Posted
Hi There,
I have used HN for about 6 months now & have a fairly good understanding of the system/concepts. What I tend to do is Import/Export midi files from HN a lot & I particularly like coming up with a chord progresssion & then applying one of the template styles, such as an ARP, or bassline pattern, etc. from the chords produced by HN. I export mostly into Ableton Live & will tweak chords in Live also. My question is the following:
- How do I import Midi chords back into HN, so that they appear in the Song sections EXACTLY as they are in the original Midi file. Now I know that in order to do this task, one imports the Midi file as a static input for Harmonizer. Using trial & error with different options during the Harmonizer process I can see my original chords exactly as they should be, but once I Harmonize & then Apply, I can't get HN to produce exactly what was input. There is always some slight interpretation performed by HN.....such as a 7th chord that is converted to a three note chord or a chord that is 1/8th of a bar in length is not picked up. Basically its close......but not exact.
Any ideas? Is HN always going to interpret an imported Midi file upon Harmonisation?
Many thanks for any feedback.......oh & great system! Just saving up to upgrade to Synfire hopefully before the end of this year.
Dave
Fr., 29.07.2011 - 19:16 Permalink
Just a post script to my recent post - I found that to match the position of the inoput chords exactly, during the Harmonize process choose "Polyphony" for the "Transitions" option. That's one problem solved......only one outstanding. I am still finding that HN loses 7th & Sustain chords for example when performing the Harmonizer process, which is unfortunate. Now I know I can very easily fix that after Harmonization, but I would much rather feel happy that ALL chords are successfully identified instead having to manually check everything which is time consuming.
Thanks,
DAve
Sa., 30.07.2011 - 00:49 Permalink
Unfortunately it is impossible to guess a chord from its pitches alone in all cases. Without meta information (i.e. the chord name or symbol), finding the best matching chord from just MIDI input is never exact. For example, Dm6 and F6(b5) share the same pitches. The same goes for Am7 and C6. In a way, C6 is like an inversion of Am7, although both chords are very different from their functional meaning.
However, loosing a 7ths from an otherwise unique chord should not happen. Is that chord "out of key" in some way? If yes, HN probably does not dare to suggest it, as other chords are more probable in the light of the whole progression.
I agree there could be a 100% match or nothing mode for the harmomizer, similar to the Polyphony preset. That could be limited to triads, and basic four voice chords only. Whether such a mode will deliver better results is a matter of experimentation. We have some harmonizer tasks on the agenda already. I noted this case on the list too.
Mo., 01.08.2011 - 22:08 Permalink
Hi Andre,
Thanks for your reply & what you say does make perfect sense now. Going back & looking at the input MIDI file, yes the 7th chords HN missed where during the part of the song where I had gone slightly off key intentionally. What had confused me was NH replacing a four key chord with a suggested three key chord.........but without meta information, then yes as you say HN will suggest chords that are going to be more probable (those 7th & Sus chords that were strictly in key HN found no problem).
Thanks for considering this as a potential future task within Harmonizer.
Dave