Recommend economical midi sequencer s/w?

[Gruuve]

Hi folks:

 

I'm trying to get better at cranking out song ideas...I guess you could call that "composition" of sorts. I've been tinkering with PG Music's Band-in-a-Box, and one thing I really like are the simple chord entry sheet. You can just enter a string of chord names in boxes that represent counts, and press play. It creates accompaniment.

 

It's reasonably useful, but it's also quite far from a real midi sequencer. You have minimal control over what it plays. PG Music also makes PowerTracs, which is a sequencer, and that package has the same chord entry sheet, but guess what...it's only used for printing, you can't enter chords, assign them to an instrument and track. Duh. What were they thinking?

 

Anyway, I'm trying to find midi sequencer software that will let me create new music by entering chord names (if I have to go edit them in standard notation afterwards, that's fine. In fact, that's preferable...I would in many cases need to go edit the rhythm's) and a drum groove. I've seen a couple that have a "rhythm grid" or something that makes it pretty easy to enter drum parts. I'm more picky about typing chord names and having it create the standard notation for that than I am about the drum/percussion part of it.

 

I don't have particularly good music theory knowledge (although I'm working on it), and being able to enter chord names and run with it makes it really easy to get an idea formulated. I *can* muddle through it in standard notation, but it just becomes really time-consuming, and often I end up losing the idea before I can get it down. I don't truly need anything that integrates digital audio tracks, as generally the output of this would be the framework to record real instruments.

 

I'm looking for freeware, shareware, or commercial software that reasonably priced ($100 or less). I found this listing, but it's going to take a while to download all of these and actually try them.

 

http://www.sonicspot.com/sequencers.html

 

Does anyone happen to know if any of these have simple chord entry features that I'm looking for?

 

Thanks,

Dave

[Eric VB]

Hey Dave,

 

Interesting idea. I guess I never thought of composing ITB (in the box) like that before. Usually I grab a guitar or keyboard and fiddle around. (Unlike Alex, I don't generally look for chordings on bass.) I've even put together some chords on mandolin.

 

I don't know that I'd necessarily like the Dm7 chord that a program would kick out (D F A C?). What octave? What if I want "A C D F"? But I guess if I didn't have a chordal instrument, it might be handy.

 

In the past, I have entered note-for-note straight into the computer and yes, that can be tedious. Sometimes it's fun to just change a note or two from chord to chord to see what happens. For example, the "A C D F" Dm7 could become "A C E F", an F7 (natural 7th, not flatted) by changing just one note. I may not have started out thinking "I need to go Dm7 to F7", so this can be a way of stimulating creativity.

 

If you do find what you're looking for, let us know. I may want to check it out.

[Gruuve]

Hey RBG:

 

The need is more because I don't play what is traditionally a chordal instrument (Alex would beg to differ ). In a nutshell, I need something that will help me figure out what chords have the right "sound" with a particular bassline. For instance, right now I'm working on cranking out a modernized version of an old worship song (Change My Heart O God, to be exact). I've got the bass line in mind that I want to retrofit to it, but the existing chords don't work. I can without tremendous difficulty enter the approximate bass line in a music notation package I have (Melody Assistant) and I can then export that bass line to a midi file, then import that into the melody line of Band-in-a-Box and start playing with chords. Or at least that's what I'm doing right now. Unfortunately, BiaB just doesn't seem to be as stable as I'd like in music-related software.

 

So, I guess I've got a way to approximate it all. BiaB doesn't give you very much control though...it generates auto-accompaniment which is based on one out of a collection of styles. For instance, if you want to make chord 1 play on count 1, chord 2 play on the & of 2, and chord 3 play on count 3, you can't do it. But, it does seem to work as an "approximation" tool. What I'd really like to look for is something that I could work/re-work something like a midi piano or string section part, and then maybe have a high-quality enough output to actually use it in a recorded version of the whatever music along with basslines, drums, vocals, whatever else I might record. BiaB is good enough for a sketch, but it just wouldn't work for this.

 

I just discoverd that the music notation package I use (Melody Assistant, a cheapo which keeps impressing me) will actually allow you to take a single note and convert it to a chord. It allows you to simply replace the single note with whatever chord you've set up...there's a box where you can setup up to 12 additional notes based on whatever intervals you choose. So, you still have to know what the intervals are in, say, a B7sus chord, but at least you don't have to have the individual notes memorized. MA will also play what you've put on the notation, and will even render it to a WAV file, so all said, I can already do what it is that I want to do...it's just quite cumbersome and the output isn't high-quality enough to use for anything "finished". I figure if I make it easier to do, then maybe I'll do it more often and in turn learn more about what sounds "right" with what...

 

Just as an FYI, I downloaded Quartz Audio Master (http://www.digitalsoundplanet.com/home.html) per the site above, but it doesn't run on Winders XP...drat . I've downloaded Anvil Studio (http://www.anvilstudio.com/)as well, and it looks pretty good, but still doesn't do exactly what I'm looking for. It allows you to enter chords on standard notation by holding down the shift key and clicking on a piano keyboard displayed on the screen...so with this one, you have to know what the notes in the chord are.

 

I'm reading about Power Chord's Pro on Howling Dog's site (http://www.howlingdog.com/index.htm). This one looks promising. It's more geared toward guitar than keyboard, which seems like it might be very beneficial. The creator says it has a great matrix-based drum rhythm editing deal as well...BiaB has something similar that's matrix-based, and that's really easy to work with compared to creating drum parts on electronic standard notation (which I can do all day long...I read rhythm's really well since I was first a drummer, just slow reading pitches), but this matrix-based editing is really quick, at least for creating repetitive stuff.

 

Anyway, I'll post more as I do trials of additional packages. I don't believe Power Chords has a trial, but seems to be a small company, so I'll probably send them some questions.

 

So, in a nutshell, what I really need is a black box that will play chords for me!

 

L8r,

Dave

[jay da cop]

Cakewalk has a Guitar Studio (or something like that) that is geared toward string instruments instead of the traditional keyboard based entry. Our guitar player has it on his computer, but we usually use my Sonar4 or I just started using Traktion. The guitar version is under $100US also. Might help. It does audio and MIDI, and if it's like Sonar, will print notation.

 

Jay

[Dr Nursers]

Hey Dave - can you check in at Collab corner mate?

 

[Gruuve]

You got it Dave....

[Dr Nursers]