easy synth chords for guitar player

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mirage2101
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 7:06 pm

easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by mirage2101 » Sat May 02, 2015 7:14 pm

Hi all,

A while ago I started using ableton to record my guitar music and I'm having a lot of fun with it.
But.. I'd like to use some synths as background. Maybe some piano etc.

Now I've had keyboard lessons for a couple of months but to be honest I just can't be bothered. I'd much rather put my time in guitar and music in general then learn to play a second instrument. I thought I would enjoy it but alas..

So the next question is.. What is the best way to put down some chords for a song?
Sure I can program them but that's a pain in the ass.
The chord plugin ableton has requires a lot of work go get every chord right and isn't an easy way to go: C Dm Am G or whatever.

I've been poking around for plugins but either they are 32bit, or are just as much of a pain to work with.

Komplete Kontrol sounds nice, and i'd even fork it out. But the generated chords and arp data isn't sent to the DAW. So to make a chord backing track with it is useless..


In the end I just want an easy way to put down some chords/arp without getting bogged down in hours of fiddling. Scale mapping would be a bonus but not even really needed.
And it'll be in support of my guitar. I don't expect to become a great player this way.

vondersulzburg
Posts: 31
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:59 pm

Re: easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by vondersulzburg » Sat May 02, 2015 9:52 pm

I would use sundog from feelyoursound. cheap and great for creating chord progressions and arms and melodies all in the right scale !.

http://www.feelyoursound.com

mirage2101
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 7:06 pm

Re: easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by mirage2101 » Sun May 03, 2015 11:33 am

That actually looks good!

Too bad it doesn't support inversions but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.
And it's a lot less money then komplete or other controllers.

cheers!

Angstrom
Posts: 14921
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:22 pm
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Re: easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by Angstrom » Sun May 03, 2015 12:17 pm

Jam origin's software which polyphonically tracks guitar and turns it into midi is what most people find themselves using.

http://jamorigin.com/products/midi-guitar/

There is an offline audio to midi facility in Ableton Live, but like so many features in the application it's just the sketch of an idea, with no controllability.

mirage2101
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 7:06 pm

Re: easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by mirage2101 » Sun May 03, 2015 4:52 pm

I tried the audio to midi funcionality. It didn't really help. I'll give this a shot though!


It's strange that there's a lot of people looking for this kinda stuff and most solutions are very specific or not completely fleshed out.

Bagatell
Posts: 620
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2005 3:33 pm
Location: Sierra Nevada, Spain

Re: easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by Bagatell » Sun May 03, 2015 5:03 pm

Angstrom wrote:Jam origin's software
has just been updated to V2 and is getting very good reviews.

jlgrimes
Posts: 1770
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:55 am
Location: Atlanta, Ga

Re: easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by jlgrimes » Sun May 03, 2015 5:07 pm

mirage2101 wrote:Hi all,

A while ago I started using ableton to record my guitar music and I'm having a lot of fun with it.
But.. I'd like to use some synths as background. Maybe some piano etc.

Now I've had keyboard lessons for a couple of months but to be honest I just can't be bothered. I'd much rather put my time in guitar and music in general then learn to play a second instrument. I thought I would enjoy it but alas..

So the next question is.. What is the best way to put down some chords for a song?
Sure I can program them but that's a pain in the ass.
The chord plugin ableton has requires a lot of work go get every chord right and isn't an easy way to go: C Dm Am G or whatever.

I've been poking around for plugins but either they are 32bit, or are just as much of a pain to work with.

Komplete Kontrol sounds nice, and i'd even fork it out. But the generated chords and arp data isn't sent to the DAW. So to make a chord backing track with it is useless..


In the end I just want an easy way to put down some chords/arp without getting bogged down in hours of fiddling. Scale mapping would be a bonus but not even really needed.
And it'll be in support of my guitar. I don't expect to become a great player this way.
You might want to try a combination of the scale and chord midi plugins. That said it might be easier learning your basic triads (major, minor, diminished, augmented) and work up from there. Guitar center used to sell chord books that probably work well.

Max 4 Live might have some better midi tools as well for this.

mirage2101
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 7:06 pm

Re: easy synth chords for guitar player

Post by mirage2101 » Mon May 04, 2015 7:52 am

I tried the combo of chord and midi plugins. But there's not setup there that truly is a catch all.
I tried to set it up so I could play a chord progression I know the chords to but it required two or three seperate setups.

I got keyboard lessons thinking I'd run through some basics fairly quick but honestly. It's a lot more difficult then it sounds. Playing a bass line and a melody at the same time, or chords and melody. The last six months really made me appreciate the work that goes into learning this stuff.

Thing is.. I've put in my practice time the last 6 months but it leaves me very little time for guitar or other music stuff next to "real life". And I realized it just doesn't leave me enough time to do what I really want to be doing. And learning to play keyboard isn't fun or fullfilling. So I'm looking for alternatives.

Turns out that komplete kontrol has an update and is now sending midi data to DAW when in performance mode (chords and arp). So that might be the way to go after all.

I hope I'm not sounding like a spoiled brat here. But the music I'd like to be making would really benefit from synths. At the same time I'd like to put time in what I love and not something I just tolerate. Or at least not this much time.

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