Plugin that makes automatic chords? (like Major,Minor,7th etc)

Siruiz

New member
Hi,

I was testing Prominy Hummingbird and I found a very interesting function.

You play the notes like C,D,E, etc on the keyboard-controller and Hummingbird gives automatically a chord for you (in the case, imitating a guitar chord).
You can chose between Major, Minor, 7th, 9th, Dim7 and so on.

So, you select Minor and type the note D, it will give D-minor chord, if you type E with Major chosen it will give E-Major chord.

I gave up of using Hummingbird because I don't have cpu enough, and nonetheless the plugin seems to work "inside itself", what I mean is that the score (like written on Ableton or other daw) is still, C,D,E, but the VSTi(instrument) will put the chord sound.

I started to think if there might be a plugin that would do the same thing but for any instrument(VSTi)?

Like, I could type C, chose major, and the plugin writes a C-Major chord on the DAW score.

It would help a lot to create harmonies to melodies. Does this sort of thing exist? Or something similar?

Thank you a lot.
 
I can't help thinking that while sounding a good idea, this kind of thing rarely produces good results because all the chords won't be in the right inversion so will sound ultra beginner? I've got a couple of VSTi guitar instruments that do this kind of thing and they're not that usable really. The one that works best takes your chord and then inverts or spreads it to make it sound better on a guitar - but that processing would be pretty horrible on a piano sound? Like those awful auto accompaniment systems on organs where they play one finger chords. You soon discover how limiting it is, or unrealistic it sounds.
 
EZ Keys has this functionality, if I'm understanding your needs correctly. You can create a chord, choose which variant and inversion you want, and apply a MIDI pattern to it. You can build fragments or an entire song within EZ Keys itself, then you're free to export the MIDI to your DAW and apply it to any VSTi. Or you can let EZ Keys play it through one of its pianos.
 
Cthulhu, Chordz, Scaler, Scale Wizard, Liquid Notes, Chord Composer, Chord Master, etc., etc. There's a scad of this type of plugin available, free and/or commercially, to drive your VIs via MIDI. I could be wrong but Cthulhu seems to have the widest third-party support (most expansions/presets). Just Google "chord generator vst" or "harmony generator vst" and you will get a substantial list of places to start your investigations. The better ones will easily do inversions a variety of ways and divisi but you have to read up on them to find the one that fits your requirements and workflow. Don't settle for any that have the limitations that Rob pointed out. Since setup and routing can be the most daunting part of using these, make sure the one(s) you settle on has clear setup instructions or, even better, videos for setup and routing. You should also see if that Kontakt guitar library will allow you to transmit the chord data as MIDI---you may already have a "chorder" that's already paid for and that you're already familiar with. Some DAWs even include chording features.

Paj
8^)
 
Back
Top