(UPDATE+vid) - ableton chord session based on circle of 5ths

[slicedbread]

i thought i'd share this ableton live session file...it lets you sound like 90% of pop music ever made.

here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieuDEx313nM

** added another video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2_hXAqPHtQ **

*** added more scales/chords ***

**** added more chords ****



the key to using the circle of fifths is to bend the rules a little, otherwise you'll sound too much like a textbook.

link: http://www.wheelmaker.net/media/tonyschords.zip

let me know if you use it.

[hurlingdervish]

wowwww

this was a big undertaking on your part. big props.

i need to learn more scales to get out of the loop im in (cmin, dmin, fmin, gmin)

and although i retain a lot of this knowledge from guitar, the way you laid it out will help me a lot in practicing. thanks man!!

although i understood it, you may want to consider a slowed down version of the vid, theres a lot of info there at the beginning. you sure did sound funny though and i appreciate the thought of saving us from boredom

[Tone Deft]

some very cool tools man, thanks! it would be handy to marry some chord and scale plug ins with those clips.

thanks for the contribution!!

btw did you speed up your voice or do a few lines before recording that?? the voice is a little hard to understand but the video shows the features more than well enough to make up for it.

[slicedbread]

wtf are you guys talking about? thats how i talk

i figured the library should be clean as far as midi plug-ins go. i can always customize it in my calling session if i wanted to change the velocity or add a random plug. i find these work much better than the midi plugs because they're already printed out and ready for you to tweak as opposed to the live midi plug-ins which are good for different reasons. the main thing here is the grouping of the chords into families that sound good together. the order the chords appear under their respective key header follows the key's I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII chords. you can't hit a bum note (unless you want to). a triad thrown in and make any textbook riff sound better.

i just think it's awesome that ableton chose to use this object oriented approach to session components/clips. you can think of the session as a really simple class you can inherit from in your project.

[Johnisfaster]

woooooooooohhhhhhh this is gonna be handy!

mucho gusto!

[theque]

nice one

[Bleep Blop Ima Robot]

ohh nice thanks

[Grappadura]

awesome thx a lot!!

[mr.ergonomics]

thanks!

[3dot...]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
T H A N K Y O U
(...this is going straight into the ol' Library)

[nuxnamon]

thanks for sharing as this looks like it took some time to make.. i would totally hug you if you were here (in a cool and manly way)

[heavensdaw]

Sir...You are a man amongst gerbils!!

Gonna have some fun with this.. I can feel a symphony coming on!

Cheers

Oh yeah btw .. I thought you'd had a quick squirt of helium to get that rad voice effect!

Hd

[kramerica]

Sorry if this is explained in the video, but why are the chords laid out in what seems to be different octaves/positions? I'm not a music theory guy so excuse me if I say stupid things and use terminology wrong.

For example, I picked the Key of Bm, dragged the chords over like your video showed and assigned them to my midi keyboard.

So it goes:
D
Em
Gbm
G
A
Bm
C
F

The A is a lower pitch than the D even though the A is further up the scale. The Gbm is way higher than the A even though it comes before the A (left of it on the keyboard). And then the 8th chord is an F instead of a D at the octave up. What's going on here?

Aside from my confusion, this is an awesome thing you did so kudos.

[slicedbread]

i'm not really a theory expert either. i assembled these from some charts i had... there could very well be errors. from what i understand every major key has a complement minor key, for example D major = B Minor. After mapping a major key's chords I didnt change the order of the chords for the relative minor.. just copied it over and i think that's still the right order to refer to them. Minor key progressions should usually start on the VI chord (the minor chord of the key), major key progressions usually start on the I chord... also the chords based on a black note are going to be an octave higher than the white notes. Why? because when i was fooling around it just sounded better to me to have the black key chords an octave higher to mix it up. no good reason really... that might be driven by what vst you're driving. As far as D, Em, Gbm, G, A, Bm, C, F goes... i'm pretty sure that's the Bm key. As far as the perceived pitch... i started mapping chords going up at A, B, C, D, E, F, G... then the black keys. again no good reason.... maybe there's a clever way to force one octave always on a midi channel.

[Nick the Zombie]

Wow, thank you very much for doing this. Good incentive to increase my theory knowledge!