On Korg, Roland, Yamaha and Ketron arrangers there is a form of harmony.
In most instances, when a button is pressed, the voice selected, follows the left hand chords and plays a three or four part harmony.
If you hold a note on the voice, and play different chords for the style with your left hand, the harmony resolves around the chord played.
This is the single biggest feature, that if added to vArranger, I think, would be well received by all vArranger users.
Gerard
I agree. This would be a real upgrade to vArranger.
Deane
Yes Gerard, Deane.
This feature was asked many time, so I will add it on a future release.
I am thinking on the best way to add it, because there is many options.
- The Right hand sound can play up to 5 sounds together, so I have to think if I can give different harmony rules for each of the 5 sounds.
- Maybe saving harmony presets
- Also, if we can save the harmony settings with the sound preset
- And finally to make it simple.
Your ideas are welcome
Regards,
Dan
A suggestion, harmony could be set for the first voice only.
I could see if it was allowed on all 5 right had voices, it would get very muddy, sound wise.
Keeping it simple, add a harmony button, associated with the first right hand voice.
Also, if a page was added to options for type of harmony then it would be assigned globally no matter what sound is selected.
In a future release, add more options to assign a different type of harmony for each voice.
That setting would be stored with the voice characteristics.
My two cents worth is a globally set harmony might be the quickest way to add a feature that would be very, very much appreciated can be revised in later releases to make it more robust.
Gerard
Dan,
Any comments?
Gerard
You are 100% right.
I also want to allow something like playing the root note with a trumpet, and add an saxophone playing the 3rd, and maybe a trombone playing the 5th...
And recall this amazing brass orchestra with a touch of a button.
Also have to think about rules of harmony.
Some are chords dependent, and we can also create sounds who are scale dependent. For example a Am Guitar with harmonizer at 3rd. you don't need anymore to press chords.
I want to think about most of the cases before starting coding. But for sure it will come soon.
Thanks for the update.
Once you get the virtual sound software done, it will definitely make vArranger a stand alone product.
Thoughts on that, would each sound be tweak-able to change the sample used?
And I hope there will be no problems running it on 64 bit machines.
Gerard
Yes, thinking about replacing one sound by your own SoundFont SF2 file too.
Of course I want it to work on 32 and 64 bits OS
To play a Soundfont SF2 file, will that work with any soundcard?
I know very little about Soundfonts?
Gerard
I did hear somewhere that there is a latency problem using Soundfonts and playing live.
Gerard
Yes there is some milliseconds between you press the notes and the sound is heard.
I am working to try to reduce this latency so low, that you will not feel it.
I will try also to make it working with most of the soundcards with Windows 7.
Yes I asked also for this about a year ago.
Youn also have to careful about polyfony.
I think there is a difference between live style paying polyfony and midi file polyfony.
Indeed I am presently editing a mdi file (I left my heart in sanfrancisco-tonny bennett)
It has about 4 piano and 3 string tracks with 3-5 note chords on each track.
This is causing my SD2 and SD3 to not play finger bass notes. They cut/drop out.
But If I remove some individual piano/strings background harmony chords what occur around the time of the lost bass note it corrects the lost bass note and it plays correctly.
However I simulated a similar piece of music in live style play and the bass notes never dropped out but in midi files they cannot take the polyfony.
Probably because some midi keyboards use 2 sound chip generators in live play but only use one sound chip generator in midi file play as did my SD3?
OR maybe in midi file play there is actual midi file reading polyfony problems at question.
Dan can you give us you more technical explination on this complex subject.
Jon
edinburgh
Each synth engine decide witch note to drop out when polyphony is over and a new note need to sound.
Harmony is eating a lot of notes :)
In mid file playing is there any way to instruct which track should be dropped when polyfony is exceeded as it always appears to be the bass notes on the Sd2 and SD3 that get dropped.
I would prefer to choose myself the background harmony strings tracks etc to drop some incidental notes as the bass notes are too noticeable when dropped/missing.
I once removed an entire strings track to get round this but felt I lost some nice background musical harmonies.
Also I noticed my old previous SD3 was worse than my SD2 replacement.
jon
try inverting the channels. Example put the BASS on channel 1 or channel 16, and look if this change something
Dan, could you add this (Yamaha's) duo harmonizer please?
https://www.varranger.com/vforum/index.php/topic,2550.msg21105.html#msg21105
(It is key-independent - It just depends on melody and chord.)
The current harmony function is realy not usable for me.
Quote from: Gerard on January 23, 2012, 06:51:58 PM
On Korg, Roland, Yamaha and Ketron arrangers there is a form of harmony.
In most instances, when a button is pressed, the voice selected, follows the left hand chords and plays a three or four part harmony.
