Chord Octave Quick Question

[Cyberluke]

I have A Minor - triads. 

i A plays: A2
VI F plays: F3
VII G plays: G3

This is not expected. How to make i A chord degree play the same octave = A3 ?

This happens with both drone and pads.

[House de Kris]

That seems about right. Are you saying the A sounds an octave too low when played? That would be odd. Works as expected on my NDLR.

In case you don't know, everything starts on C in MIDI. So, progressing from A2 should go:
A2
B2
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3

Pretty much exactly as you describe. I don't see a problem.

[Cyberluke]

Yes, but it close some creativity. I had to hack my way up through Ableton Max4Live devices such as Octave Remapper, Transposer RT Offset and a bunch of iPad midi apps such as StepPolyArp. It took me one week of everyday studies and experimenting to get there. If I would have only hardware synth and would not want to create next JMJ or Vangelis, I think I would quickly get rid of it.

This device should be more universal. When noodling it should be possible to set octave for each chord degree in order to overcome this. I got note sheets from some famous and typical genre arrangements and if I want to make similar feel with NDLR it just sound boring, there is definitely a lack of emotions because of this.

Also it does not translate among sound systems. A2 root note is too low for bass to be heard. You need A3 and the difference between G3/F3 and A2 is too big. Also the mood is going up A2 -> G3 -> F3. You cannot make the down going mood of A3 -> G3 -> F3.

So the theory might be correct, but in practice nobody compose like this and it does not have real world use case without transposing individual chords.

[House de Kris]

I'm not going to argue with you. I was just sharing how octaves work. When I look at the circle of degrees on the NDLR, I would expect the pitch to rise as I go up in degree. I wouldn't want it to suddenly skip down nearly an octave right in the middle of the circle. Whatever key (and mode) is choosen, A Minor in your example, I would expect to be the lowest note found at the first degree. If it were different than that, I'd be like you and be complaining about how it works.

True, making it more flexible by making every little iota programmable would overcome your perceived limitations. But, keep in mind, greater flexibility makes for greater difficulty in use. One of the beauties I see in the NDLR is the great amount of control afforded the user with very little effort.

One last thought, if you are looking to a machine to provide emotion in your music, some people may raise an eyebrow to this thought. Emotion in music typically comes from the human, and the machine is merely a conduit to express that emotion. I'm guessing the majority of people would want the machine to be emotionally neutral. If you find your music boring, don't blame the tools.

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Putting on my helpful hat, A Minor and C Major use the same notes. Instead of using A minor, use C Major. That way the A chord is an octave higher. This may provide the mood you seek.

[Cyberluke]

Yes and I'm grateful for your answer. I'm just investigating.

Emotion in electronic music comes from chords and modulation :-) and it is human controlled, mostly.

C Major could be the solution, thank you for pointing that out.

"greater flexibility makes for greater difficulty in use" - for me right now it's the opposite, I had to put sh*load of Ableton midi plugins and processors and even utilise some iOS midi processors and only this noodling project took me one week because I had to make a lot of workarounds. So my situation is difficult more than it should be and I need 3 machines just for arrangement to record some output. After that, my noodling was successful and thanks to strum function in NDLR pads section I found new inspiration.

I'm DJ and music producer (8 years), so I don't play any instrument and NDLR allows me to explore the limits of my creative ideas.

At one moment I was thinking I should use Scaler 2 VST plugin, but it is just for playing chords. I like on NDLR the live change of position and other variables.

But yes even for my simple use case I use NDLR to the limits (were even exploring modulation matrix) and it is difficult. So in the end I had to use some form of a hybrid setup. If NDLR would be expandable using some plugins or I could code my own behavior, that would be the best solution. I would make more suitable version for contemporary dance music and my daily job is software development.

[Steve]

Hi guys,

Great discussion!

On the Settings Menu 3 there is a setting called “Chord Invert”. By default I have set to “on”. The setting when “on” inverts the chords as you climb the chord degrees. So (from memory, might be off a bit) degrees I-III are in root position, IV-V are 1st inv, & VI-VII are 2nd inversion. When “off” no inversions are made and the chord notes are moved in parallel. Hope this is useful!

Also moving the pad position might cause different inversions. Which if genteelly modulated can offer some variety to the chord notes over time. 

I like the trick of using the relative major key. :-)

Steve