ChordPulse Updated to v2.6 (Not a Deal)

[ZincT]

http://www.chordpulse.com/update2p5.html 

New in version 2.6:

• chord audition: listen to chords and root/bass notes while the music is not playing, choose chord/arpeggio mode and musical instrument
• optionally display chord notes in chord selector
• "Split Keyboard" visualization mode and other improvements and options for musical note visualizer
• arrangement point now indicates modifications made to drums / bass / chords sections
• new accompaniment styles: Pop: Fast Pop, Pop Pad;   Rock: Steady Beat;   Extra: Funk Base D, Heavy
• improved and extended help file and in-program help
• revised Options menu
• adjustable bar number frequency
• double click style / tempo / key to close selector
• Esc key closes style / tempo / key / chord / arrangement point / page selector; Esc to quit program is now optional
• more detailed and less redundant chord / arrangement point editing history (undo/redo information)
• several minor improvements and optimizations
• bug fixes
   

[Jim Fogle]

Long time - no upgrade.  Whoopee!  The prior update was September 6, 2017.

This is a great little program.

[ZincT]

5 minutes ago, Jim Fogle said:

Long time - no upgrade.  Whoopee!  The prior update was September 6, 2017.

This is a great little program.

Indeed! I think it's a one man development "team" so I'm grateful that he's still developing it.

I was kinda hoping for a VST version but it's still very useful as a standalone program and a mini sidekick to BIAB. 

Edited September 19, 2020 by ZincT

[Jim Fogle]

Yep,

Very much a one man show, and it's not even his day job.  Plus his main job is not programming or as a musician.

I've had the program since shortly after it was first released and am a big fan.  By far one of the prettiest and most practical program interfaces I've seen.  Check out the "About" +++ HERE +++

Edited September 19, 2020 by Jim Fogle

[TheMaartian]

For fun, here's what I came up with for Hotel California. Place the "Hotel California.cps" file in the 'Sessions' folder you set up for ChordPulse.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eynoxbi4rgnu9jn/Hotel California.cps?dl=0

The repetitive piano drives me nuts. Can anyone find a better style? Not Band in a Box, but it's only $29, not the hundreds I've spent on BiaB. So far. Ha.

[ZincT]

9 hours ago, John Maar said:

For fun, here's what I came up with for Hotel California. Place the "Hotel California.cps" file in the 'Sessions' folder you set up for ChordPulse.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eynoxbi4rgnu9jn/Hotel California.cps?dl=0

The repetitive piano drives me nuts. Can anyone find a better style? Not Band in a Box, but it's only $29, not the hundreds I've spent on BiaB. So far. Ha.

Hey good effort John! Slow Ballad (under Pop styles) seems to work quite well but I'm still going through them to see if there any better ones (remembering to lock the tempo first).

With the Bm in the chorus you can almost get the sequence they do on the song by replacing Bm for the whole bar with quarter notes for Bm - A (C# bass) - D - Em.  It really needs eighth notes for the final Em followed by D (F# bass) but I don't think CP will do eighth notes so I have just left out the D (F# bass).

Edited September 20, 2020 by ZincT

[TheMaartian]

7 hours ago, ZincT said:

Hey good effort John! Slow Ballad (under Pop styles) seems to work quite well but I'm still going through them to see if there any better ones (remembering to lock the tempo first).

With the Bm in the chorus you can almost get the sequence they do on the song by replacing Bm for the whole bar with quarter notes for Bm - A (C# bass) - D - Em.  It really needs eighth notes for the final Em followed by D (F# bass) but I don't think CP will do eighth notes so I have just left out the D (F# bass).

Nice! Updated my .cps to v2!

Have you tried the dark skin? Gray and gold. Love it! Untick 'Silver' in Options | More...  under Model. If you like the color gradient on the A/C# slash chord, tick "Color gradient for slash chords" in Options | More... under Chord Colors.

