Posted
I admit I have only taken a cursory glance at the HN2 Harmonizaton features. I see the video is directed at taking audio, presumably a vocal track or something, and setting up a proper chord progression to support it.
What I wonder is if I have a monophonic melody midi track, if there is a similar process where HN2 analyzed the melody and then provides suggested chord progressions to accompany that melody.
Is this possible?
If so, how do you do it or where are instruction?
Prado
Fri, 2012-10-19 - 20:29 Permalink
If you look closely at the latest harmonisation vid you will see Andre playing the melody of the vocal line on the keyboard, editing and quantising to get it right in synfire as a figure. It's ths that s used as the source of the armoniser
Wether you play the midi in or load it makes no difference to the harmoniser
Fri, 2012-10-19 - 21:33 Permalink
The harmonizer is (almost) the same in HN2 and Synfire. Therefore the video would work for both, except HN2 can not sync to a DAW.
You can harmonizer anything from a mono melody to a full arrangement's current output. The only thing you need to prepare for is transcribe a vocal melody to MIDI before you start. You could use a tool like Melodyne to help you with that, but IMO that's overkill for simple vocals.
Fri, 2012-10-19 - 23:35 Permalink
Yes, just import the MIDI file as usual (File >> Import >> Basis Sketch) and then switch to the harmonizer. At the left side of the harmonizer window (see pic) you can select which of the track (or tracks) of the imported MIDI file you want to use for the harmonisation. You can use only one track (a melody for example), but using more tracks possibly gives better results.
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 00:19 Permalink
If you're going to harmonize to a melody and have flute or string line, you want to keep, import tracks as 'static'.. This insures the melody stays exactly the way it was played or created.
But I guess if you're only importing one midi track, SFP would treat it as static, cause it has nothing to compare it with (am I right/wrong) . Or is SFP already applying it's logarhythms to a single track, 'fixing' it where it deems appropriate?.....Supertonic?
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 00:26 Permalink
Thanks guys! I think I got it ... and now understand 'static.'
Somehow I was thinking in SFP that an audio file of a vocal or some melody line was used for creating a harmony.
There are tools, as I think Janamdo mentioned in another post, to create a midi from audio. That was what I had in mind. So it would probably be a monophonic melody line I was using.
Prado
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 00:34 Permalink
Correct me if it is wrong ..a static melody is a melody what you import and is not translated (processed protyping) by Synfire, so it is the original midi file melody
Perhaps better is to replace static with : original midi file ? ..that 's sounds more common for users
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 12:23 Permalink
@markstyles: You can import a single melody, why not? Synfire guesses the harmonic context from the melody alone.
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 13:58 Permalink
Yes, is it when you harmonize a melody that search for chords what accompaniments the melody.
But the other way around is also possible start with chords and derive a melody out of the chords.
Some people say that the melody is where all abouts .. you make a melody first you like first and than add chords (= harmonize)
The startingpoint for composing is (can be ):
- melody --> chords
- chords--> melody
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 18:09 Permalink
Supa-T wrote: @markstyles: You can import a single melody, why not? Synfire guesses the harmonic context from the melody alone.
I hope to get around to experimenting with this in the next week or so.
One think I'm curious about is the rhythm structure, as in where the suggested chord changes fall. I presume a given melody could have chord changes fall at different points linearly along the melody time line.
Also, as a practical matter, many vocal lines have 'pick up notes' around the 3rd to 4th beat of the prior measure. What's best here: to chop of those notes before the harmonizing analysis?
Prado
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 22:02 Permalink
The harmonizer detects chord change positions, unless you disable this with the "Keep" options.
Pick up notes are handled automatically, if they reach into the next chord's time span. Short notes cane be a challenge for the harmonizer. You can place the chord change earlier to catch these (and undo this shoft later in the resulting progression).
Sat, 2012-10-20 - 23:40 Permalink
TY Supa T!
I'm assuming that this is based upon a new note that no longer fits the intervals of the tonic triad. But I imagine it must be tricky depending on where this note fall ... say if in a half measure. By 'detect' I presume you mean suggest based upon the bar and tempo info in the midi file along with the note leaving the previous chord.
Prado