Efficient chordal voicing in 4-part strings
- Thread starter Ron Newman
- Start date
jbuhler
Senior Member
In PRV I select each of the midi regions and give them distinct colors. That allows me to see all the parts and distinguish them. What I haven't figured out how to do is enter new notes directly into the instrument I want. So I end up option dragging to make new notes in the designated instrument or double clicking on one of the notes in the instrument to isolate that instrument and then adding notes (but you can't see the other parts once you do that).
Score view also works, and in many respects it is better suited for this particular task, but score view also has its peculiarities...
danstein
dismember
Depending on your DAW, there’s probably a way to select and view both in whatever view you prefer (ie score or piano roll.)
In my case, I’m on Logic. I would select both regions and view them in the piano roll, setting the view to color the notes based on their region color (to make it easier to keep track if they are in similar registers, for instance)
I know Cubase can do this - you lots of YouTubers doing it. Prob most other DAWs as well.
In my case, I’m on Logic. I would select both regions and view them in the piano roll, setting the view to color the notes based on their region color (to make it easier to keep track if they are in similar registers, for instance)
I know Cubase can do this - you lots of YouTubers doing it. Prob most other DAWs as well.
jbuhler
Senior Member
In Logic, do you know a way to manage which part notes get added to and for automation how to select the automation for a particular part for editing. The only way I've found to do this reliably is double clicking on a note of the part to isolate the part, but then of course you are back to just editing a single midi region without being able to see the other parts...
danstein
dismember
danstein
dismember
Again we cross-posted
I do not know of a better way for automation. That’s a can of worms I have avoided so far by being very old-school and laborious with it.
For note entry, I think (but on iPad atm so can’t confirm) that you don’t need to double-click. If you just single-click a note of the part your new entry should go to that part. I haven’t been doing enough multi-part writing in that way to have the process engrained so I’m really going memory, but give it a try. I do know for sure that there is a way to do exactly this, select and modify one part while retaining the multi-selection
OP
OP
Ron Newman
New Member
All this is in the context of Logic? Or Cubase?Again we cross-posted
I do not know of a better way for automation. That’s a can of worms I have avoided so far by being very old-school and laborious with it.
For note entry, I think (but on iPad atm so can’t confirm) that you don’t need to double-click. If you just single-click a note of the part your new entry should go to that part. I haven’t been doing enough multi-part writing in that way to have the process engrained so I’m really going memory, but give it a try. I do know for sure that there is a way to do exactly this, select and modify one part while retaining the multi-selection
danstein
dismember
Sorry, @Ron Newman - we drifted a little from your OP. We are talking specifically about Logic in the posts above.
muk
Senior Member
Finding a good voice leading can feel a bit like solving a sudoku at times. For me, by far the best method for it is notation. I don't know if it is because I was trained that way. But for voice leading, and for building a form, notation is the only way that works for me. A piano roll gets too messy quickly, especially when instruments intertwine.
Anyway, I wrote about voice leading a long time ago. Maybe it helps.
vi-control.net
Anyway, I wrote about voice leading a long time ago. Maybe it helps.
Part writing or the importance of not being lazy – complete with fancy pictures and sound
Have you ever heard of some arcane device called ‘part writing’? Ever wondered if it could help you improve your writing? If the answer to the second question is no then congratulations. You can save yourself the hassle of reading through this and just have a quick glance at the fancy pictures...
vi-control.net
aldous
Active Member
Another option is to create a track stack containing the tracks for each part, set them respond to different MIDI channels, and then lay out your voices in a single region on the parent track.
Setting Note Colour to "MIDI Channel" gets you the same colour-per-voice as with multiple regions, but drawing in notes is easier: it uses the MIDI channel of the note you last selected/drew, so if you click an existing note for a voice then it'll draw notes for that voice until you change it. If you have Automation visible, it should switch to, e.g., Modwheel for the voice you last clicked too.
I like to spread out the channel assignments as much as possible (i.e. 1, 5, 9, ... rather than 1, 2, 3, ...) to maximise colour contrast, and in case I want to use channels within a voice for some reason. Moving a phrase between voices is also a bit easier; just select the phrase, and drag the channel number up/down in the Event List.
wing
Active Member
I personally can only do this within a score view. Depending on your DAW you should be able to set up a selection-based filter so you can view just your strings, or if you are harmonizing or doubling with an entirely different part of the orchestra which is many tracks away (requiring a lot of scrolling up and down), it's helpful to just isolate those tracks within a score view.
