Midi Chord strummer?
I'm trying to create a Max patch that uses either a keyboard split or a separate midi controller to control the strumming of keys of a held chord on the primary controller. The general idea would be strumming notes like a guitar. The general idea would be to play a chord with one hand but then to iterate through the chords using the other controller/zone, which would be drumpads.
There's a strum patch that does this with pitchbend or modwheel, and I created a preprocessor that converts my strumming notes to PB, but it's kind of wonky and the results don't work well. It needs to be fast because the strumming will eventually come from drumpads.
I've gotten as far as splitting my controller, so I can debug it using one keyboard. And I can capture the list of notes for both the chord and the strumming. But I'm not sure how to combine them. I want to play the notes on the chord side, using the velocities and gates from the strum side.
Any tips?
Thx!
what I don't understand is "iterate through the chords"
which chords do you mean, collection of predefined chords ?
if you hold a chord using 1st split , that's it.
then use whatever to trigger chord notes ascending or any kind of order
using 2nd split or controller.
each note on triggers next note for example.
No, a chord I'd just play on half the keyboard. I've seen lots of devices that make chords, or I'd just play it and hold the sustain pedal.
But it won't make any sound until you hit the strum keys. And then they'd just strum through the notes on the chord. Kind of like guitar fingerpicking. You fret a chord but don't get any sound until you strum the strings. An omnichord would be another example.
That should be no big deal if you explain how do you want to perform strumming.
Held notes from 1st split can be stored in coll including their velocity if you want so.
Or only notes.
then you trigger output , now just explain how you want to do it.
More explicitly
You play a chord and store the notes without triggering output
Then trigger the stored notes as arpeggio using … what you mentioned other section of keyboard or drum pad
[zl reg]
this should get you going with keys split and notes storage into coll
more to come when you explain how to strum
Thanks!!! -- I can't wait to try that when I get home!!
So, there are no arpeggios. Everything's meant to be played real time. And at first at least, one strum note would trigger one of the interval notes.
I have a couple of ideas for how I'd allocate the strumming notes, and it will come down to what seems best playability wise when translated to different types of controllers.
So lets assume the strumming zone is 1 octave and that chords could be 2-6 notes.
Option 1 is to just to map the notes to play the intervals in order. So C=1, C#=2, D=3.... I'm pretty sure I can extend it myself to do things like go up and down octaves for additional notes or even add fast up or down strokes. The strums would be controlled by drum triggers or something like an Eraetouch.
The notes that aren't mapped to an interval, so the ones that are greater than the #of notes in the chord, could perhaps play notes in different octaves or maybe do a fast strum of the whole chord (up or down) like a guitar. I figured I would see what's playable first.
BTW, this is where this idea started. This is a VST called Strum for AAS (not to be confused with the max patch called strum). In one of it's modes, it works as I've described. The guitar samples in this (amazing) VST are optimized for things like mutes and various guitar gestures. This wouldn't apply to most other VSTs. But individual notes, all up stroke, all downstroke, and octaves should apply to anything.
AAS Strum has other shortcuts in it, like if you play just one note in the chord zone, it just sets the chord to a major triad on that note. And it has some ways to generate inversions if you hit many notes. I don't really need that. There are other Max objects that do that kind of stuff. But the strumming seems unique.
This video shows a little of what I'm doing with strum. I'm using the Red Boppad to output 16 different notes that map to the strumming options of the vst above. I grouped them together to make it playable. Then I bolted the thing to an Artiphone Chorda, that's controlling the chord.
A lot of other things are happening. The artiphone is going through the Eventide Misha in my modular to step through scales. But you can see bits of the idea in this.
Thanks!!!!
-Bill (roundingerror.nyc)
I see it simple, you have notes in a chord and want to strum them
or play them as a stroke.
You can't really strum with proper velocity using white and black keys.
As guitar player I can tell you that strum has last note accented,
and on the wished beat. slow strum does not really exist.
And every chord played with plectrum is actually up or down stroke strum,
only that interval between notes can be so short that it can't be really
intercepted and declared as a strum.
At the end it is a question how do you spit out notes from chord,
in what order and how fast.
So once you decde about what exactly suits best your strum needs
and need help about logic arround it simply post here.
I'm struggling with how to actually get the notes out of the collection in coordination with the strummed key. I'm trying to retrieve the note by it's Index, which should be the strumkey-keysplit (which is 48). But it keeps interpreting the integer I send to the collection as the value of the first element. So below it will only match 12, 16,19, 23 instead of 1,2,3,4
Sorry, I haven't figured out how to embed my max code here yet.
