Midiflow scales, Atom Piano Roll, AUM setup help.

Steaders

Thanks Again wim!

Soundscaper

@tja said:

@Soundscaper said:
Quantichord is my lazy go-to - just slot it into a midi channel in AUM ... has a very wild randomising feature that takes you into strange places. There's some others similar with sequencers and arps and scales/chord combined. More tinkering involved.

I'm quite sure that QuantiChord cannot transpose notes like MidiFlow Scales.
Please educate, if there is such a possibility.

Changeling is also interesting - very musical - but has similar issues with AUM and has been overlooked ... just works off by itself apparently based on my efforts ... lovely though.

Don't known Changeling very good, but also here, I cannot remember such transpositions.

Do you know MidiFlow Scales by chance?

I've got all the Midflow apps - but use some more than others ... I've used Midiflow scales a few times ... no expert at all. Found it useful for generative music that gets a bit atonal. Stops folks running away.

Depends what you're trying to do ... and that isn't made clear in the initial request. If he's trying to manage a flood of wild unplayed noise into something melodic then fine - but if he's really only after a quick way of cranking out useful chords and playing them into his tracks - ie avoiding wrong notes in his own playing - Quantichord is quick, easy and cheap. If on the other hand you've got a whole tangle of unruly notes coming out of your chaotic generating source then Scales comes in handy. But most of the time I suspect it's just used to try and cover or "prevent" bad playing. Quantichord will do that too. Better .. turns it into a one finger job.

When they talk of transposition musicians usually mean shifting a group of notes or a whole piece into a different key so by "transposing notes" I assume you mean this business of forcing individual wrong notes to conform to a scale or filtering them out altogether - I have found both approaches to be really annoying for live playing - sudden gaps and unexpected right ones are both equally disconcerting. If it's just bad playing rather than random notes from a machine then Midiflow is no substitute for hours of tedious practice. Or reverting to playback set-ups which are indeed a perfect substitute for practice.

So yes I've found Scales useful quick way for taming machine generated or randomised sound sources. But then I decided to get better at controlling the sources instead. I only do simple music of course - nothing too sophisticated - so I don't use such gadgets that much. What do you use Midiflow Scales for TJA?

tja

@soundshaper Not sure where you got that impression from, that the OP did not clearly state what he wanted.

He wanted to get MidiFlow Scales to work for use with an external MIDI controller.
At best with AUM only, or at least in AudioBus.

Even as you will be right with my wrong use of "transpose" (I am not a musician), Quantichord simply cannot do what MidiFlow Scales / Rozetta Scaler do:

Change of non-Scale notes to Scale notes.
Maybe the OP just wanted to map the scale notes to the white keys of the controller.

Anyway :-)

Steaders

Hey tja. I tried your way of routing Midiflow to Aum and Atom and it’s absolutely perfect. Thanks for your time and patience.

tja

@Steaders said:
Hey tja. I tried your way of routing Midiflow to Aum and Atom and it’s absolutely perfect. Thanks for your time and patience.

It was a pleasure

Steaders

Hey tja. I don’t think Atom records midi sustain info from a midi sustain pedal. Do you know if that’s the case or do you know of a workaround?
If not, is the process the same to use Midiflow Scales in Cubasis instead of AUM? I’ve tried but I don’t seem to be having any luck.

tja

@Steaders said:
Hey tja. I don’t think Atom records midi sustain info from a midi sustain pedal. Do you know if that’s the case or do you know of a workaround?
If not, is the process the same to use Midiflow Scales in Cubasis instead of AUM? I’ve tried but I don’t seem to be having any luck.

I dont know if that is an issue with Atom.
Did you try Atom directly in AudioBus, as @wim suggested?

That you should test first with your sustain pedal.

Do you have Xequence?

Steaders

Im pretty sure Atom doesn’t record sustain or velocity info so I may have to record piano parts into Cubase.
Problem is I need to use Midiflow scales and I can’t figure out how to record The midi from Midiflow scales into Cubase.
I will check out Xequence.
Thanks.

wim

Atom definitely records velocity. Sustain, I don’t know.

Xequence is excellent. Don’t purchase Xequence right now though! Wait a just a bit until Xequence 2 is released.

Steaders

I found velocity 😀
99% sure it doesn’t do sustain

wim

@Steaders said:
Problem is I need to use Midiflow scales and I can’t figure out how to record The midi from Midiflow scales into Cubase.
I will check out Xequence.
Thanks.

Super easy! Just add Cubasis in the output position on the midi page in Audiobus. Tracks will automatically be created with the routing already set up.

