Is using chord plugins and tools cheating if you do not know music theory?

[ghettosynth]

Not cheating.
Won't ever get you what you would get if you studied.
I disagree with any attempt to say which one is better in some ontological, objectively measurable sense. Depends on your goals and so on.

Absolutely, this is fundamental. You can't get anywhere with this until you have that nailed down.

[jancivil]

Anyways, angry uptight music snobs aside...In response to the OP, I thought along the lines of if using chord plugins IS cheating then surely...

Use loops = CHEATING!
Quantise = CHEATING
Draw Notes in Piano Roll = CHEATING
Sampling = CHEATING
Using unaltered presets on, well pretty much anything = CHEATING
Toontrack EZ anything = CHEATING

I saw this in quotes, so... why not


Loops: which loops? ALL LOOPS IN ALL SITUATIONS ARE THE SAME USAGE. Yeah, don't think, just react.
Indeed, if one sticks a bunch of loops they had no hand in, in a timeline and pushes them around only to add a bunch of processing (and I can 100% guarantee this is a thing) one is not doing the same thing as someone who makes all the parts happen themselves, nor does it rise to the occasion of being authentic composition. It's a shortcut, or a lot of shortcuts, and it might be called cheating, reasonably.
I use things like the thundersheet patches in VSL Percussion at times, which are performances, but this does not form the basis, it's decoration and color. A cymbal roll is technically a loop. I'll use them, often I have to time stretch them. HOWEVER I can actually perform those in the real world fairly competently.

Some people use loops as a songwriter and later will employ musicians and do something real.

3 things which are not the same.

Quantize: Yep, it's cheating. I won't do it because the result is that unlike living breathing music. 0 points for that one, too.

Draw Notes in Piano Roll. Really? How? As opposed to what exactly? You have no idea how involved that can get, one supposes. HERE:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/31is80ipc404nak/IIA.mp3?dl=1
all of it penciled in. have at it.

Toontrack EZ anything
You mean other people's MIDI? Yeah, pretty much.

Did you have a point?


Again, if for some odd reason buying a well-spec'd computer and a DAW was all about learning cycle of fifths and function and all of this via a really happening chord helper plugin, more power to that individual. The OP read 'vs', versus, against, knowing music theory so I guessed not. Therein lies the context for my thoughts on cheating. I don't even care, but if one finds that Captain Chord is all they're after in music, one is choosing a rather poorer experience. Ontologically even.

KVR is a funny damned place, people who, absent all of the normatives and preparation musicians take as obvious before it's time to write, got the notion from the aether and the perception which grew up after personal computers and all of this help began to mature, just overrun the place with their opinionated, aggro posturing and cannot stand not being coddled or dealt with as adults, their vapid views resisted or countered. It's a brave new world.

[ghettosynth]

Straight from the Scaler page on PB. Carl Cox is a respected and successful DJ and producer.

"As for Scaler, my life has just changed right there."

Carl Cox. One of the most charming DJs in the business. A musical ambassador and a veteran of acid house, a champion of techno, a dance music pioneer, label owner, King of Ibiza.

[ghettosynth]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Kanye/comments ... struments/

kanye said himself he cant play anything, he doesnt know chords or anything hes just got an ear for shit. hes surrounded by people like mike dean who can bust out any idea or vision he has. hes great at sampling and laying things together and hard ass drums but thats all mpc which id like to think is a modern day instrument?

[ShawnG]

Quantize: Yep, it's cheating. I won't do it because the result is that unlike living breathing music. 0 points for that one, too.

Draw Notes in Piano Roll. Really? How? As opposed to what exactly? You have no idea how involved that can get, one supposes. HERE:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/31is80ipc404nak/IIA.mp3?dl=1
all of it penciled in. have at it.

I suppose to address the point on piano roll composing, I don't consider it cheating, as it's in my view harder to compose in that manner than it is to just play the stuff in, if you have even a modicum of skill, at least that's how I view it, presumably that is also your point

However the juxtaposition of the two statements above is interesting, as I am wondering how the "living, breathing" music that is ostensibly created by avoiding the use of quantize interacts with the generally very heavily grid influenced nature of nearly all piano roll editors. do you really draw all notes in freehand with the snap settings off, or do you go back and make sure the notes are nudged slightly off grid in a musically pleasing fashion? and if you do the latter, do you do this entirely manually or do you employ a timing randomization algorithm? And would you consider that cheating, if you do?

