Create chords by playing them via MIDI

Feature Requests
1

What is the problem?

I (And many others) do not know a lot about music theory, but know how to play chords or what chords we seek for our composition.

What should this feature achieve?

This method of constructing chords would involve playing the desired chords (In the internal pads or external MIDI device) and record them for further use.

Are there any workarounds?

None that I know of (Apart of sending them from a DAW, of course) I can always seek for the chrods through the menus, but it can be a long and frustrating endeavour.

Any links to related discussions?

I know you guys probably work with C, rust or something like that, but this library can do the the chord detection i suggest: tonal/packages/chord-detect at main · tonaljs/tonal · GitHub

Chord.detect(["D", "F#", "A", "C"]); // => ["D7"]
Chord.detect(["F#", "A", "C", "D"]); // => ["D7/F#"]
Chord.detect(["A", "C", "D", "F#"]); // => ["D7/A"]
Chord.detect(["E", "G#", "B", "C#"]); // => ["E6", "C#m7/E"]

Any references to other products?

EDIT: Synthesia has a functionality ni which, if you play a chord it gets “translated” to words, such algorythm could be used to input the chords in the chord editor.

4 Likes
4

Open for voting - but…you can actually do this now in beta but it is untested, could have some bugs and the chances the feature is expanded on are slim. I just played with it no problem, and it is pretty fun! Okay - to do it:

WARNING: UNTESTED - Back up your SD card first.

  1. Set up MIDI control for the synth you want to play chords on.
  2. Set the chosen synth to “chord pack”
  3. Go to Grid in main menu
  4. Press shift+LFO+ADSR - grid turns white to enter notes via pads.
  5. Press the “Chord Rec” screen button, and play a chord - it should capture it if done properly.
  6. Press “Scene” to go back to the Grid menu,
  7. Select a new pad and repeat steps “4-6” for each chord you want to create.
  8. Remember to save your pack by pressing Ch Edit - Save/Load

Note: You need to play the chord’s notes all at 1 time, if you press another note afterward it will overwrite your chord. This is a hidden beta feature that we are not currently testing, please do not submit bug reports for it at this time. Happy to hear feedback below though.

1 Like
5

Thank you very much @Mitch! :top:

Unfortunatelly i have found a really strange problem not only I cannot access the new hidden functionality, I am also unable to access the “normal” chord pack editor D:

I tried to downgrade and upgrade several times before posting, do you know if anybody else has found this problem? (As in no chord editor at all in 1.2.0?) I’ll ask in the chat also :wink:

6

Try deleting your workspace folder and reloading it

1 Like
7

Wow! such a fast response :blush: thank you :smile:

I tried it, and also while I was deleting the folder, I also deleted the older firmwares I already had in the folder, reinstalling, etc, with no luck.

all chord pack edit mentions on my device have completely disappeared haaha

Don’t worry about it for now, man, this can wait to be solved, I don’t have any shows this weekend or anything lol :wink:

8

ah sorry - this is untested but never seen that happen so I’ll add a backup warning to the instructions - did you try reuploading the chord pack folder to the sd card? I think that might do the trick.

9

yes, it is puzzling indeed!

Tried that and I also deleted some custom chord packs I previously created (specially since I had one with the string $$$, in case the special characters were causing a bug) and restored the default ones (I had a backup of everything already) while keeping in mind to delete workspace (I am also using an init scene for most of these tests).

Feel free to ask me if you need more troubleshooting steps or info, I’m glad to help.

I am thinking about creating a bug maybe? It’s weird for the edit chord pack functionality to disappear altogether, don’t you think?

10

Oh my… we would love to find a similar hidden feature in the next Play/Play+ firmware. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
11

Did you get it working? The chord pack editor button looks like it disapears if the chord pack folder is empty. If you have a populated chord pack folder it should go back up.

12

Oh figured it out - load a chord pack and then if you hit one of the synth pads assigned to the chord pack the button will pop back up.

13

it worked beautifully @Mitch Thank you again! :smiley:

I also tried the “konami code” while I was at it and it seems to work, unfortunately this week I haven’t had a lot of time for music and tried it without sound or external midi for now, but the screen shows the chords I play which is exactly what I was asking for! I think tomorrow can get a more thorough look at it with sound and everything haha :wink:

1 Like
14

Hi! I’m not able to access this hidden menu after following the instructions. Was it removed? I’m running firmware 1.2.0 build 1663