From QUantized to Arpeggiated (Rolled) Chords

[Shooshie]

The subject of rolling chords came up in another thread. This is something I've thought about posting for a long time, so I created a separate thread for it. (the other thread wasn't strictly about rolling chords from straight ones) There must be a dozen ways to do this, but I've often found myself needing to turn an entire track (5 minutes or so) of straight chords to rolled ones. The arpeggiator is too unpredictable, and the results require a lot more work to get it set up correctly. So, I use the SHIFT command and dialog. Next, when rolling a lot of chords, that means selecting and shifting or nudging a LOT of NOTES! There is an easy way to do it, though. I'm posting a link to a video guide I made to doing it the way I've done it for well over 15 years, though the specifics have changed as MOTU has added features. So, it's gotten easier over the years, which is good, but MOTU has yet to provide us with a simple button that will roll chords. THAT would be ideal. Maybe if enough of us asked for it.

There may be other ways of doing this that are even better and faster. It seems like I've found other ways that I like better, and if I remember them I'll post about them, too. But this is the way I remember using the most.

Turning quantized or straight chords into rolled or arpeggiated chords (about 37 mb)


If it helps anyone, it'll have been worth the effort.

Shooshie

[tommymandel]

Thanks Shooshie! Really informative. Not only the chord-rolling itself, many of the little expert-y things you did along the way.

[Shooshie]

And for what it's worth, here's the final product. Not really mixed, per-se,but bounced to disk without too many isssues:
John Williams Medley.mp3
It was arranged for 5 Disklavier Grand Pianos. Ivory does a decent job of emulating them.

Shooshie

[cbergm7210]

Okay, I am going to show my still newbie status here with DP, but Shooshie, how do you move multiple tracks at once in the Track overview window as you did in your movie?

I have been trying to figure that one out for a while, unfortunately.

[Shooshie]

Hehehe... in DP, the CONTROL key unlocks many secrets. That one is:


CONTROL-HOME
CONTROL-END
CONTROL-PAGE-UP
CONTROL-PAGE-DOWN

Works for one track or many tracks. BUT... if you want to gather a number of non-adjacent tracks together, say, all the ones colored red, you'd select each one with COMMAND-CLICK (SHIFT-CLICK for ranges), and when you have picked out all the tracks you want to gather, you type CONTROL-OPTION-HOME.

Don't worry; that's not the sign of a newbie. These little tricks are rarely known outside of a few people in this forum!

Shooshie

[cbergm7210]

Do you know how many times in 2008 I moved a dozen tracks one at a time to the same location?

Thanks for the tip, Shoosh. I am now working that much faster and can raise my hourly rate. Steak dinner on me.

Chris

[Shooshie]

Hehehe... I'm on a diet. Just send virtual instruments. Vienna and Wallander, preferably.


Shooshie

[Tobor]

Yes, thanks Shooshie, for the entertaining and informative tutorial- it was like being invited over to your studio! I'm curious- how do you record the movie of your screen like that?

I think in my case of rolling through the guitar track I would probably save a couple steps and just use the event edit window- start typing ticks in where I see duplicates, moving through the sequence with the down arrow. I love the split notes feature though, was just using it yesterday on the same tune to get BFD to play some of the cymbals and drum kit pieces- couldn't find a real good brushy BFD snare equivalent so needed to use the original brushes in my Yamaha. Then I had to delay the BFD parts by 20 ticks or so....it never ends!

Once again, thanks- it's great to watch these processes in action.

Tobor

[monkey man]

Thank you Shoosh. I love it when you do this stuff. I'll be in a position to provide feedback in, oh I don't know... a week?

Downloading... LOL

[Shooshie]

Thank you Shoosh. I love it when you do this stuff. I'll be in a position to provide feedback in, oh I don't know... a week?

Downloading... LOL

LOL! You poor monkey! I hope it ends up being worth the time. 37 MB at what... about 4k/second? If that's correct, it comes to a little over 2.5 hours, if the connection doesn't drop. Wow, that's quite a commitment, but I promise you joy, happiness, and the answers to the questions of the universe if you get to watch it. Of course, I could be lying.

Shoosh

[Shooshie]

Yes, thanks Shooshie, for the entertaining and informative tutorial- it was like being invited over to your studio! I'm curious- how do you record the movie of your screen like that?

I'm sorry; I forgot to answer your question when you asked, and didn't remember until I was booting Screenflick tonight. That's the app I use. I've tried many, but this one is my favorite. However, perhaps because of some upgrade -- Leopard, DP6, Screenflick, Quicktime? who knows? -- I'm having trouble getting sound into it directly from DP. Originally I was able to get sound directly from DP into the app itself, which made it perfect for demos like this one. Unfortunately, for this demo I had to use the sound coming out of my computer speakers and into my "Blue - Snowball" USB desktop mic. Not the best way to do audio, and certainly not of the quality we expect. So... unless I figure out the magic formula, I may have to switch back to Ambrosia's Snapz Pro.

Anyway, here are the websites:

Screenflick
Ambrosia's Snapz Pro

Ambrosia's Snapz Pro is definitely the power-user's choice. It offers more options than I know what to do with. That's partly why I'm more comfortable in Screenflick, as it's basically a click;click solution, and the results are great. But I've got to figure out why it's no longer capturing my audio from DP.

So there it is...


Shoosh

[SixStringGeek]

That was BRILLIANT! I had no idea some of those amazing functions were in there. THANK YOU!

[monkey man]

Thank you Shoosh. I love it when you do this stuff. I'll be in a position to provide feedback in, oh I don't know... a week?
Downloading... LOL

LOL! You poor monkey! I hope it ends up being worth the time. 37 MB at what... about 4k/second? If that's correct, it comes to a little over 2.5 hours, if the connection doesn't drop. Wow, that's quite a commitment, but I promise you joy, happiness, and the answers to the questions of the universe if you get to watch it. Of course, I could be lying.
Shoosh

I saw it a few days later, Shoosh. Great! Thank you!

'Cornies, I know I've said this before, but if Shooshie were to make a DP video guide, my bet is that all of us would buy it.

[tommymandel]

MonkeyMan, where can I get one of those StompBoxes like the one in your Avatar? Do they sell them up here in the N.Hemisphere?
ALSO - has QuickTime 7.6 been deemed usable with Intel, Tiger and DP 6.02 ? I heard some horror-stories earlier, so I stayed away;
but i inadvertently upgraded iTunes to 8.1 (50) and it gave a message about some limit to functionality without QT 7.6. ?

[Tim]

Cool Shoosh!

Wouldn't it be neat if the Reshape Tool could be used to adjust onsets up there in the graphic editor?

I've had luck with the Arpeggiator but all durations need to be the same first, so that's kind of a pain.