Orb Composer - Generative music app

[hexachords_official]

This is a great upgrade, I think I wasn't going to it just because of the midi routing to a DAW. I just set it up and thought Oh yes, now I'm gonna work with this.

Great to hear

[simmo75]

So... if I “generate” a composition with Orb Composer and sell it. Does Orb Composer have any rights to the composition or do I own all rights?

[Musical Gym]

From section 1 (copyright) on their site for rights of use:
"It’s up to the user of Orb Composer to make sure of the originality of his composition, and if necessary to submit it to the juridiction of his country, to give evidence of it legally.
On no account the HEXACHORDS ENTERTAINMENT company can be held responsible of any plagiarism of an existing musical creation."
The written legal stuff on site can be confusing, as the wording is sometimes misspelled (above), or just poor, for example:
"The Orb software were conceived for a use normalized in the user guide."

[deastman]

So... if I “generate” a composition with Orb Composer and sell it. Does Orb Composer have any rights to the composition or do I own all rights?

Have you used the software yet? As I have written elsewhere, Orb Composer isn’t a one button band-in-a-box solution. It is an extensive environment for composing music, in which you define lots of parameters and make creative choices, and iteratively refine your arrangement until you arrive at results you are happy with. Basically, you are deeply involved with every aspect of the compositional process except for the actual selection of specific notes. Even then, the output is midi which you can edit to your heart’s content. It makes no sense at all to even assume that Hexachords would make some sort of copyright claim to the music you create with their editor. You might as well as the same question of Ableton Live, which potentially can have some generative aspects to musical composition.

[simmo75]

So... if I “generate” a composition with Orb Composer and sell it. Does Orb Composer have any rights to the composition or do I own all rights?

Have you used the software yet? As I have written elsewhere, Orb Composer isn’t a one button band-in-a-box solution. It is an extensive environment for composing music, in which you define lots of parameters and make creative choices, and iteratively refine your arrangement until you arrive at results you are happy with. Basically, you are deeply involved with every aspect of the compositional process except for the actual selection of specific notes. Even then, the output is midi which you can edit to your heart’s content. It makes no sense at all to even assume that Hexachords would make some sort of copyright claim to the music you create with their editor. You might as well as the same question of Ableton Live, which potentially can have some generative aspects to musical composition.

Actually dude, there’s a YouTube interview with one of the creators and he is saying he’d like to put a limit on people generating and selling the compositions.

Here’s the link : https://youtu.be/YCxsiR3o9Fw

[Ou_Tis]

So... if I “generate” a composition with Orb Composer and sell it. Does Orb Composer have any rights to the composition or do I own all rights?

Have you used the software yet? As I have written elsewhere, Orb Composer isn’t a one button band-in-a-box solution. It is an extensive environment for composing music, in which you define lots of parameters and make creative choices, and iteratively refine your arrangement until you arrive at results you are happy with. Basically, you are deeply involved with every aspect of the compositional process except for the actual selection of specific notes. Even then, the output is midi which you can edit to your heart’s content. It makes no sense at all to even assume that Hexachords would make some sort of copyright claim to the music you create with their editor. You might as well as the same question of Ableton Live, which potentially can have some generative aspects to musical composition.

Actually dude, there’s a YouTube interview with one of the creators and he is saying he’d like to put a limit on people generating and selling the compositions.

Here’s the link : https://youtu.be/YCxsiR3o9Fw

You're referring to his response to the question around 17:45 in... but right after that the interviewer says "I love that we have the rights to it" and he nods in agreement.

What he says is that he'd like to find a way to limit the possibility of people generating extremely large numbers of compositions (Interviewer says "millions") very rapidly and then selling them.

Personally I would be fine with a clause banning the use of Orb to create and sell large midi libraries but I don't think that's in the contract.

[deastman]

So... if I “generate” a composition with Orb Composer and sell it. Does Orb Composer have any rights to the composition or do I own all rights?

Have you used the software yet? As I have written elsewhere, Orb Composer isn’t a one button band-in-a-box solution. It is an extensive environment for composing music, in which you define lots of parameters and make creative choices, and iteratively refine your arrangement until you arrive at results you are happy with. Basically, you are deeply involved with every aspect of the compositional process except for the actual selection of specific notes. Even then, the output is midi which you can edit to your heart’s content. It makes no sense at all to even assume that Hexachords would make some sort of copyright claim to the music you create with their editor. You might as well as the same question of Ableton Live, which potentially can have some generative aspects to musical composition.

Actually dude, there’s a YouTube interview with one of the creators and he is saying he’d like to put a limit on people generating and selling the compositions.

