More beginner's questions

[Nextom]

Hi everybody,

I'm back … god knows for how long. A combination of health- and business-issues has been throwing me off-track for several months, and now I have to relearn even the few things that I already knew about Rapid Composer. Might be, therefore, that I will have to ask another bunch of absolute beginner's questions. Here's my first one:

I have written a little pattern and wanted to play it over a I-IV-V progression, just for starters. I expected that when I tell RC to fill the corresponding track with this pattern, that it would change – according to the chord-progression that I defined. But it doesn't, see here: https://www.evernote.com/l/ACTA5qfEG7BJ ... WJqer9WhYs
Why is that? What do I have to do to make it go along with the chord-changes?

Btw: I first tried to load up the picture directly, instead of just giving a URL to it. But it didn't load up. Why?

[musicdevelopments]

Hi Tom,

I hope you are well.
If you remember RapidComposer uses 'relative' notes in phrases which automatically change when the chord or scale changes. Absolute notes will remain absolute notes regardless of chord changes.
So first you need to convert the phrase to relative form either by opening the phrase in the phrase editor, or by clicking the 'Convert To Relative Form' button in the phrase inspector. (You are using a color scheme that shows absolute notes as red, chord notes as green, scale notes as blue.)

Be careful with 'Convert To Relative Form' because it uses the master track chord for matching the phrase notes, and when it is not set according to the phrase notes, the conversion result will be incorrect. So choose an E6th chord to convert this phrase.

In the phrase editor you can assign chord notes to phrase notes, or chord note+scale steps. You can also choose E6 as the chord and select "Chord Notes + Scale Steps" from the "Note Mapping" menu which will do the conversion easily.

Btw: I first tried to load up the picture directly, instead of just giving a URL to it. But it didn't load up. Why?

It is easiest to embed pictures by pasting the image to https://snag.gy and then including the URL between [ img] and [ /img] tags.

Thanks,
Attila

[yellukhan]

Hi Thomas,
welcome back i hope you are ok now.

1-probably your "Blues_Tom2" phrase is Absolute form...
if you want to follow chord changes you need to convert phrase to Relative form first.

ok
when i was switch to full editor i saw Attila was faster than me!

[Nextom]

Dear Attila, dear Yellukhan,

thanks for your good wishes. I'd like to think that I'm getting better now, but it seems to take forever … this bloody illness has left me pretty much f***ed up.

Anyway, thanks for your explanations! Makes sense … theoretically. In the picture below, I assume that's the phrase inspector-window – right? But the only option it gives me is "Convert to absolute form".

Be careful with 'Convert To Relative Form' because it uses the master track chord for matching the phrase notes, and when it is not set according to the phrase notes, the conversion result will be incorrect. So choose an E6th chord to convert this phrase.

Ahmm … and how would I choose an E6th? When I open the Master track here …

… I get this endless list of choices:

Is it there, where the E6th is hiding? Where?

And while I'm at it: How do I drag&drop the track into Ableton (Mac)?

Snaggy: Jeez. I used to do it with Skitch (Evernote) and it was SO much easier, but these guys seem to have problems … it's already the second time that it let's me down. But funnily, when I paste the Skitch-URL into my browser, it still shows me the picture. But on forums, the picture won't load up, since a few days. God … some days, it feels like something is sabotaging each and every step that I'm trying to make.

[Nextom]

Ha. At least I got Skitch working again. False setting, due to change of my user-account on Mac.

Oh, and talking about solved problems: Last time I wrote on this forum, I could not, for my life, get RC connected to Ableton via Virtual Midi Cables. Yesterday, under my new user account on my Mac, I tried it again. Worked like a charm.

[yellukhan]

could you upload the project i can try to record a video demonstration

[Nextom]

Sure, Yellukhan. Hope, it works out as Zip-file. I tried to upload it as is, as an rcComp, but the forum's editor didn't allow that.

Thanks for your help – as always.

[yellukhan]

i recorded two video to show the ways that you can use anytime
i hope it helps.
way1 converting via Phrase Editor
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9hE3 ... XUwY0c0TE0

way2 converting via Phrase Inspector
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9hE3 ... ldKRzQ3dVE

do not hesitate to ask if i miss anything

+edit :
you are trying to change the Scale but you need to change the Chord (to E6....I6 as in the videos)
E 6 specific to your phrase because of the notes in it...

Blues_trial_ready.zip

+edit2:
to open chord palette (PC) right click ( also middle click works too) to the chord name.

[Nextom]

Dear Yellukhan,

wow, I could never have guessed that. What surprises me the most is in your first video at 0:20: So in order to make the notes relative, you first have to click in the Phrase inspector on "Convert to Absolute Notes", before the other option appears to make them relative. ??? I don't get the logic behind that. But at least, I now know about it.
Second: the Master track window (at 0:26). So there are two different Master track windows! The one, that I always got, when I clicked in the field where I made a red arrow:

and the other Master Track window, of which I didn't even know that it exists, and for which I have to click within the ribbon where the chords are:

How could I have known that there are two different Master Track windows???

Ok, so far so good. I think I was able to follow the rest of your videos. Now the pattern does follow the chords, but look what happened to the second pattern:

This is obviously wrong! Just play it, and you'll hear right away, that this isn't part of the 12-bar blues pattern. Of the notes in the red square, only the middle one is correct, the others left and right need to be lower. How come, and how could I correct it?

[yellukhan]

Hi,
about the Converting Absolute form:
actually no...
i just want to show you from scratch...

in your case you can also do this :

open your phrase in the "Phrase Editor"
change chord to E6 in the Phrase Editor

select all notes and click to "Chord" and "Scale Steps" as in the video (way1)
(this will register your notes as chord notes instead of Scale Notes
so phrase will follow the chords of Master Track)

then press to "Apply Changes To Phrase In Composition"...
Done.


About the Two Master Track

i think we have a little bug there !
seems sometimes RC can't open Master Track "Chord" inspector properly
as in your second screen shot ...that's why you confused.

it must shown like this
1 = Right Click to Master Track area
2 = Right Click to any of the Chords







About the last part of your question
those top 3 notes sticks to same chord note because phrase notes indexed as 4 note chord (I6 / E6)
but the second chord is "Triad" (IV) so has 3 notes,
RC moves notes to "down" only (as i know) if there is no index to match
( basically there is no 4th note in the chord ...so 4th note in the phrase moved to down)
only way i can think of, you can change the IV chord to for example IV6 or IVadd2 or IVmaj7 etc.
so to the any of the four notes chord of your taste