Steaders

Awesome thanks wim.
Actually, I think Atom does have sustain recording and editing
I see these thin vertical lines coming off the velocity midi.
Im still figuring this all out. 🤓

wim

Xequence 2 is definitely worth checking out when it’s released. It has the most robust midi recorder and playback I’ve ever used on iOS, a great piano roll editor, and an actively involved developer. It’s a standalone app, not AU, but I don’t mind that in this case.

Setup for recording through Midiflow Scales would be basically the same as with Cubasis, except the tracks aren’t added automatically, but can be added with just a few clicks.

wim

Also, there’s an app called Photon, which is an AU midi recorder and looper. It records and plays back everything, including sustain, but has only very minimal editing options (quantize, trim, etc). There’s a bit of a learning curve to it, but it can be used fairly easily once you understand the basics. One great advantage is it exports midi files that can be imported to other apps. Might be worth checking out. Once again, an involved and responsive developer.

Photon AU by anthony saunders https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photon-au/id1441542979

Steaders

Thanks wim. I look forward to Xequence 2.
I’m loving Atom Piano Roll now that I’m getting the hang of it. Import/export midi seems like a must though. Hopefully it’s on the horizon.
I’ll look into photon but so far Atom is going to be tough to beat.

Steaders

Setup for recording through Midiflow Scales would be basically the same as with Cubasis, except the tracks aren’t added automatically, but can be added with just a few clicks.

Wim, are you referring to using Midiflow Scales with Xequence 2 here?

wim

@Steaders said:

Setup for recording through Midiflow Scales would be basically the same as with Cubasis, except the tracks aren’t added automatically, but can be added with just a few clicks.

Wim, are you referring to using Midiflow Scales with Xequence 2 here?

Yes. You want to play your keyboard, have Midiflow Scales filter/transpose, and record the output. So that’s how you’d do it.

@Steaders said:
Thanks wim. I look forward to Xequence 2.
I’m loving Atom Piano Roll now that I’m getting the hang of it. Import/export midi seems like a must though. Hopefully it’s on the horizon.
I’ll look into photon but so far Atom is going to be tough to beat.

Agreed. Atom is the bomb. Right now it’s limited to only outputting on one channel, and not recording cc’s. If that’s not a problem then no reason to look elsewhere.

It’s a bit of a kludge, but you can record to Atom, then play back Atom into Photon, then export the midi. I’m not advocating any particular solution, just putting the options out there...

Steaders

Ahh. So when you say it can’t record cc’s then my sustain pedal presses are not being recorded correct?
If so, then this and outputting to one channel could be a problem but hopefully there are updates on the horizon. 🙏
Other than these issues it’s super intuitive. I love it.

Steaders

No need to answer wim. Heard from the developer and he’s working on it all 😀👍🏻

Steaders

@wim said:

@Steaders said:
Regarding not understanding me, ScaleBud for example only has the option to mute the off scale notes on an external controller. This isn’t what I’m looking for. Whereas Midiflow Scales gives you 4 remapping options.

Rozeta Scaler doesn’t have the exact four options that Midiflow Scales does, but it effectively accomplishes the same thing with different options. You can choose to transpose notes you play outside of the scale either up or down to a key in the scale. So no matter what key you hit, you will not play outside the scale. For the “White Keys” option, you would simply set the Input Transpose to the right number of semitones.

So, if you wanted to play in Eb minor on all white keys, you would:

• Set input transpose to +3 (C to Eb)
• Set the scale to Eb minor
• Set to quantize up or down.
• Play white keys from C

Rozeta scaler doesn’t let you create custom scales though. I made a Mozaic script that does that, but that probably isn’t really what you need if I understand correctly.

Hey wim. Your white key setup in Rozeta Scaler is working an absolute treat. The only part I can’t get my head around (and this solely due to my low level understanding of music theory) is how the input transpose and quantize up or down work. Can you explain it to me as though i’m a five year old? I’m actually 7 and a half.

For example for Cm scale I set the input transpose to -1 and selected quantize up and i’m able to play the Cm scale on all white notes . It’s not obvious to me why that works.

wim

@Steaders said:

@wim said:

@Steaders said:
Regarding not understanding me, ScaleBud for example only has the option to mute the off scale notes on an external controller. This isn’t what I’m looking for. Whereas Midiflow Scales gives you 4 remapping options.

Rozeta Scaler doesn’t have the exact four options that Midiflow Scales does, but it effectively accomplishes the same thing with different options. You can choose to transpose notes you play outside of the scale either up or down to a key in the scale. So no matter what key you hit, you will not play outside the scale. For the “White Keys” option, you would simply set the Input Transpose to the right number of semitones.