More power to people who can do this with a piano roll. To me I find it very hard to ascertain pitches, intervals, chords, rhythms and when multiple parts are layered, it makes it nearly impossible for me to understand what's going on, even with color coding. This becomes actually impossible if the instrument sounds lower than the actual key in the piano roll (depends on the VI) - for example if you are doubling a cello and doublebass, in some instances they will appear exactly the same, but you won't actually be able to tell since in a piano roll they'll overlap (whereas in a score view you can still see them separately, making it more handy to know exactly what is going on and if you wish to break the doubling or change rhythms). However in other cases some instruments sound at the exact pitch you would play on a keyboard, but isn't how you would write it in reality because it would make the notation way out of range (too low or too high). For example with score view you can view a clef with an 8 or 15 above (or below) to make it still readable; whereas in a piano roll, it's simply out of range and out of sight so you might miss it unless you want to keep scrolling up and down. (Depending on your DAW there are ways to filter only notes being played to combat this.)
For me with a score view I can see all of what's happening at a glance, including my voice leading. I look at a score and I can see the chord and where it's going. I look at a piano roll and both instruments and chords can be rather vague.
All that said, sadly most DAWs have lackluster score editors and it's pretty much an afterthought for some reason. I do rely on piano roll for very quick changes, precise rhythmic adjustments, triggering (or avoiding) legato with VIs, and of course velocity etc.
More power to people who can do this with a piano roll. To me I find it very hard to ascertain pitches, intervals, chords, rhythms and when multiple parts are layered, it makes it nearly impossible for me to understand what's going on, even with color coding. This becomes actually impossible if the instrument sounds lower than the actual key in the piano roll (depends on the VI) - for example if you are doubling a cello and doublebass, in some instances they will appear exactly the same, but you won't actually be able to tell since in a piano roll they'll overlap (whereas in a score view you can still see them separately, making it more handy to know exactly what is going on and if you wish to break the doubling or change rhythms). However in other cases some instruments sound at the exact pitch you would play on a keyboard, but isn't how you would write it in reality because it would make the notation way out of range (too low or too high). For example with score view you can view a clef with an 8 or 15 above (or below) to make it still readable; whereas in a piano roll, it's simply out of range and out of sight so you might miss it unless you want to keep scrolling up and down. (Depending on your DAW there are ways to filter only notes being played to combat this.)
For me with a score view I can see all of what's happening at a glance, including my voice leading. I look at a score and I can see the chord and where it's going. I look at a piano roll and both instruments and chords can be rather vague.
All that said, sadly most DAWs have lackluster score editors and it's pretty much an afterthought for some reason. I do rely on piano roll for very quick changes, precise rhythmic adjustments, triggering (or avoiding) legato with VIs, and of course velocity etc.
Michael Antrum
Only the good die young....
It is in scenarios such as this that I find Staffpad comes into its own and a compositional tool.
SyMTiK
Chris Brocato
Depends what DAW you are using, but both Cubase and Logic I know allow you to view multiple MIDI regions at once in piano roll view.
I am personally on Cubase, and my method involves making sure that you set MIDI notes to follow the color coordination of your tracks (for example all my strings are different shades of green, brass orange, woodwinds yellow, etc.) and then in the piano roll I have key commands mapped so that I can switch between the different parts I have selected with either < or >. I cant remember if cubase has this defaulted or not as I have a fully custom key command setup.
This makes it very easy to edit and keep track of an entire arrangement. I always make sure that I am checking my voicings and parts in this view and the color coordination helps me keep track of all the different instruments parts and what they are doing. Lets say you wanted to change your harmony, going through part by part individually would be rather tedious and annoying and remembering what everything is doing, you are bound to make some voicing errors. While having all parts visible in the piano roll editor you can simply select everything, change your chord, moving notes around accordingly, and see what everything is doing to ensure there are no rogue parts playing the wrong chord, or weird voicings/doublings.
My good friend and mentor Anže Rozman has a video going over how to setup the custom key commands we use that make working in the piano roll with multiple parts a breeze.
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aldous
Active Member
The technique I mentioned above should work with the score editor too: it's the same setup, plus telling the score editor (via the score style for the region) how to map MIDI channels to voices. Optionally you can then map each voice to a staff, and/or ask it to colour the notation by voice.
I'm not a score editor aficionado by any stretch, but I find the result more readable than selecting multiple regions in the score editor. That's always seems pretty mangled when I've tried it.
jbuhler
Senior Member
With Logic, you can Command-5 to show a (temporary) score set of the tracks containing any selected regions. But it won't generally open in score view showing the selected regions but drops you elsewhere in the piece. I haven't yet been able to figure out what Logic decides to show but you have to then navigate to the section you want. So it's a bit of a pain.
aldous
Active Member
Yes, that is nicer - I use it just infrequently enough to forget it every time
That should drop you at the playhead's position if "Catch Playhead" is enabled for the Score window; otherwise, if Catch Playhead is disabled, it should put you at the start of the earliest selected region. (Though I'm sure life gets more complicated if you have Link enabled for that view, or either of the "select track/regions when selecting regions/tracks" settings enabled.)
OP
OP
Ron Newman
New Member
vibrationisreality
Active Member
