Topic: problem with real-time chord display

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

Replied December 14, 2021 at 08:21 #2847248

John
Moderator

Hi,

what do you mean with ‘only works when the menu browser is open’? Can you screen capture?

What is your screen setup? Dual screens? External or laptop?

This is in standalone, right? Have you got the same problem in another host?

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
Replied December 14, 2021 at 13:53 #2847379

lennymccartney
Participant

hi, thanks for getting back so quickly…i’m not able to do a screengrab but i’ll try to describe the problem better.

the gui on my ezkeys has the menu button near the top on the right. when pressed, certain actions are shown and halfway down is the

real time chord display line (which i put a tick next to)…

when either midi information is playing or i play in real time, the chords do not show on the piano lid unless the menu is open.

if i close the menu the chords are either “frozen” or disappear from the lid…if i leave the menu open , the chords show…

also, the piano keys display on the gui are frozen if menu is closed during playback…

tried it again today and other things are happening…cursor not moving over browser chords etc…

would there be any problems if i just reinstalled?

EZkeys version: 1.3.2
Operating system: Windows 10
Replied December 15, 2021 at 08:47 #2848755

John
Moderator

OK, I see. Strange indeed but what about my other questions?

Uninstalling and re-installing with the Product Manager would pose no problems if you want to try that.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
Replied January 29, 2022 at 19:24 #2870385

prafle
Participant

Just chiming in with a similar issue –

In my case:

I can’t get the chords in the project to display on the “music stand” *at all*

The behavior is the same whether using EZK in my DAW (Reaper) or in the Standalone app.

It doesn’t matter whether I have the menu open or not.

If I *play* chords or single notes on my midi keyboard, those chords and notes *do* show up on the interface in real time, but that’s not what I am expecting: I want to see what chord EZK is playing as we go, so I can solo or play bass over the changes.

I looked in the “operation manual” for clues, but strangely, there appears to be no mention of this feature in the manual at all. I found that surprising.

To be clear — I really like almost everything about EZK (I’m also an EZDrummer fan) but this is a frustrating glitch. THanks in advance for your help!
Pete

My system specs are as follows:

EZKeys:

EZkeys plug-in version 1.3.2 (build 28912) [64-bit VST]
Core MIDI Library version 1.3.0

SOUND LIBRARIES
DREAM MACHINE version 1.0.1
VINTAGE UPRIGHT version 1.0.0

ADD-ON MIDI PACKS
BLUES version 1.0.1
BOOGIE version 1.1.0
FUNK version 1.0.1
GOSPEL version 1.0.1
JAZZ version 1.0.0
LATIN version 1.0.1
SYNTH POP version 1.1.0

PC:

Windows 10 PC 64bit

AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor 4.00 GHz

32gb RAM

GPU: AMD Radeon R7 200 series, Single monitor.

DAW: Reaper v6.46 (latest version)

AUDIO INTERFACE: Tascam Model 12 (ASIO and MIDI in)

EZkeys version: 1.3.2
Operating system: Windows 10

Replied January 29, 2022 at 21:07 #2870436

prafle
Participant

UPDATE: Just in case it’s useful to someone out there, I found a workaround:

It appears that EZKeys only displays the real-time chords when it is receiving *external* midi programming — not when it’s playing material from within the song arranger in the plugin itself.

So if you export your song project as a midi file, then play that midi file using EZ Keys, you *will* see the chords displayed as expected.

This requires that you finish arranging your verses, choruses, applying styles, etc. in the EZ Keys interface, then *export* the MIDI and drop it into the track in your DAW.

If you need to make edits to the exported midi, you’d have to do that in your external midi editor. Of course, if you’ve saved the project in EZKeys, you can always reload it to make tweaks and changes, then export it again.

In my situation, that works OK for my purposes, since I’m most interested in seeing the real-time chords when I’ve moved on to recording other parts over the keyboard changes, but it is a little bit of a hassle. It would be better if I could take advantage of this feature without having to go through these extra steps.

Looking forward to any insights the Toontrack team might have on this, and I hope it helps someone else out there.