So, if you wanted to play in Eb minor on all white keys, you would:

• Set input transpose to +3 (C to Eb)
• Set the scale to Eb minor
• Set to quantize up or down.
• Play white keys from C

Rozeta scaler doesn’t let you create custom scales though. I made a Mozaic script that does that, but that probably isn’t really what you need if I understand correctly.

Hey wim. Your white key setup in Rozeta Scaler is working an absolute treat. The only part I can’t get my head around (and this solely due to my low level understanding of music theory) is how the input transpose and quantize up or down work. Can you explain it to me as though i’m a five year old? I’m actually 7.

Now that I know you’re a guitar player yeh, we’ll stick to five year old level.

Input transpose just moves the notes you play up by that number of semitones. So, let’s say you set input transpose to +2 semitones. When you play a C, it changes that to the key two steps up on the keyboard, D. Play a D and it changes that to an E.

Quantize up/down is just how you decide to treat any notes you play that are out of scale. If I’m playing C major and I hit a C#, quantize up would change that to a D. Quantize down would change that to a C. It doesn’t really matter which you choose. But it can be a way of switching in some variety.

So ... if we always want to play the white keys starting at C, but we want to play in D minor. First we transpose up so that we can keep playing that nice comfortable C scale. Now the notes Scaler is sending to its scale filter look like they’re in D. We set the scale to D minor so that our notes are quantized (every five year old knows what quantize means, right?) to the D minor scale.

In guitar terms...
Input transpose is like a capo. Capo up two frets and play a C major scale, and you get D major scale.

Scale conversion is like an altered tuning. Strum the open strings and you get a nice sounding chord instead of what you normally get. Quantize up or down is like whether the strings are tuned up or down to fit the key.

I hope that helps.

Steaders

@wim said:

@Steaders said:

@wim said:

@Steaders said:
Regarding not understanding me, ScaleBud for example only has the option to mute the off scale notes on an external controller. This isn’t what I’m looking for. Whereas Midiflow Scales gives you 4 remapping options.

Rozeta Scaler doesn’t have the exact four options that Midiflow Scales does, but it effectively accomplishes the same thing with different options. You can choose to transpose notes you play outside of the scale either up or down to a key in the scale. So no matter what key you hit, you will not play outside the scale. For the “White Keys” option, you would simply set the Input Transpose to the right number of semitones.

So, if you wanted to play in Eb minor on all white keys, you would:

• Set input transpose to +3 (C to Eb)
• Set the scale to Eb minor
• Set to quantize up or down.
• Play white keys from C

Rozeta scaler doesn’t let you create custom scales though. I made a Mozaic script that does that, but that probably isn’t really what you need if I understand correctly.

Hey wim. Your white key setup in Rozeta Scaler is working an absolute treat. The only part I can’t get my head around (and this solely due to my low level understanding of music theory) is how the input transpose and quantize up or down work. Can you explain it to me as though i’m a five year old? I’m actually 7.

Now that I know you’re a guitar player yeh, we’ll stick to five year old level.

Input transpose just moves the notes you play up by that number of semitones. So, let’s say you set input transpose to +2 semitones. When you play a C, it changes that to the key two steps up on the keyboard, D. Play a D and it changes that to an E.

Quantize up/down is just how you decide to treat any notes you play that are out of scale. If I’m playing C major and I hit a C#, quantize up would change that to a D. Quantize down would change that to a C. It doesn’t really matter which you choose. But it can be a way of switching in some variety.

So ... if we always want to play the white keys starting at C, but we want to play in D minor. First we transpose up so that we can keep playing that nice comfortable C scale. Now the notes Scaler is sending to its scale filter look like they’re in D. We set the scale to D minor so that our notes are quantized (every five year old knows what quantize means, right?) to the D minor scale.

In guitar terms...
Input transpose is like a capo. Capo up two frets and play a C major scale, and you get D major scale.

Scale conversion is like an altered tuning. Strum the open strings and you get a nice sounding chord instead of what you normally get. Quantize up or down is like whether the strings are tuned up or down to fit the key.

I hope that helps.

Absolutely! You are The Man!! Thanks a bunch wim. I have to go take my bath before afternoon nap time now. Hope I get a story. 👶

wim

Hey @Steaders, I don’t think you have Mozaic yet, but just wanted to let you know I created a Mozaic script that works a lot like MIDIFlow Scales. It lets you add and remove notes from the scales, and has the options for Nearest, Chromatic, White Keys, and Filter.

https://patchstorage.com/simple-scaler/