That was because he was insulted by a Troll, not because he wasn’t interested. He did indeed participate.
On Miki’s comments about AI generated art, I was reminded of the genre of fractal art. It’s computer generated, but can produce amazing original images. No skill ? Try writing a fractal generating formula (probably needs degree level maths) and mentally linking that back to an image. As time progresses, art, whether musical or visual manifests it self in different forms than just with a violin, piano, chisel or paintbrush.
Thank you ed66 for your response.
I understood the possibility of copying/pasting scenes in order to be able to create different variations - rhythmic - of the same sequence of chords. But my problem is the opposite. I would like Instacomposer to be able to automatically adjust a given variation with other chords. (sort of, a partial transposition on some chords)
In your example, let’s say track 2 is fine for me with Am F Dm G Am F Dm G chords.
I take it and copy it into my DAW. I then want to modify the chord sequence for a second movement with the same structure but with different chords.
For example, I would do a sequence: Am F Dm G Am G Bdim A(MAJ)
So I make the changes in the chord sequence of Instacomposer and there, nothing happens. Notes do not adapt to new chords. The only way I have found is to press GO again. But then I lose the structure of the notes (the rhythm).
By analogy with Scaler, if I build a performance for example Adagio / Accento, when I change one or more chords in a pattern, the notes adapt (their pitch) but the structure (the rhythm) remains the same.
Regarding the more general discussion on the composition and therefore the production of a work of art, I allow myself to share with you the experience that I have in the field of art photography since it is my job.
During the exhibitions that I have been able to do, the question that I am always asked is: “is it film or digital?”
On this subject, I was able to observe that 99% of people - even photography professionals and me the first since it takes special printing conditions to say it for sure - are unable to differentiate a silver print from a digital print.
On the other hand, three quarters of people will tell you that film is better.
Why better? The reasons given are diverse but mostly inaccurate. One of those that comes up most often is: in film, you can’t retouch it, so it’s more “authentic”. Which is completely false insofar as a beautiful silver print is always retouched. With tools that are certainly not digital but retouched all the same.
What I mean by that is that when it comes to artistic production, it doesn’t matter what tools are used. Only the result counts.
Give a newbie a Steinway and he’ll make you hear a massacre. Give Lang Lang a toy piano and he’ll give you a great performance.
Composition helper plugins are tools. Why not use them if they suit us? And if they don’t suit us, don’t use them. They are just tools. Tools have never done a job. The work of art is made by an artist.
NB: sorry for the broken English. I use google translation. Take ! Another tool!
Sorry, I misunderstood what you were trying to achieve. I don’t think that can be done in InstaComposer (another of the reasons I don’t really use it very much and why I prefer Chordpotion).
@jjfagot uses a lot of tools. Chordpotion, InstaComposer…Many others.
The other day I informed him of IC2 and of course, he updated his version. Being classically trained he knows a lot more than us, ordinary users. And however, he uses these tools to start a song here and there and he develops it by using his great talent.
Unfortunately, he abandoned this forum because of the trolls and enjoys in his life. Great guy and musician.
I think that’s a bit judgmental, but everyone’s entitled to their opinion. Yes, sure if you just let the algorithmic tool do all the work, you’re mostly being an orchestrator or arranger and just picking out the sounds to perform the notes and how rather than actually writing the notes.
But I would disagree that taking these tools and using them as an inspiration or just taking bits and parts of what it spits out and then making something new out of it isn’t a composition. It’s just using the tools one has at their call.
We all have strengths and weaknesses in our abilities. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that is truly a master of all when it comes to music production. Yeah I might use a lot of tools like Scaler, Insta, etc… but then I don’t need any help in sorting out how my DAW works, how to properly use my audio interfaces, how to use a sample library and virtual instruments, I can handle large scale network audio distribution systems for live entertainment venues and I don’t need Ozone to help me master a track. (full disclosure, I do us it’s normalizer, regularly, but that’s about it) My point isn’t to brag it’s to say that I have a lot of skills other musicians and composers do not. So maybe composer X doesn’t need any music theory or composition helpers but they’re not going to engineer their own recording sessions either. Or maybe they’ll use the “cheat” tool for that part of the process?
