Feature requests

[elvistcb3577]

I like simplicity in tools. And it's cool that this is open source.

That said I always felt like arppegiators were always overrated in some regards. Basically melody generators that restrict themselves to a chordal context and being pattern-centric. The musical point of arppegiation is to monophonically represent chordal progressions. Basically harmony via melody, or horizontal harmony. (Hey! I can play a chord on my trumpet!!). The real value of any arppegiation tool is the pattern generation and dynamic automapping relatively to set of notes (i.e. the pattern is relative notes not absolute).

I do like the polyphonic capability here. And it feels more like a fingerpicking pattern maker. I always felt like arppegiators plugins only exist because DAWS still insist on presenting piano rolls ONLY as absolute representation of static underlying notes of the MIDI stream. So programs like RapidComposer abstracts this out into a concept called phrases. Thus you have a layer over the pianoroll that is based on relative pitch not absolute pitch (which is how 99% of the world "hears" music anyway). The piano roll is outdated to me (except for maybe fine tuning a composition at its end stage).

I continue to be amazed how many plugin tools are just reinventing an outdated wheel.

[elvistcb3577]

For motive development (and just in general) it would be nice if each history of the phrase generated held its own snapshot of the variations applied. Maybe have a global variations for the generator and an option to override for each history item.

Also for ghost phrases that ability to toggle off/on if tied to the main phrase selected history index then select on the ghost itself.

[musicdevelopments]

Yes, this is not difficult to implement to include the variations in the history.
Thanks!
Attila

[elvistcb3577]

I am breaking this guideline. You can really make some cool ostinatos with the percussion generator. Yes Ostinato generator is powerful but there are a couple things that the percussion generator has that it doesn't. With that said it would be nice in the Ostinato generator to merge some of the percussion features.

The one I like is the dynamics put in by the percussion generator. Also stacking the rhytmic patterns create a slightly different feel than the Ostinato generator, which feels more arppegiated (which is absolutely fine if that is the sound you want). Or you could just rename the percussion generator to the percussive and allow the mapping to also allow mapping to the chord notes.

One thing I notice is how the rhythm generator is presented with the addition of the ability to do rhythmic displacement. Is the rhythm generators in the percussion generator the new tye of interface we should be seeing all generators going forward?

[yellukhan]

Variation: Mirror Horizontally
is this possible: Keep Notes Start Position?
here is how it works in FL Studio
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e1wDK ... bCZD2Gly43

[musicdevelopments]

I am breaking this guideline. You can really make some cool ostinatos with the percussion generator. Yes Ostinato generator is powerful but there are a couple things that the percussion generator has that it doesn't. With that said it would be nice in the Ostinato generator to merge some of the percussion features.

Very good observation! Feel free to break the rules. If you scroll to the bottom of the note menu (it is long), you'll find chord notes options:

Also stacking the rhytmic patterns create a slightly different feel than the Ostinato generator, which feels more arppegiated

Right! The Strings Staccato generator also creates a stacked pattern that is usable for other purposes, I think.

Is the rhythm generators in the percussion generator the new type of interface we should be seeing all generators going forward?

Yes, I think so. If you mean the vector graphics icons, yes, all graphics will be replaced. More and more people use 4K monitors and these icons nicely scale with the font size. If you mean the ease of use, well, I am trying hard to simplify things...

Thanks,
Attila

[musicdevelopments]

Variation: Mirror Horizontally
is this possible: Keep Notes Start Position?
here is how it works in FL Studio
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e1wDK ... bCZD2Gly43

I haven't thought of that... Anyway, I implemented that today, not just here but also in the Phrase Editor:



A new beta version is expected for Sunday.
Thanks for requesting it!
Attila

[yellukhan]

Variation: Mirror Horizontally
is this possible: Keep Notes Start Position?
here is how it works in FL Studio
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e1wDK ... bCZD2Gly43

I haven't thought of that... Anyway, I implemented that today, not just here but also in the Phrase Editor:



A new beta version is expected for Sunday.
Thanks for requesting it!
Attila

wow!
That's so fast! & so cool
Thank you so much!

and be ready to hear more about Idea Tool .. i have crazy/wacky ideas!

[elvistcb3577]

If I understand correctly when you mirror a melody horizontally 3 things happen

1. The order of notes are reversed.
2. The rhythm is reversed.
a. the note starts
b. the note lengths

It seems like you could do any combinations of these?

Also along these lines it would interesting to have variations for

1. Melodic displacement (shifting left or right across a static rhythm)
2. Rhythmic displacement (shifting left or right across a static melody)

[musicdevelopments]

Interesting ideas about the displacement!

[PeteInNeedOfABeat]

Hi all, just a reminder:

The feature I'm waiting for (maybe in 3.6?) is the Riff-Generator or advanced Melody-Generator (posted on top of page 77 in this thread).

And "automatic melody analysis", which leads to "melody rules".

Maybe automatic analysis could also be added to the Chord-Rules-Editor?

As powerful as the option to create your own rules is, I've actually never really done it (in 3 years of using RC) and it seems that other users have the same problem as not many "Chord Rules" get shared here.

Since RC does a pretty good job in analysing single chords, it seems just a small step to let it create a "Chord Rule" from the analysed chords?

