About CHORDJAM

I saw a new chord plugin: ChordJam
There are a lot of random designs, I didn’t buy them, but I think this kind of random design is also a waste of time.
In the process of music production, it often wastes a lot of time because of various attempts, and finally makes inspiration and creativity disappear.
Through video manipulation, I think I still like scaler
At present, what scaler needs to do is to add more performance
Common style can be satisfied
Good music, simple chord collocation, also very good.
I hope scaler can add more Common styles of various music types to make music production faster

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If you just want more chords and progressions you can get 1000+ from
https://shop.pianoforproducers.com/nikos-midi-pack
These are done by genre, key, sequence pattern and are quite reasonable.
It’s trivial to drop them into Scaler and then use them as a base for further work.

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Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#3_Am-F-C-G (vi-IV-I-V).mid (703 Bytes)

Niko_Kotoulas_Melody_#1_Am-F-C-G (vi-IV-I-V).mid (508 Bytes)

This is in the free MIDI package, and I think Scaler can do it in the future

I watched their video on YouTube. The chords they provide are very practical
They provide chords, rhythms, bass, all very practical, and classified according to music
If only these were in the Scaler 3

Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#1_G-Am-F-C (V-vi-IV-I).mid (703 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#2_F-C-G-Am (IV-I-V-vi).mid (704 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#2_F-G-Am-C-G-F (IV-V-vi-I-V-IV).mid (665 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#2_G-Am-F-C (V-vi-IV-I).mid (703 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#3_Am-F-C-G (vi-IV-I-V).mid (703 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#3_Am-G-Em-F (vi-V-iii-IV).mid (706 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#5_F-C-G-Am (IV-I-V-vi).mid (705 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#6_Am-F-C-G (vi-IV-I-V).mid (703 Bytes) Niko_Kotoulas_Arp_Heaven_#7_Am-G-Em-F (vi-V-iii-IV).mid (434 Bytes)

I should declare than I have 2 Niko packs, and some of the content is good. ***

In Scaler, there are (let’s call them) ‘sequences’ (songs and artists) and ‘performances’. Clearly you can use the sequences on their own as a base, and add everything else yourself; or you can enhance a Scaler sequence with any of the performances.
If there are S sequences and P performances, you have S x P combinations to play with - for just one instrument. [It’s now probably more than the 800,000 the last time I counted, but as Davide pointed out elsewhere, the multiplier is actually vastly bigger when you factor in the other multiplicative factors - and that’s not even thinking about patterns! ] I doubt if any Scaler user has managed to trawl through them all yet, or will ever do so.

To manage these, I guess users cut the scan down by picking sub-sets of sequences (‘World’ or ‘Trance’) and probably the same with performances which seem a priori to gel with whatever variant of music they are making.

Now, imagine (hypothetically) you rolled the Niko packs into the Scaler; you would then have another 750,000 +++ combinations to play with. FWIW (not very much?) , my take on this is

{A} The value in Scaler to me is more focussed on the performances and things like modulation than it is on the sequences; that’s where the clever and creative stuff is.

{B} Do I personally want another 750,000+++ choices to make in the menus ? The issue with expansion in this way is that everybody gets them regardless, and rather than speed things up one is overwhelmed with choices if only 10% of sequences are in the genres you want. If users wanted to have more choices, I’d rather Scaler offered them as add-on packs (D+B, Pop etc ), whether free or a few Euros.

{C} It’s a matter of a few seconds for me to drop a Niko midi into Scaler, listen to it and junk it or proceed with it. There is little value add (to me) therefore if they happened to be sitting embedded in Scaler menus rather than in my Niko folder.

All this of course is very much personal choice, and there will be as many views as there are users, but it would be interesting see see if the consensus here values sequences over performances, and whether having another 2,000 sequences would help or hinder.

PS *** There is an old saying that by the time in life a man can afford to lose a golf ball, he can’t hit it that far. Sadly, this is true for me; I’ve now reached the age where I can indulge in stuff just to try it out, but the ears and emotional creativity are not up to it …

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yes, and it’s the reason why I bought it and uninstalled it
:grinning:

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Well… I was just thinking to write a post, more or less about that

I’m using Scaler since about 1 year: during this time I was able to make proof-of-concepts in many styles but… never using a matching pattern’s style
:rofl:

For example, for “flamenco” I used a hip-hop scale, and for balkan music maybe a blues, but I never used so far a matched style, so I ended thinking that scales are irrelevant to produce styles, and only the “anima” (soul) inflated in scales makes a difference…

SO, to me, a collection of MIDIs can be useful, but not the way @yorkeman mentioned

My 2 cents of a :guitar:

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Just for clarity, I wasn’t advocating more sequences - there are enough for me. My comments on midi were just that @Swingmix was looking for more clips, so I suggested a source for him.

You are quite right about the unpredictability of where a useful sequence might originate from. My central point is that of frogs and princes, and how you find the golden needle in the haystack (much mixing of metaphors here…)
So if I’m into (say) trance, that might be a logical place to start rather than jazz, to try and get some rationale in to the auditioning issue. I guess randomly choosing some sequence is also valid, and maybe more creative. I was just underlining its the sheer scale of the choices one is faced with that can be a problem.

So, what do you start from when you sit down in front of the PC ?

I hope scaler can add some styles according to music classification
Including, according to intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, bridge
There is only one purpose. Drag MIDI to finish music quickly.
And can be assigned to the keyboard, live play.
Help more people who are not good at playing the piano.
If it is a commercial work, you can modify it yourself
But if you do it quickly, you don’t lose inspiration @ yorkeman

Now I play all kinds of chords with scaler every day for inspiration
I’m very sensitive to chords and I’ve recorded a lot of ideas
But I have to combine ezkey to do some things, which is more troublesome
I hope scaler can do it on its own. That’s perfect

A premise:
I don’t consider myself a musician, nor a composer
Rather a folk who plays for relax and fun, and now I can say I am a “proof of concepts maker” (maybe this will be my next nickname replacing rabbit composer)

Indeed, my PC is currently full of proof of concepts :woozy_face:, mostly are raw stuff, and maybe I will never find the will to complete them up to mix & max, even if I have many Isotopes to do that
:rofl:

Anyway, all depends on the instrument I want to have fun with

In Ableton Live 11 I have a series of presets, so if I want to play e.g. with the Hammond, I use this or this

While if I want pluck Strum-GS 2 I do this or this

For the Scaler part, I usually start with any random series of chords, or I create one from scratch (less often) then I move notes up and down with MIDI Polysher to have an auto-accompaniment, then I have fun (trying to) play solos

The price of Scaler is much lower than that of Nikos MIDI pack.
Nikos MIDI pack is very, very expensive, but I don’t think it’s comparable to Scaler.
I like Scaler very much
But I don’t like Nikos MIDI pack
But I can watch some of Nikos’ videos, but I won’t pay for them.
I think Scaler is great, advanced and saves creative time
Nikos MIDI pack is backward and a waste of time

@swingmix, maybe you lost this and this and this

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Niko is selling 1000 MIDIs for 27 bucks just now

Inexpensive I think

ezkey 2 comming soon

Maybe I read it wrong. I thought more than 1,000 :sweat_smile:

Really?
Where have you found that?
I believed it wasn’t in the Toontrack’s pipeline

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It probably got lost in translation… Niko did advertise “a $1200 value”, that can get mistranslated as “price” (stumbled over this before). It’s a common way to make things look cheap by claiming a “value” much higher than the sales price.

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