KVR for that purpose)

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 25, 2019

Thanks a lot for the answer

Im not completly beginner for a music theory, im a beginner in the use of plugins or similar

Im a singer, im gonna studying how to play piano but in meanwhile im trying to write anything with my band, so im looking for somenthing to get inspirantion using chords and sing on that.

I'm still not able to play smoothly, so I would like to use a plugin like captain chords (and the others of the pack) or Scaler or i rly dunno what is better for me

I have seen many videos of how captain plugins work, do you think they can be useful to my cause? Once found what interests me it would then be arranged to be played with the band (therefore I don't need to mix or anything else)

I hope you understand what I'm looking for

many thanks

 

You should get an arranger keyboard if you want to play with a band or for software try band in a box.

 

Band in a Box
Orb Composer
ChordPulse
Rapid Composer
Onyx Arranger
vArrenger²

 

Like I wrote before

Try Chordz

Freeware https://www.codefn42.com/chordz/index.html (If it's wrong for you at least you don't spend money for it )

More than that will sabotage your creative deployment in music in my opinion. (I went this way as well and know what I'm talking)

The difference is that Chordz, Cthulhu,Scaler ,Insta Chord,Architect are tools for Chords. (very similar in that way)

While the great list from massichat are tools for Chord progressions.

The´ll take decisions for you.
If you want that take captain plugins or what ever (I think for learning they'll good, but not for creativity )

But If you want to develop your own chord progressions, with maybe strange but unique structures go with the other stuff.

 

ok i'll go to study everything u said

there are some plugins discount so i need to be sure what buy

it i choose for scaler or captain chords or other suggested can i use that on differenti pc? or just on single machine?

 

AutoTheory is cool too since they've made a vst version of it.
It's also stand alone and it can host vst instruments, plus with its included "sequencer" it would be perfect for what you're searching.

You record directly your chord prog, then you loop it to write lyrics, melody, rythm or whatever.

 

Agree with all of the above, but could elaborate further.
They're not just about chord progressions.
In fact the following items mostly rely on you to provide your own chord progressions.
Band in a Box, vArranger, and one other not mentioned, 'One Man Band', provide 'styles'.
- Band in a Box styles are proprietary format
- One Man Band handles Yamaha styles
- vArranger handles Yamaha styles and Roland styles (and several others)

The nice thing about styles is how they let you feed your own chord progressions into fake bands playing in multiple genres
and then see/hear what comes out the other end.

So, for example, imagine you've written a rock song and you just fancy hearing what it might sound like if you asked a jazz quartet to play the same chord progression. If, like me, you can't afford to hire, and can't play like, a jazz quartet,
you can instead, ask BiaB, One Man Band, or vArranger to pretend to be, e.g., a jazz band (or a band in almost any genre) and then feed your chord progression into it.
The results you get back will range from a bloody awful cheesy mess, through to occasionally really inspiring.
So, for example, your next guitar solo might be 'influenced by' a snippet of what you heard from a clarinet player joining in with a trad jazz quintet that was mercilessly crucifying your rock chord progression.

With One Man Band and vArranger, you open the door to the world of Yamaha styles and Roland styles
and there are hundreds of thousands of them freely available on the web.
Even if only 5% of those styles are interesting to you, you can still some find some real gems that can easily throw some surprising strange ideas at you, ideas you probably wouldn't have dreamt up yourself.

If people try to lazily get 'end results' out of these nice toys, they will be mostly disappointed but if you just want to get creatively provoked into areas outside of your own style(s) using your own chord sequences, then these are great fun to explore.
The fact that they can all export the midi for whatever quirky stuff they generate is of course a major attraction.

 

Last edited: Dec 26, 2019

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some are so old software and are expensive and im not sure so good like last updated software

other suggestion?

 

i tried Chordz, good but im not sure is so good like Scaler or InstaChords, there are no suggestions in Chordz

What "other stuff" you mean?

