Posted
I'm finding getting my head around HN2 challenging. I get 'glimpses' of what it can do as I go back and forth between the program, manual and videos ... and I think I'm making some progress.
What I am most interested in doing ... in addition to using the palettes to learn and improve my harmony ... is to develop some 'styles' to play my instruments in the HN2 songs so I can export a SMF for my sequencer with a fairly well constructed basic arrangement for further tweaking.
As best I understand so far, 'figures' seem to be the elements that dictate the stylistic approach used by any particular instrument ... and 'phrases' seem to be the combination of a figure and instrument.
Assuming this is correct, I'd like some advice about creating them.
1st. In reading Chapter 11 - Recording and Import I don't see any reference to saving what you make as your own presets 'phrase' for future use. Am I missing something, or is this not possible?
2nd. If I import an SMF where an instrument, poly or monophonic, plays a somewhat different style in the verse, chorus or bridge ... say 'call and response' from Latin horn sections ... would I get better patterns by using the offset control and limiting the figure recognition just to each individual song element, i.e., verse or chorus or bridge?
3rd. Any 'Power user tips' on creating these figures beyond what is in the manual?
Thanks in advance.
Prado
Sun, 2010-05-30 - 16:31 Permalink
Hi Prado,
your understanding of Figures is correct. They are kind of dynamic midi notes.
To build your own styles, you would assemble new accompaniment patterns, either from imports of by recording phrases yourself, and add them to the collection of patterns loaded by HN on startup. Simply put them into the Patterns folder (File >> Save as Preset). There is no provision for collecting individual phrases separately and building libraries from that. However, you can easily copy and paste individual phrases between songs and patterns, as you can keep as many windows opened at the same time as you like.
There is no way to tell in advance, whether figure recognition will benefit from a selectively choosen import span or not. The rules of thumb is: Avoid importing areas with mixed key signatures. That is, if your chorus is in another key, import it separately.
The editing tools in HN allow for copy, paste, cut, trim and there are a few transformations like reverse, transpose, double/half tempo, etc. Your possibilities regarding figure creation are only limited to whatever you can imagine doing with that.
Christian
Sun, 2010-05-30 - 20:20 Permalink
Christian ...
Thanks for your help.
I had trouble with "File >> Save as preset," until I realized you had to open a new Accompaniment! I was working in a Song window and getting a little frustrated.
One final question about this. Do you have to copy the parameters one by one to take an instrument from a Song to an Accompaniment window?
I tried to copy an instrument while clicking on the instrument name at the bottom of the mixer column and then pasting it into the Accompaniment window ... but that didn't work. Then I tried pasting it into a New Instrument in the Accompaniment window, but that didn't seem to take the parameters like the name or the assigned GM routing.
Is there away to simply copy the entire instrument with all parameters from a song to an Accompaniment window?
Thank you ...
Prado
Sun, 2010-05-30 - 21:02 Permalink
Yes, you can not save a song as an accompaniment pattern. Only the pattern editor can do that.
In order to copy all parameters, use the Phrase menu and select Copy (or select the track and press Ctrl-C/Command-C). The phrase is what carries all parameters for an instrument in each section.