letting bass instrument playing only the lowest midi-note of chord played?

I don't think it can be done - it may be approached by combining a poly- and a monophonic instrument, but I don't think it is possible to let the poly instrument 'drop' its lowest note. And I am not sure there are any SI's that have "lowest note priority" voice stealing settings... so... any takers to this challenge?

Ron H. wrote:
Is it possible to let the bass instrument only play the lowest note of the chord played on the midi-keyboard, while the piano plays the whole chord? I mean direct, not muting notes afterwards.

The only problem you face is to get Logic to do it in real time. As other posters have said it is too complicated to set up and would be dependent on your keyboard playing skills.

Also - you do not say what each hand is doing.. this makes a big difference. In the mean time..

However if you are willing to record whatever you want on the piano as a midi sequence, afterwards you can use the following to assign the lowest note to the bass. Then you will hear what it sounds like the next time you play the sequence.. which is almost in 'real time' 😉

1 - Set up a Staff Style that has 2 different midi channels and record your sequence on the keyboard. Once your sequence is recorded, open the Score Editor and go to Functions>Note Events>Select Lowest Notes

2 - This should give you a head start in selecting as a group all the notes you want to play the bass though it is not entirely accurate depending on how you have played in your sequence.

3 - Tidy this up by selecting/deselecting notes until you have all the lowest notes of the chord

4 - Assign the final selection of bass notes to a different midi channel which plays the bass using the commands Event Channel +1 and Event - 1

5 - Your bass notes will appear on a separate stave below the main sequence but it will achieve your objective which is to 'hear' what it is like presumably for the lowest voice in your chord to play a bass note.

6 - If you want the chord not to 'lose' any of the original notes then simply copy and paste the bass line back back into the treble clef

HTH

MS

Eriksimon wrote:
I don't think it can be done - it may be approached by combining a poly- and a monophonic instrument, but I don't think it is possible to let the poly instrument 'drop' its lowest note. And I am not sure there are any SI's that have "lowest note priority" voice stealing settings... so... any takers to this challenge?

The original Oberheim Xpander ( c. mid eighties) has this function with all of its... 6 voice polyphony! - but since then I cant think of anything that achieves it.

Lowest-note-priority has been standard moog response since the mid-sixties.

I find it difficult to believe that there is no software synth that incorporates this as an option. Key priority behavior is fundamental to playing technique.

If there is, it should be possible to at least double the lowest note of a piano sound by splitting the input and sending it off to a bass synth, parallel.

Message was edited by: spheric

I'm disoriented by this onslaught of on-topic posts, but I'll try to cope.

spheric wrote:
I find it difficult to believe that there is no software synth that incorporates this as an option.

Yes, I agree. I don't see doing this in the Environment as practical, but it makes sense for the feature to be part of a software instrument. And what about having the feature in a keyboard controller? The low note could be sent off to an alternate channel. I don't know why no one has done this (as far as I know).

Your comment about the low note priority on the moog is interesting. But wasn't that typically with a monophonic instrument, or voice? That seems simpler.

Anyway, you got me thinking about old instruments, and I noticed this statement in the owner's manual of the Vox Jaguar:

When holding a chord in this Bass section only one note - the lowest - will sound. With the "Bass Chord" stop tab 'ON', the walking bass will emphasize the lowest note of a chord to a degree dependent on the setting of the "Bass Volume" control.

( Link, link.) That first sentence seems to be describing a monophonic situation, but the second sentence seems to be describing polyphony, but where the lowest note is detected and treated differently.

A relevant thread about low note priority is at Sonikmatter.

Ron wrote:
I'm now copiing the region to the bass software-instrument.

This is similar to what musicspirit suggested, and I think it's probably the most reasonable approach.

45rpm wrote:

Ron wrote:
I'm now copiing the region to the bass software-instrument.

This is similar to what musicspirit suggested, and I think it's probably the most reasonable approach.

Yeah, if that would have been the initial question (how to edit to get the described outcome) it would have ended up being a much shorter topic. The realtime aspect makes it a tricky problem. I think you would need a pretty complicated piece of code to make this workable, it would somehow need a "capture time range" (within how many milliseconds should the MIDI be received to be 'accepted' as a chord) that capture range would also add at least that much latency - I think just splitting a keyboard (pretty simple in the environment, even I can set it up and explain it 😉 ) at the point appropriate for whatever piece you're playing will eventually yield a much more workable/playable solution - or editing postludens, of course... 🙂

Eriksimon wrote:

spheric wrote:
What all this has to do with the fairly straightforward question of whether it's possible to give a MIDI input lowest-note priority and route that to another instrument in real time is beyond me.

It hasn't. It is about Vacheto thinking he owns the place - and the environment.

I thought both had valid points to share.... 🙂

pancenter-

Pancenter wrote:

Eriksimon wrote:

spheric wrote:
What all this has to do with the fairly straightforward question of whether it's possible to give a MIDI input lowest-note priority and route that to another instrument in real time is beyond me.

It hasn't. It is about Vacheto thinking he owns the place - and the environment.

I thought both had valid points to share.... 🙂

They did. But there was too much to read between Diva-cheto's lines...

This isn't a response to you peronally, Erik, just a general observation on the whole subject. I haven't posted on the forum for a while because I felt that my input as a musician didn't appear to be of any use to anybody because I'm not an engineer or some kind of Logic 'poweruser'.

BeeJay's advice about Keymap sounds like a good idea but I have no personal experience of it to comment further.

But I do occassionally write complex chord structures and find that I just have to spend the time analysing the chords individually to decide on the appropriate basslines, which takes time and may well involve some head scratching and trial and error but I get there eventually.