Edited September 20, 2020 by John Maar

[TheMaartian]

Re eighth notes in CP, I wonder if it's possible to use the Band in a Box trick where you double the Tempo and then play it back at half speed to turn bars into half bars and quarter notes into eighth notes.  Doubt it. I didn't see an obvious way to do it.

[ZincT]

22 minutes ago, John Maar said:

Nice! Updated my .cps to v2!

Have you tried the dark skin? Gray and gold. Love it! Untick 'Silver' in Options | More...  under Model. If you like the color gradient on the A/C# slash chord, tick "Color gradient for slash chords" in Options | More... under Chord Colors.

Thanks, I like the dark skin and the color gradient! ?

14 minutes ago, John Maar said:

Re eighth notes in CP, I wonder if it's possible to use the Band in a Box trick where you double the Tempo and then play it back at half speed to turn bars into half bars and quarter notes into eighth notes.  Doubt it. I didn't see an obvious way to do it.

I wondered the same and I even started out on that journey, but then realised I have a million and one things I should be doing instead ?

 

[ZincT]

Another small tweak (I do like how easy it is to do these in CP) to create the break at the end of the chorus...

 

[LAGinz]

I’ve had this thing for ages and just love it. Being a non-keyboard guy,  this (along with sitting down with my guitar) may be the best tool for song writing I have.

[Mesh]

This is very interesting  (apparently I had it since 2015, but never tried it  ).

Just briefly played with it and looks to be quite useful.  Generally, do you guys build your song ideas in this and then import the MIDI to the DAW?

[ZincT]

2 minutes ago, Mesh said:

This is very interesting  (apparently I had it since 2015, but never tried it  ).

Just briefly played with it and looks to be quite useful.  Generally, do you guys build your song ideas in this and then import the MIDI to the DAW?

Hey Mesh, that's pretty much how I use it. It will never replace Band in a box but for quick sketching it's excellent. It's also a lot smaller footprint! Some of the styles are a bit cheesy but there are quite a few good ones also. 

[LAGinz]

20 minutes ago, ZincT said:

Hey Mesh, that's pretty much how I use it. It will never replace Band in a box but for quick sketching it's excellent. It's also a lot smaller footprint! Some of the styles are a bit cheesy but there are quite a few good ones also. 

Yep

[TheMaartian]

For example, here's the generated type 1 MIDI file that includes the nice break at the end of the chorus.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j1bo37eto1fo97h/Hotel California v2.mid?dl=0

[TheMaartian]

If you haven't installed CoolSoft's VirtualMIDISynth to replace MS's generic piece of garbage, I recommend it. The one caveat on the soundfont you use is that the whole SF file gets loaded into RAM. Kinda messed me up until I upgraded from 8GB to 16GB. And I went back to a smaller soundfont.

http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

I'm currently using JJazzLab-SoundFont.sf2 (316MB). The Arachno soundfont is also quite useable and is even smaller (148MB).

https://www.jjazzlab.com/en/download/

[ZincT]

You must have read my mind John! 

I was just going to ask whether anyone had tried any of the Coolsoft stuff. 

What I would ideally like is to make windows 10 use my Sound Canvas VA software as the default MIDI device. Can you do that with their MIDI mapper or do you need VirtualMIDISynth? 

Thanks John

[TheMaartian]

From what I just read, Sound Canvas VA is only available as a VST. VirtualMIDISynth is a device driver. You need a host for a VST. I haven't needed or tried his MIDIMapper driver, so I can't offer any experience there. 

You might be able to run Sound Canvas as an executable (https://www.hermannseib.com/english/savihost.htm) and route MIDI from ChordPulse to it (via MIDIMapper).

[Jim Fogle]

If you have the free LoopBe1 virtual MIDI driver then you can direct ChordPulse's output to a sound module or anywhere else you desire.  ChordPulse recognizes LoopBe1 as a valid output.  Navigate to Options > Output ...

You can also set what group of midi channels you want to use.

[TheMaartian]

+1 for LoopBe1. I bought a license for LoopBe30, mostly to support the dev. I also tried LoopMIDI, but it had noticeable latency when playing live. You'll still need a host for Sound Canvas.