 

My bad or is very similar to the others proposed? but is more expensive. I rly dunno i wanna try to get some but they all look very similar

 

This one´s the best for me.


http://www.synleor.com/improvisator.html

 

I have tried a lot of those quoted above. I use some. Both chorders and more advanced arranger type Rapid Composer (my personal fav).
I personaly find Autotheory much better than scaler, Cthulhu and the other chorders I've tried. It has a more functionalities for personalizing the chords, a very practical function to change directly in the same key the mode (black keys trigger the change of mode for example from Major to Dorian), so while you play and record you can change that, and it's both a chorder and an arp/bass/mel player at the same time in the same interface (chorder and what they call smart scale/Multi Arp).
For example if your C 2 plays a D minor and you picked the scale C major, and you hit C 3 (which trigger either the arpeg, or you can simply play single notes and add a melody or bass line on top of your chord) it will take for root the tonic of the chord you selected with C 2, so here D, with D 3 playing E, etc. The C 3 always has the tonic of the chord you pick and the next notes (D 3, etc) follows the scale you picked but from the tonic of the chord you're playing as a starting point, it dynamicaly adapts to the scale you picked and the chord you're playing, but you can even chose that specific adaptation behavior (dynamic scale, relative scale, absolute scale, etc). On this mel/bass/arp part of the interface you can also highly configure how it will react to your playing (type of arp, speed, velocity, octave etc).
The stand alone part, and vst instrument hosting possibility is also a great plus, at least imo. I really wanted to also be able to use it inmy daw, which is also the case since V5.
The price is indeed more important, and also you'll have to use ilok manager. You don't need a dongle, but it's still ilok.
Scaler is very good too. Very versatile. But the arp part is very basic, and no smart scale tool which I just really enjoy.

 

+1 for Scaler it's a beast, although having a little music theory knowledge certainly does help when using this software.

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2019

Scaler is very good at what it does, i.e. chords & scales. You can use 3rd party arp plugins, or the ones that are built into a synth if you require more functionality.

With Scaler you can customise every chord, and then drop them into the Chord Sequencer (4x8 chords), which is your sound palette for each song.

I find it very useful for prototyping new songs and finding groups of chords that sound good together. If you make the right chord choices it is easy to quickly produce an inspiring song outline, and you only need one finger to do it, leaving the other hand free to explore a melody or baseline.

They also add new features with every update, and it is still evolving, so maybe the arp section will receive more attention at some point in the future.

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2019

If you need to find inspiration and at the same time find a sound that is your own, take an up-tempo song and rearrange it into a ballad or the other way around. Before I could write a song of my own, this is how I would work with a band. It taught me everything I needed to know without ever needing formal training and set me on a career as a composer, arranger and performer. This transformation happened fairly quickly between 1979 and 1982 with no software or plugins and now I do film scores. Still can't read music. But the same method still works for me. If I'm staring at the computer with no ideas, I'll pick a song and mess with it. Ideas follow.

 

If you haven't found where you looking for, there are midipacks for example toontrack ezkeys

 

Surely there must be software that can just write a whole song for you while you're out buying sneakers. Shop for jeans and a few tops and your first album will be ready, mixed, mastered and released. Stay long enough at the mall for a haircut and you may have won a Grammy by the time you get home.

 

Arp in synth suck, mostly. And the smart scale tool, to write bassline and melodies, is mostly what I was refering to.I like to have one tools that does different stuff very well
I love scaler very much too. I go for it to pick a chord prog sometimes build one, but I use AutoTheory to jam, find inspiration, and more generally get a beat stated on several aspects. I can refine the chords afterward, thanks to its chord editor. Love that you can change mode and key on the fly.
AuthoTeory is a great tool that does several things very good, which is what I enjoy about it.

Also, like @Zenarcist wrote, I would strongly advice to anyone wanting to use those tools to learn theory, at least the basis, before using them. They become mostly empty shells if you don't have a few notions of music theory. You can of course use very basic functionalities blindly, but it's a bit a waste, they can be powerfull assistant if you know a bit what you're doing.
Something like Rapid Composer is completely unusable if you don't know theory. Heck in its case you actually should know it pretty well. Most choices you can make can only be made through knowing the terminology of theory, etc.

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2019