To more directly answer your question, do I think any of these tools help me create better music? Yes, I believe they do. Even if some of it was just to open up my mind to a different approach or make me learn some new theory but to do it more or less in real time rather than stopping work and taking a class and then putting it into practice. While I doubt I could say the same about Instacomposer, I can say I have learned a lot simply by putting Scaler to use. And I am sure there are now things I do automatically that I probably didn’t before I got scaler and likely never would have had I not picked up Scaler and put it to use. So yeah I do think to various degrees all these tools have made me a better composer. And every year that passes I find myself using them less and less and just doing it directly rather than opening up a tool to help me out. And just for the record, no I don’t think this should be a full substitute for learning music theory or how to do it from scratch. I’ve taken plenty of time to do that as well, especially during the shut downs. But I think they work both ways. The more I learn about music theory and the craft of it, the faster I can make use of these compositional aids and the more I use these aids, the more I understand the theory.
Also, I don’t know about you, but I have deadlines. And I can’t just wait for inspiration to strike. So when I’m looking at a blank screen going “what the hell am I going to do with this…” well I’m not at all ashamed to say yep sometimes I open up one of these algorithmic tools and let it jump start the process. Or hell sometimes I just use some of the MIDI packs and start there. (no, not those MIDI packs we all love to hate the ads for, hopefully something more useful) It is sexy? No Is it genius? Nope. But it gets the job done and as long as the client is happy, who cares. I’m not John Williams and I never will be and I’m not ashamed to admit that
If it’s a 30 second cut of music that covers up a transition in a live theatre show (this is where I typically get work) no one cares as long as it gets the job done, doesn’t sound like crap and fits the piece.
That’s my $1.95 on the subject anyway.
I agree it’s fairly modest update. But as you said, it’s a $10 update. So who cares. And unless you paid full price (which I would always recommend folks wait for the sale) the plug in itself isn’t really all that expensive. Heck even at full price it’s not really that expensive.
To me the biggest improvement is the Scenes. So I can have multiple ideas that evolve and don’t have to keep throwing things away or over writing them once I’ve dragged the MIDI data into my DAW. It was either that or doing a lot of saving of presets in version 1. Or just having a ton of instances of the plug in running but disabled.
Like others here I have Scaler, all of the various Insta Tools plus their Chords plug in thing, Phrasebox, Chord Potion, Rapid Composer, Captain Plug ins, and a couple of others I almost never use.
Scaler is by far the most useful. I probably use that 50% of the time out of all of these. And Phrasebox, Divisimate and InstaChord probably represent another 20 to 25%. And all the rest are that last 25 to 30% This is obviously just a guesstimate. I’m not really bothering to keep track of this I don’t really care.
I think all of these tools have good and bad points. If I was doing it over again, I probably wouldn’t bother with Captain Plug Ins or Rapid Composer. Captain has one of the nicest looking UIs of any of them but it is in many ways the least versatile. Almost all of these algorithmic tools seem to have some type of electronic music bent. And there is probably a good reason for that, my gut says that’s where the money is at. Rapid Composer on the other hand is just a massive and fairly convoluted tool. It’s kind of trying to be everything for everybody.
Anway, another $1.75 from the opinionated curmudgeon corner.
They are in C:\Users<your user>\AppData\Roaming\WAProduction\Instacomposer 2 or, if not found, it is possible to copy them from the previous version in C:\Users<you user>\AppData\Roaming\WAProduction\Instacomposer.
This way they’ll be visible in menu, presets.
I got InstaComposer 2 from a previous sale. For what I am trying to do, I have found other tools like Piano Motifs (iOS) and Riffler more satisfying.
Riffler has some functionality that I wish InstaComposer had which makes the workflow better for me. I hope that in future updates they add the ability to “lock” certain beats while allowing you to regenerate the unlocked parts to taste.
As an aside, I have found myself using InstaChord 2 a lot more as a generator as well as arppegiator. Have also taken a liking to InstaScale for experimentation .
All of these tools are really enhanced by Scaler, IMO.
, so quite a rara avis