Rock on,
Pete

Replied January 31, 2022 at 08:45 #2871050

John
Moderator

Hi,

while I personally appreciate the request for displaying internal chords as well as incoming MIDI, the chords are all displayed on the Song Track if you zoom in a bit.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

Replied January 31, 2022 at 16:20 #2871143

prafle
Participant

Obviously they are all there in the song track, John — but:

a) In the Song Track, the chords are hard to see on the screen, because the GUI for the plugin is a fixed size, so even zoomed in, they are pretty small (especially for aging eyes like mine). Also, if there are multiple changes in a bar, they overlap unless you’re zoomed in all the way, and you can’t always see the whole chord symbol.

b) I’m not sure I understand the point of having the “Real Time Chords” option if it only works *after* you export the song track? For my workflow, I prefer to keep the track in the Song Track as long as possible so I can make edits and tweaks to the chords and arrangements quickly and access all the features of EZK. Ideally, I wouldn’t have to export the MIDI at all — As soon as I export the arrangement as a MIDI file, I have to edit it in a separate midi editor, which is cumbersome, and hard for a non-keyboardist like me. I bought EZK so I wouldn’t have to mess with that so much.

Can you share any insights about Toontrack’s rationale for designing this feature to work this way? It’s a sincere question: I often find that I learn about better ways to use tools by listening to how other people use them and by understanding the assumptions the designers used when building the app. That’s why I was so disappointed and a little surprised to find it’s not even mentioned in the manual.

More broadly, I also would love to know whether there are any plans for substantive updates to EZKeys in the future. Is there a list of features, fixes, or enhancements that is being worked on at Toontrack? If so, my #1 request would be a “song creator” feature like the one in EZDrummer that would create a quick “ABCABC” arrangement pulling from the variations within a given song and style. Obviously, I can do it manually pretty quickly, but I use the “Song Creator” in EZD all the time and I would love to have a parallel feature in EZK. Another nice-to-have would be the ability to export a text or pdf file with a Chord Chart for the full song that I could share with other musicians.

Thanks for all your great work,

Pete

Replied February 1, 2022 at 08:43 #2871315

John
Moderator

Hi,

regarding b): I would not say that the intention is that you export MIDI from EZkeys to have it fed back to the plug-in to see the real-time chord display, it is meant to help you when you play live into it.

I cannot tell you anything about future plans and development, simply because I have signed an NDA and Toontrack communicates this kind of info via the main site.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

1
Thanked by: prafle

Replied February 1, 2022 at 16:43 #2871424

prafle
Participant

Understood — thanks for the reply, John.
PR

1
Thanked by: John

Replied October 12, 2022 at 23:40 #2983282

Purplecat26
Participant

For ezkeys recently not having native chord displays when in the standalone (in the past week) it was working right before the Windows 10 cummulative update 10-2022 which can have affects on programs and drivers, like display or audio that may have affected ezkeys. Mr. Anderson asked me to send this communication to have a clear message of what you may want to track down. I would recommend any user use Microsoft instructions to roll back the most recent cumulative update and see if that fixes it and/or ask a user that has not yet updated to 10-2022 and see if it is currently working and if the update then causes it to stop working.

Operating system: Windows 10

This post was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Purplecat26.

Replied October 13, 2022 at 13:56 #2983442

John
Moderator

Hi Joel,

are you saying that you have the Real-Time Chord Display checked and it doesn’t work?

You are aware that MIDI on the Song Track does not display the same way as input MIDI?

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

Replied October 13, 2022 at 15:53 #2983481

Billy 86
Participant

Is it really too much to ask to get that one little feature (real time chord display with the EZX MIDI playing internally)? We get so little support with this antiquated product. Throw us a bone. Jeez.

SD3, EZD, EZ Keys 1&2, EZ Bass. Win10, i9/9900, all SSDs, 64g RAM, Cakewalk, Studio One

Replied October 13, 2022 at 18:24 #2983530

John
Moderator

Billy 86 wrote:

Is it really too much to ask to get that one little feature (real time chord display with the EZX MIDI playing internally)?

Nope, but it is best done in the ‘Requests & Feedback’ section of the Forum.

BTW, the Chords are displayed on the Song Track and the playhead is an indicator of which is currently playing.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

Replied June 2, 2024 at 02:06 #3257082

Saxman87
Participant

By the way, where is this menu that you can toggle real-time chord display?

I have EZkeys2 when I play the chords they show, although I see chords listed I think if I copy midi back into the track on the DAW they will show!

Some things I might actually record in the DAW, and some I record right into EZkeys2.

I notice if I record in the DAW the chords show in EZkeys2, I will have to keep this in mind if I want to see the chords during playback in EZKeys.

But here’s the problem, I see no way to export the midi to be able to do this!

By the way, I’m using Reason 12, but I guess I can try to see if this works on Studio One or Logic.

EZkeys version: 2.0.5
Operating system: macOS Sonoma (14)
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problem with real-time chord display

EZkeys Help

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