[ghettosynth]

However the juxtaposition of the two statements above is interesting, as I am wondering how the "living, breathing" music that is ostensibly created by avoiding the use of quantize interacts with the generally very heavily grid influenced nature of nearly all piano roll editors. do you really draw all notes in freehand with the snap settings off, or do you go back and make sure the notes are nudged slightly off grid in a musically pleasing fashion? and if you do the latter, do you do this entirely manually or do you employ a timing randomization algorithm? And would you consider that cheating, if you do?

If I'm not playing a sequence I will often step enter it (more for drums than melodic/harmonic components) and then turn the grid off and nudge. Sometimes this is the entire part, sometimes it's just a few notes. I select the notes that I want to nudge and then adjust by ear.

If I want a really subtle shift on a part, I might just put a bidirectional micro delay on the audio of that part.

[jancivil]

It's all down to what you do with materiel.
"Loops", could be all sorts of things, it's just simple-minded to try and make an issue out of that.
This is a plugins forum over anything else, so why not talk about EZ Drummer, the 'VST Chord', the construction kits, except this is not the forum for that.

If you have ideas, you want to execute them; if you want to pretend to write music you drag 'n drop somebody else's MIDI in. If you have no real clue about how chords work, like anybody who's worth a shit gets a grip on, you reach for Captain Chord. You have a big problem with that, be yourself and be all you can be, but some people are not built to coddle you when you act out just because your little butt was hurt.

The big problem for a certain kind of person here is the word 'cheating'. At the end of the day, none of what you do matters, except what did you get out of it. You don't want to hear there is a richer experience available, hence you may well be cheating yourself out of it, because ego. Because you're not suited to do the thing for real.
So when someone is there to state it a little strongly the sniping "snob", "your superior attitude" and all of this shit starts. Grow tf up.

There are so_many things I'm no good at, eg., drawing, which I've tried to do (can't really draw hands) and I cannot imagine having ego tied up in it, or trying to use some software to fake having drawn the fucken thing! Sorry, the behavior is just bizarre. It used to astonish me that people who are never going to get it argue the thing.

Seriously, if you don't have an idea - 'what chord' is at the end of the day about a musical idea - what do you think you're doing? Why are you on a music theory board on the internet getting shirty with someone for 'this illustrates the very problem' after you have stated exactly that?? Sure, I'M the asshole.

Is there not something you're actually interested in in the wide wide world of audio plugins? Because, Jacques, the sum of your contribution amounts to zero content, and you're fighting for a non-idea if only because your little ego got bruised but easy. It's reality, man, you aren't coming up with your own ideas, chords... so was stating your guesses aren't so good supposed to "validate" the use of 'chord plugins' via good ol' Cap'n Chord? What, the, actual, f**k.
You affirm nothing, you're just shit-talking. The only thing to say is this perfectly illustrates our original problem. What do you want from people? This was that rough, the one sentence "This perfectly illustrates the problem."?
What a whiny little thing, really.

It has been affirmed by people talking about using it as a learning tool. This weren't the goalpost but let's go with that because at least that gets back into the subforum "Music Theory".

[ghettosynth]

BB King had a very successful music career without knowing very much at all about theory.

I think that's a misconception. BB, the Beatles, Wes Montgomery and his brothers (I think they're an awesome example) all know/knew a lot of music theory, they just didn't learn it in a classroom, or from a book - they absorbed it, like we all do, through exposure (there's probably a touch of talent involved as well). If you've listened to much music, then you should already know a lot of music theory, just not the academic labels, notation, etc.

So then, one doesn't need to "learn" theory explicitly, right? I mean, that's your argument, right? Because, whether you want to accept it or not, BB King said himself, "I'm terrible at chords, we get someone else to play the chords."

So someone can use a chord plugin and not "learn it in a classroom, or from a book", but, "absorb it, like we all do, through exposure," right?

[jancivil]

same stupid duplication