If you hold a note on the voice, and play different chords for the style with your left hand, the harmony resolves around the chord played.
This is the single biggest feature, that if added to vArranger, I think, would be well received by all vArranger users.
Gerard
I also don't understand how the Harmony function is working. I know how it works on my Yamaha arranger keyboard. There are a few types, and none of the harmony types on my Yamaha keyboard, are key-dependant. what are the 'keys' doing on the Harmony window?
Here is the Yamaha harmony - Standard Duet.
I did not found how to play the C7(11) chord, perhaps this is unsupported by Yamaha keyboards.
Similarly I can do the table for other harmony type.
In current version of vArranger try this:
- set key to C major
- play chord C
- play tone G
The second voice will play a 3rd above -> B
Thank you v.muller.
I am actually adding this feature, with the help of your tables
I will probably ask you to try few more chords
Many thanks Dan.
Here is a table, notes and used midi file of the Yamaha's harmony Standard Trio.
Btw. When no chord is played (only drum kits are playing) no harmony voices are added to the melody.
I did some next tables of Yamaha harmony and I look forward to see it in vArranger.
Octave mode would be very useful too (like on ketron keyboards)
I think it's available in Yamaha keyboards as well . Isn't it ?
Olivier
My keyboard (Yamaha PSR S550) can these harmony types:
1. Standard Duet
2. Standard Trio
3. Full Chord
4. Rock Duet
5. Country Duet
6. Country Trio
7. Block
8. 4-Way Close 1
9. 4-Way Close 2
10. 4-Way Open
11. 1+5
12. Octave
13. Strum
14. Mullti Assign
So I want to analyze and prepare all of them for using in vArranger.
It's up to Dan if he will use it.
Hi
Specifically for working with Yamaha styles, I purchased the PSR-S770 workstation, but even when using factory styles in vA2, the sound does not match original one. I.e. not all parameters are passed correctly program into the synthesizer. Something was lost in processing algorithms of the styles in vA2, regime change MIDI settings does nothing. Although when using different style files in the mentioned workstation PSR-S770 (even from different Yamaha models) everything is handled adequately.
Here is the score, midi and table for harmony type: 4-Way Close 1.
4-Way Close 2.
Hello Dan,
I would like to ask you if you have read my last e-mails and if you found a solution for this problem.
The new version of vArranger (with the Yamaha Standart Duet)
sounds well if I play a chord before the melody.
On yamaha keyboard if I change the chord during playing a melody
- all harmony notes are changed according to the new chord.
Could vArranger do the same please?
And what about the next harmony types?
I'm going to make the tables for the rest.
Are my tables in usable form for you?
Or if you want, I can do something like this directly using Excel:
int harmony[] = {69, 70, 71, 72, 72, 74, 74, 76, 76, 79, 79, 79, 81};
I noticed a interesting feature of the Yamaha keyboard:
Similarly as the default tempo is linked to the style,
the default harmony is linked to the voice.
So if you select a voice, the harmony type is changed too.
Hi Dan
Did you fixed this problem?
As I wrote:
>I checked the "Auto key" harmony.
>It sounds well if I play a chord before the melody.
>On yamaha keyboard if I change the chord during playing a melody
>- all harmony notes are changed according to the new chord.
And do you have some next harmony types added?
Hi,
where are the files .xlsx and .mid?
About three weeks ago they were there.
Best regards
Hi Dan
Did you fix the "changing chord" problem?
If yes, could I have the new version please?
Hi Dan.
Is there any progress in this matter?
Could you give me an answer, please?
UP
Hi Dan.
Is there any progress in this matter?
Could you give me an answer, please?
I did not forget this, and your tables ...
Any progress ? :)
The current version of "auto harmony" is still unusable. :-(
There is only one thing left to do:
fix the "changing chord" problem, as I wrote a year ago.
https://www.varranger.com/vforum/index.php/topic,578.msg28584.html#msg28584
;)
Hi Dan.
Could you answer me please?
Dan, could you please make the harmony function usable?
Quote from: v.muller on June 16, 2019, 12:27:03 PM
The current version of "auto harmony" is still unusable. :-(
There is only one thing left to do:
fix the "changing chord" problem, as I wrote a year ago.
https://www.varranger.com/vforum/index.php/topic,578.msg28584.html#msg28584
Hello Dan.
Do you plan to fix this issue?
Each basic keyboard can harmonize the melody depending on the played chord.
So I think this should work in vArranger too.
I have tried to do it, and then it caused some complex bugs in the actual retrigger functions, so I revert back to the previous working code
I need to give it another try...
Thank you for your answer. I believe that the next attempt will be successful.
Yes for sure !