Maschine 2 and chord generators VSTs

PortableDJs
PortableDJs Member Posts: 51 Member
edited October 22 in Maschine

Hello everybody

I wanted to integrate a chord generator VST in my workflow within Maschine 2.

I installed Harvest Mini and Chordjam Trial and even modifying MIDI in/out none of them work.

I then red that Maschine 2 as a DAW is not capable of running Chord Generators VSTs.

Is that true? Is there any other chord generator(s) alternative I can run on Maschine 2? Maybe a VST instrument that has a solid chord generator built in?

As always thank you guys, you rock 🀚

G.

Best Answers

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,452 mod
    edited June 2023 Answer βœ“

    This has been requested to exhaustion. None of the popular Chord helpers will fully work on Maschine since it does not support MIDI Out (created) from Plugins.

    This basically means that when you press a Pad/Note and the Chord-Plug changes the incoming single note into a Chord Maschine does record the chord to its piano roll nor it is able to send it to another Pad/Sound containing an Instrument, it just sees/record the original single note. So, you can't 'print it' or send it to your fancy Komplete instruments.

    Some chord plugins have their own sounds, if you're OK using those sounds or never need to edit the individual notes to refine things I guess it can work. Scaler-2 for example has a bunch of sounds.

    The common workaround is to use another host inside Maschine like MiniHost, or a solution like PatchWork, the latter is like 100$ tho...


    Is there any other chord generator(s) alternative I can run on Maschine 2? Maybe a VST instrument that has a solid chord generator built in?

    Depends on what you mean by 'solid' and what are your requirements, Instruments are generally focused on being instruments and when they have chord functions they are usually very simple, an extra bonus feature.

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,452 mod
    edited June 2023 Answer βœ“

    Oh, I see. πŸ‘ Scaler2 has a melody system based on the Chords you pick, also a "Capture MIDI" button you can use while it's running and then drag and drop it into another Maschine Pad.

    Note that this melody system is more of a fancy arpeggio kind of deal.

Β«1

Answers

  • PortableDJs
    PortableDJs Member Posts: 51 Member

    Thanks, I ll look into that

  • DeepThumb
    DeepThumb Member Posts: 172 Advisor

    Hi, Scaler 2 and Captain Chords are quite powerful chord generators.

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,452 mod
    edited June 2023 Answer βœ“

    This has been requested to exhaustion. None of the popular Chord helpers will fully work on Maschine since it does not support MIDI Out (created) from Plugins.

    This basically means that when you press a Pad/Note and the Chord-Plug changes the incoming single note into a Chord Maschine does record the chord to its piano roll nor it is able to send it to another Pad/Sound containing an Instrument, it just sees/record the original single note. So, you can't 'print it' or send it to your fancy Komplete instruments.

    Some chord plugins have their own sounds, if you're OK using those sounds or never need to edit the individual notes to refine things I guess it can work. Scaler-2 for example has a bunch of sounds.

    The common workaround is to use another host inside Maschine like MiniHost, or a solution like PatchWork, the latter is like 100$ tho...


    Is there any other chord generator(s) alternative I can run on Maschine 2? Maybe a VST instrument that has a solid chord generator built in?

    Depends on what you mean by 'solid' and what are your requirements, Instruments are generally focused on being instruments and when they have chord functions they are usually very simple, an extra bonus feature.

  • PortableDJs
    PortableDJs Member Posts: 51 Member

    I can use Scaler 2 (with its own sounds), get a melody and then copy and paste the midi notes on my piano roll favorite instrument/vst then.

    Thanks for your help

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,452 mod
    edited June 2023

    Copy? How? Do you mean drag-and-drop the midi?

    No prob.

  • PortableDJs
    PortableDJs Member Posts: 51 Member

    Yes I meant "transfer the notes from Scaler 2 into my other vst instrument". I don't own Scaler 2 yet, so the workflow should be 1) write melodies in Scaler 2 then 2) move them (somehow) in the other vst to get proper sound running.

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,452 mod
    edited June 2023 Answer βœ“

    Oh, I see. πŸ‘ Scaler2 has a melody system based on the Chords you pick, also a "Capture MIDI" button you can use while it's running and then drag and drop it into another Maschine Pad.

    Note that this melody system is more of a fancy arpeggio kind of deal.

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,461 Expert

    It is a little more than a fancy arpeggio. All the options you see in the photo opens up in other menus, which opens in other submenus,…

    And they are adding new content (last update was focused exactly in providing more variety to those options)


  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,452 mod
    edited June 2023

    I'll take your word for it... All of them seem to just cycle the chord notes, so sound like arps to me, not an expert tho, I don't usually use Scaler for this kind of purpose. Your GUI looks very different from mine, i wonder why... I'm on 2.8


  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,461 Expert

    To be quicker I took a snapshot on the iPad version, since I was using iPad to write ☺️

    But they are practically a 1:1 reproduction (except for the graphics )

  • Uproot
    Uproot Member Posts: 7 Member

    I love the chord pallettes and scales given to us, but I'm a musician who generally writes on an instrument and then brings my idea into Maschine.

    A few additions I think that are necessary to be able to free people from finding melody and chord movements within the confines you have provided us are:

    ***Give us the ability to create our own chord pallettes. Check out Cubase's later rendition of chords. You can choose the voicing up through the octave and can add your modifiers (aug, dim, etc). I'd love to be able to drag and drop my own crafted chords to individual pads in the chords section. This would also allow us to do a key change on the same lot of pads because we'd also be able to choose the root note. We could colour code each chord to give us visual groups, perhaps for each section of a song.

    ***Very similar idea but with scales and individual notes. Allow us to assign portions of scales or specific notes to each pad. There are so many times that to reach that note I want, I'd have to switch octave for one note in a scale because we are locked with many notes if a scale we don't want. Why not let us select a notes for each pad of an instrument? The ability to do this separately for individual instruments would then allow us to do things like playing bass hooks that change in key or scale, allow us to do key changes within split seconds for portions of a melody.

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,452 mod

    Well, yes. People have been asking for custom Chord Sets and Scales for many, many years now.

  • Uproot
    Uproot Member Posts: 7 Member

    I'm sure they have, and they shouldn't stop!

  • Nikal Might
    Nikal Might Member Posts: 26 Member

    Sonic Academy ANA 2 has an excellent chord generator built in and one of the best arpeggiators I've ever used. The chord generator is very similar in functionality to Xfer Cthulhu. It's a great synth too.

    I did start a Maschine project ages ago to generate chords, but it was a real hassle, so I never finished it. It's a load of patterns with different chord flavours. I pick a sound I like, render the project which just runs through all the chords and then chop up the sample in Reaper and then reimport the chords to the Maschine pads.

    It's still a poor substitute to a dedicated custom Maschine chord set thoughπŸ˜₯

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