Do I need to force an index value into the heldnotes collection using listfunnel?
Thanks for your help. I'm going through the Kadenze max course, but it's so different than the kind of procedural programming I'm used to!
I'm not trying to emulate guitars, the AAS VST does that as well as I'd ever need. This is more for other sounds, piano, pitched percussion, and modular. The velocities of the strum notes do need to be used for the note that's played, so even if you play the same note over and over, you can accent it. So it should used the strummed velocity not the one in the collection.
But this doesn't need obey any of the rules of a guitars, such as note order. And inversions would just work as played. So if you chorded CEG, then S1=C, S2=E, S3=G. And if you chorded GCE, S1=G, S2=C... There's no need to re-sort the notes.
In a way, the idea comes from Bruford. Though his setup uses fixed pitches. I have other max objects that move around through scales and sometimes play chords.
The one thing I can't get to work so far, is to play the note in the heldnotes collection by its index. And I also need to add using the Strummed velocity.
ok, now you posted enough infos to go forward.
As you don't need velocity from chord notes, we can ignore them and store only note values.
using numeric index in coll is a bit tricky,
because you can add or remove held notes,
and one needs to resort them in order to output different strums.
I mean to index notes 1,2 3 4 etc, not by their pitch.
but I still don't understand relation between trigger and chord.
should any received note progress through notes,
when and how do you want to stop and reset and so on.
in principle you can bang coll and it will loop through indexes.
From your screenshot, you tried to recall notes
by matching transposed input from 2nd split ?
here is option - any note from split 2 triggers next one in the chord,
using velocity
for simplicity, I used 2nd kslider set to touchscreen mode for triggering.
P.S. had to reupload patch, one patchcord got deleted by mistake...
Thanks! I'm not sure what the black keyboard is doing. I can't get it to make a sound. So maybe this helps....
In my screenshot, I set a split point of 48, and then split the notes between two zones in a simple subpatcher like this. (In reality it might be two different controllers, but I deal with that prior by combining midi sends from other tracks that might preprocess various things)
The strumming keys don't need to really know anything musically or algorithmically about the chords. Simply playing the notes in order of low to high is probably fine.
Since you're a guitarist, maybe thinking in strums is what's confusing. Think of it more like fingerpicking. The chord is fretted and there's no sound until you pick strings. And you can finger pick in any order (and velocity) to your heart's content until you change to a new chord. And when you switch chords, those same picking fingers play the same string, but might get a different note.
Just replace picking strings with hitting a key or drumpad.
The mapping of the triggering notes would be static, say just 1-5. I was trying to do midinote-keysplitnote, which amounts to the same thing.
S1 would always just play the lowest note of the chord, S2, the second note, S3 the third. That's it. They don't need to know much about the chords at all. Probably sorting them low to high is enough. And they only change notes when you play a different chord.
The Reset would be when lift the held chord or let up on the sustain pedal. I suppose, if you hold sustain and play more keys, they're added to the chord list. And when there's no buffered chord the strumming keys wouldn't trigger anything. There's no persistent memory between chords other than when sustained.
If you happen to reuse notes in subsequent chords, like you start with CEG, strum for a while, and then play ACE, during the first chord S1=C but for the second chord S1=A and S2=C. Its OK that the C moved from pad 1 to 2. I don't think that will matter in practicality. It will sound good when the chords sound good.
In fact the notes played by a given strum key will jump around all the time as the chords move.
Think of it perhaps like an autoharp, dulcimer, or an omnichord. You pick chords on one side of the instrument, but you play rhythmically on the other side with very little thought about the actual notes. Or as Keith Richards supposedly said, "You use your brain with your left hand and your heart with your right!"
Thanks again!
black keys mimick midi input.
Which is not possible from left kslider set to polyphonic mode
which I used to set notes in a chord.
Check kslider help file.
picking or strumming , it makes no difference to me.
It is a simple logic. you have notes in a chord,
now set some rules how to spit them out and that's it.
If you really play left hand cords, you will have max 5 notes in theory.
Assign 5 trigger notes on 2nd split and do whatever you want.
here is test patch:
set notes on left keyboard, play 5 red notes on right one.
I removed splits, you can do that as you want.
Ah, OK, I see how it works in your test patch.
Let me see how I can wire it up. In Max proper, I know I can use two controllers and more than one midi channel, but Max4Live restricts me to midi channel. That's why I was trying to do it using a strumming range on just one controller like a keyboard split. M4L makes it easier to create and manage a template for my setup.
Outside of this patch, I have lots of things that remap midi notes and route midi.
Thank you SO much for your help! I'll post something when I have it working as intended.
-Bill in NYC