I never want my sequencer/DAW, or whatever you want to call it, decide the way my music turns out just because its quicker and I'm never going to think any differently about that - it has to sound like something I have in my imagination because that's the whole point of doing it in the first place.

I suppose a musician would say that though, so please don't have a go at me for not supplying an amazingly technical solution.

Hi 45rpm, your Demon is here 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

What we must get as a true post of your own ?
One time you say Black the other White ?

45rpm wrote:
It can be done with programming in the Environment.

45rpm wrote:
Yes, I agree. I don't see doing this in the Environment as practical,

Well I did not intend to come into the topic originally, cause I hopped that you will provide some evidences of what you offered at first (quote 1 above). What I see after while, is that your skills are limited to approve your own recommendations that's why you decided to 100% reverse to opposite direction (quote 2 above) ?

Cause you are a forum mate, I'll support you for the first and last time cause I want to keep the Logic Environment Reputation - keep in mind !

Well, *Such Intelligent Tools are POSSIBLE* in the Logic Environment !
I had some short time to create a full realtime working tool called Logic "Accompaniment Bass Revolving Tool".

_Accompaniment Bass Revolving Tool - Elements Description (See the Pic below)_

1. Button (1) Switches On/Off the tool ( in OFF mode all midi events pass thru like the tool is not patched/cabled between the Physical Input and the Sequencer )
2. Chord Midi Channel Assigner Box(2) - here you assign the midi channel of the Software Instrument you want to play the chords ( the Autodemix by midi channel Logic setting bust be ON to switch Logic into Multiplayer/Live mode ).
3. Bass Midi Channel Assigner Box (3) - here you assign the midi channel of the Software Instrument you want to play the bass note of your live played chord.
4. CC# Assigner box (4) - here you can assign a Controller number so you can control the main ON/OFF Button (1)using external controller. Note - if you have a playing chord and press your external controller or the Button (1) a full Note reset will be sent to the Instruments which is designed to prevent from any hanging.
5. Chord Instrument ON/OFF button - here you can enable disable the Chord Instrument auditioning (i.e receiving midi data).
6. Bass line Instrument ON/OFF button - here you can enable disable the Bass Instrument auditioning (i.e receiving midi data).

I provide a BETA version of the tool, so it is limited to a few chords (depending how many notes you use in the chords) after that the tool will expire automatically.
Hint: If you want to test the tool more, just use Logic File -> "Revert to Save".
A purchased version of the tool will be included in my future Logic "Advanced Midi Tools" bundle - I'll announce that when the bundle is ready...

*Acc. Bass Revolving Tool Beta 1* - [DOWNLOAD|http://audiogrocery.com/files/acc bass_revbeta1.zip]

*Non-Voice Demo Video_1 -* [DOWNLOAD(5Mb)|http://audiogrocery.com/video/acc bassdemovideo.zip]

!http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/9326/bassrev.gif!

!http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4967/aglogo45.gif!

One time you say Black the other White ?

Saying that it's possible to do something and that it's practical to do something are not exactly the same thing. What I've said all along is that the former is true and the latter is not. If this still isn't clear, I'd be glad to try to explain it further.

When I run your demo, I get some strange results. For example, I played this pattern:



The second E is silent. And if I repeat the pattern, the D always plays and the E always does not (except for the very first time). Is this an intentional restriction you put in there?

45rpm wrote:
Is this an intentional restriction you put in there?

Not, I guess it is matter of your own play.
If you are familiar with some hardware Acc Bass Revolving devices they behave in a similar way. The problem I guess is that your left hand fingers are quite away and it is hard to release the E3,D3 lower keys to full Note Off - the result is a little overlapping of the both notes which cause the issue. Try slowly to full release the fingers one by one and it will work. As I said it is a Chord tool and I have programed it to behave as Chord Bass revolver and some polyphony overlapping legatos might be a problem as well as it is a problem in some hardware workstation synths which offer such features. It is a matter of playing when use such devices. Many people just used to it and handle very well.
Anyway the tool is quite new, and I had not any time to make deep tests. The main idea was just to show that such tools can be created in the Environment in your opposite empty theories (inc some others who shared the same opinion here) ...

!http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4967/aglogo45.gif!

chorleyman wrote:
I never want my sequencer/DAW, or whatever you want to call it, decide the way my music turns out just because its quicker and I'm never going to think any differently about that - it has to sound like something I have in my imagination because that's the whole point of doing it in the first place.

Yep, that's gold.

pancenter-

BeeJay's advice about Keymap sounds like a good idea

That was just an aside to 45's comments about sampling looping.

But I do occassionally write complex chord structures and find that I just have to spend the time analysing the chords individually to decide on the appropriate basslines, which takes time and may well involve some head scratching and trial and error but I get there eventually.

I never want my sequencer/DAW, or whatever you want to call it, decide the way my music turns out just because its quicker and I'm never going to think any differently about that - it has to sound like something I have in my imagination because that's the whole point of doing it in the first place.

I feel the same way. Honestly, I can't think of any Logic-based technical solution that would be faster, more flexible, more creative and just allround better than just playing the bass note. It's not like it requires ninja left-hand keyboard skills to hold a root note under the chord...

While it's possible to rig something up that will approximate this, like Vacheto's solution, the results are always going to be odd unless your playing is very precise, or you are writing more complicated programming routines than you can practically do in the environment (which is quite basic compared to real software code.)

Seriously - that left hand is good for something. If you find it difficult, then do the chords and bass in two passes. If it's for live use and you don't have enough hands, then layer a mono low-note priority bass instrument and play carefully.