Here’s the link : https://youtu.be/YCxsiR3o9Fw

Actually dude, that same video clearly states that you own the rights to the music you generate with it. They do get into a bit of a discussion about how cranking out millions of stock tracks with it would be an abuse of the tool and not what they intended it to be used for. He says they’d like to find a way limit that kind of abuse, but in the same breath acknowledges that you could theoretically use it that way. Regardless, he is totally clear in that interview that you own the rights to the music you make with it.

[Ou_Tis]

So... if I “generate” a composition with Orb Composer and sell it. Does Orb Composer have any rights to the composition or do I own all rights?

Have you used the software yet? As I have written elsewhere, Orb Composer isn’t a one button band-in-a-box solution. It is an extensive environment for composing music, in which you define lots of parameters and make creative choices, and iteratively refine your arrangement until you arrive at results you are happy with. Basically, you are deeply involved with every aspect of the compositional process except for the actual selection of specific notes. Even then, the output is midi which you can edit to your heart’s content. It makes no sense at all to even assume that Hexachords would make some sort of copyright claim to the music you create with their editor. You might as well as the same question of Ableton Live, which potentially can have some generative aspects to musical composition.

Actually dude, there’s a YouTube interview with one of the creators and he is saying he’d like to put a limit on people generating and selling the compositions.

Here’s the link : https://youtu.be/YCxsiR3o9Fw

Actually dude, that same video clearly states that you own the rights to the music you generate with it. They do get into a bit of a discussion about how cranking out millions of stock tracks with it would be an abuse of the tool and not what they intended it to be used for. He says they’d like to find a way limit that kind of abuse, but in the same breath acknowledges that you could theoretically use it that way. Regardless, he is totally clear in that interview that you own the rights to the music you make with it.

There are lots of potential complications. For example, in US copyright law iirc it's already been decided that automatically generating a vast quantity of melodies to try to copyright them would not be protected under copyright. But law could vary from country to country.

Also, these generative programs can sometimes create very similar or almost identical passages---at least before I upgraded and installed the latest update I did notice significant repetitiveness. There could be an issue with two people using the software trying to claim copyright over similar results.

And, especially if the AI was using copyrighted materials to learn from, there's the possibility of being ruled substantially similar to something in copyright, though that's probably highly unlikely.

[CrystalWizard]

Looks similar to Noatikl/(Koan) ? Better UI ?

[Caine123]

you are KIDDING me right? during install you CANNOT change the folder? come on, this shit is unacceptable. i want a clean pc with installs i know where they go. fix this please, and yeah i am offensive, dont care cause this is 2018 and this is unacceptable. demoing the demo with a bad taste now i guess.

EDIT:
demoing atm and im digging this atm, again the program is not offended but the installation procedure!
are those melodies (mostly varied i guess cause it still sounds too static) ALWAYS new and random but still cohesive?
are those generated melodies commercially usable or is it not?

[silenthill2006]

@hexachords_official: I wanted to give some feedback from my experience with the current demo (v1.3) and what I have seen in the previous versions.

1)There needs to be many more built in Orb sounds for the instruments especially for the Orchestra instruments. Having to route instruments including their individual articulations to VSTs is very annoying and time consuming for me and my workflow. Especially since I use Sibelius with Note Performer and I cannot use Note Performer with Orb Composer.

2) Please Add Music XML export support. Please allow for Music XML export to have all Articulations and Dynamics for a given instrument be all on one stave as opposed to multiple staves for that one instrument when exporting. Currently, it is a huge pain because I use Sibelius and it will only import 16 parts from a midi file. I would have to use another program (Musescore) just to combine the different articulation midi tracks for a given instrument to a single stave and redo the articulations and dynamics by hand. It would be very time consuming.

3) Please add support for Blues, Jazz, R&B, and Hip Hop/Trap for melody generation and templates.

4)Add more chords to the Artist version as well. It is way too limited.


Overall, I really believe that this program has a lot of promise. However, I cannot buy it until these issues are addressed. I particularly interested in the Orb Composer Pro S version.

[DJ Warmonger]

God, this thing is buggy. Just installed latest update and there are still issues.

I cannot set different role or poplyphony for my instruments. Polyphony settings are jus not saved, while in "polyphony" tab there is often only one option available.
I want chords!

[Caine123]

Did you also write directly? I got also issues and sent them a mail

[DJ Warmonger]

Not yet. Submitting bug reports is not the first thing I usually want to do minutes after buying new product

In fact it's difficult to tell what is supposed to work and what not, this is where public forums come in handy.

[nak21]

Is Hexachords going out of business?