This feature would also make to Idea Tool a lot more usable, because if you only have one or two Chord Rules (let's say "Pop Minor" and "Default Minor") , the fun is over pretty quick as you always get the "same" results.

So more (automatically created) Chord Rules would also mean: more fun with the Idea Tool.

Sunny greetings,
Pete

[elvistcb3577]

This may sound like I want RC to act like a DAW but this is not the case at all. Currently you can record midi in the phrase editor. But you really are not making phrases just entering midi (i.e. absolute midi notes from a keyboard). The phrase editor then just makes these generic intervals that can be applied over chords/scales.

What I am suggestion could be a game changer. This is how it work:

1. You would put RC in phrase record mode.
2. You select track to use.
3. Put playback where you want the phrase recording to start.
4. Select to map recording to 1. scale notes, 2. chord notes or 3. chromatic notes (this what is the differential factor to DAW recording and detailed below).
5. record.

What is #4 step?

So the first thing to note is that as the playback head moves across the main track tge context changes based on the key and chord. Leta first explore the mapping of midi how it work.

(for simplyfication we will always have middle C be 0 Index or root position regardless of chord or scale root note)

If I choose chromatic notes, it means I can play any of the 12 notes. Basically a normal midi keyboard recording. The exception being that the note refered by middle C is in context to the current key (basically it does automatic transposition on key chnages). If the key changes from a key with C as root to D as root middle C becomes D.

If I choose scales notes only the notes of the scale are played. As you go up the keyboard half steps you transverse the scale. Again with automatic transposition on scale changes.

If you chose chord notes it acts just like the scale version exception only chord notes. So say the chord change is Imaj7->V7 then from middle C on keybord up the notes would be -> CEGB then to GBDF automatically. The value is that you do not have to know anything about the 100's of finger positions to play chords.

Also sonce these are normal phrases you are technically only playing reletive notes, so you can change scales and keys after the fact as well.


I hope this mad sense. Not sure how much of effort this is but I would imagine if put on roas map it probably would have to be on a major version release. A handful of DAWs offer chord tracks. But as best I can tell none of them offer this kind of flexibility and simplicity. I also know some VSTs offer simple scale and chord simplified midi mapping. But I do not believe any of the sync with the chords track or current key.

[PeteInNeedOfABeat]

elvistcb3577 ,

I believe I lot of the stuff you are looking for can be done with the "Melodic Flow"-vst-plugin:

https://feelyoursound.com/melodicflow/

It uses Midi-Sidechaining, so you need a DAW like Ableton Live that offers that functionality.

You have a "Master Chord-Track" which gets send to the plugin and dynamically sets the Notes the plugin uses (in a lower octave), then you can play those notes in a higher octave (I believe from C5 on) in real-time and record the output to a different track.

In addition to "just" the chord-notes, you can also set it to a scale. So you have your (changing) chord-notes plus all the notes of a selected scale. I believe you could also change the scale dynamically via automation.

Sounds complicated, but I played around with the demo for 20 Minutes and got usable results out of it, so I guess I'll buy the plugin next week.

That being said, I still think it would be great if RC could offer something like that, too.

From my experience, when two developers implement the "same" idea in their software, there are always little differences, so the user who owns both programms has more options to choose from.

Sunny greetings,
Pete

[elvistcb3577]

Thanks for the info. I knew there were various tools that achieve pieces of this. But wasn't sure of a full solution. Also what I am proposing is a way to create phrases (relative notes) not midi output (absolute notes). I have played around with sundog studio (another app this vendor makes). And it is pretty cool. But is really restricted to electro/dance music in my opinion (you can only do 4/4 time and you can't even fake other signatures). I'll have to take a look at this other one and let you know what I think.

I think RC has so much future potential. I am really into the concept of music prototyping and psuedo-random experimenting to get some interesting musical results. But there are many times I'll be playing around with a chord progression in RC and I'll hear a bassline or a melody in my head (or vice versa). And currently it is difficult to make those into phrases. Plus I am not Liberace. So when ever I use my midi keyboard I play In C as root regardless of scale. And transpose as needed. I know a lot of people look down on "1 finger chord players" but your ear is your best musical tool.

Another thing I would like to do in RC is be able to record via midi a rhythm part that overrides just the rhythm on a phrase. You can achieve this now by recording in phrase editor, save the phrase then extract the rhythm. Then use as needed. But if you could do this live over the phrases so you can audition the rhythm as you enter it. It would be like having a series of notes (or chords) and just playing one midi note cycles thorough those notes. So you can test out how different rhythm structures sound with that note series. Maybe there is another VST that does this?

[musicdevelopments]

"Phrase record mode" is an interesting idea, and it is not difficult to implement, maybe 2 days.

So say the chord change is Imaj7->V7 then from middle C on keybord up the notes would be -> CEGB then to GBDF automatically.

I suppose an option to use the "white" notes only or all notes would be useful. E.g.
C: C -> G
D: E -> B
E: G -> D
F: B -> F

C: scale I
D: scale II
E: scale III
F: scale IV...

or
C: C -> G
C#: E -> B
D: G -> D
D#: B -> F

C: scale I
C#: scale II
D: scale III
D#: scale IV...

Please respond with a +1 if you need this feature.