Moving Chord Selector to Next Chord

[Joey Coyle]

Hi,

How do I move the Chord Selector to the next chord?… The Chord Selector covers up the next chord so I can’t click on it. Currently I am clicking far away to dismiss the chord selector so I can see the next chord, and then I click on it.

Is there a key command that will just move the Chord Selector forward and backwards along the chords? I can’t seem to find it.

Also, as a suggestion, maybe add transparency to the circle of 5ths so I can see my chords through the wheel. When I have a bunch of half measure chord changes, it’s hard to see where I am with the Chord Selector covering up the majority of the chord progression.

jc

Topic

[Cygnus64]

AFAIK you can’t “move it”. What I do is click somewhere, which will basically close the selector. I then click on the next chord which “opens” the selector again.

[Jay Coover]

Yeah, they need to make this easier. It’s a PITA.

SD 2.3 NY vol 2/Metal Foundry/C & V/Roots 1 & 2/Music City Latin Percussion/Funkmasters/The Classic/Jazz/Pop!/#1 Hits/Electronic/Twisted/Claustrophobic EZKeys 1.1 with all the trimmings

[Juicy]

Yeah the Musical working area is tiny compared to the enormous piano ?
The other way around would be more practical and show us more detail of what’s really going on.

[Jay Coover]

How’s about I just have the option to click on the chord and type in a new name? I don’t need a fancy wheel.

F | Fmaj7 | Fm | FmMAJ7 | F7#9b5 | Fdim

It shouldn’t be that difficult to parse any of that.

Anyway, I’d just settle for an easier way to move through the progression and change all the chords.

SD 2.3 NY vol 2/Metal Foundry/C & V/Roots 1 & 2/Music City Latin Percussion/Funkmasters/The Classic/Jazz/Pop!/#1 Hits/Electronic/Twisted/Claustrophobic EZKeys 1.1 with all the trimmings

[Juicy]

There are all sorts of users of this product, some people are just gonna change the chord wheel by ear, as they don’t know a Cmaj7 from a C7.
So only as a pref but that would be work great.

[Joey Coyle]

Thanks everybody… it’s good to know I’m not doing all that extra clicking and manipulating for nothing.

I tried doing a whole piano ballad with EZKeys yesterday, rather than just short sections to be dragged into a bigger arrangement. It was just undoable, the above problem, the fact I had to keep re-entering chords every time I decided I didn’t like something, the fact it would actually make mistakes and not harmonize to the chord correctly ( This was uncorrectable, and mostly happened if I had to split a chord, and then it would make mistakes downstream from the split ). In every style they make, they need more variations where the chords are changing every 2 beats rather than every measure… the chord splitting just doesn’t have very good harmonic results.

Anyway, I went back to band in a box for piano ballads. For anything large, EZKeys isn’t there yet. I think it would be faster for me to learn to play piano.

I wish someone would make a band in the box plug in, that I could insert in my DAW for a track, and enter the chord progression, and then choose various styles, on a region by region basis, and voila, I would have piano track… Hopefully that is why Logic is taking so long to rewrite

jc

[Tom]

That thing with the chord wheel was one of my early complaints about EZK in this forum.

I suggest they make it possible to move the chordwheel with some arrow handles, by pressing control and dragging or even just have it automatically advance after entering a chord (perhaps as a setting in preferences). There are many possibilities. But I think the chord wheel is inspiring to have if they just fix this thing.

…. Other than that my main feature request is still having EZK remember the chord sequence I chose, so I don’t have to enter the same chords again with every new midi clip I audition. Until this has been implemented I won’t buy any add-on packs.

[Cygnus64]

ORIGINAL: fizbin

How’s about I just have the option to click on the chord and type in a new name? I don’t need a fancy wheel.

F | Fmaj7 | Fm | FmMAJ7 | F7#9b5 | Fdim

Yeah. Either type it in or have it represented as the Alphabet in ABC order. Maybe a choice between the wheel and the non-well.

As for the ability to lock in chords, it’s a great idea of course. It’s probably pretty hard to do based on how this works (I’m guessing). There’s a whole lot of variables involved with voicing. There is also an irregular pattern with the files, where some move on the measure and some do not. It would definitely be a nice feature to have though.

[Joey Coyle]

I’ve continued to work with EZKeys, going back to my piece work method, instead of trying to create a full arrangement in EZKeys, and just used EZKey to generate small ~4-8 measure sections, and dragging them into my DAW for arrangement and tweaking.

I find it helps to look for chord change patterns that are similar to what I need, even if that means starting on measure 2 of the loop. In other words, trying to avoid using the split tool if I can, but the split tool can yield good results sometimes, just unpredictable whether it will simply be a bad result or cause downstream tuning errors. Also, I’m using the chord voicing controls more. I’ve found that sometimes you get crap and sometimes you get really nice stuff… trial and error. But by dragging all the variations into my DAW, I can throw away the crap.

If they implement a fixed chord track, they then will need to allow the user to drag the loop anywhere along the fixed chord track and then the chords get applied to loop, and then from there, you could slide the loop right or left a measure or two, and the chords would get applied. They should allow the user to still tweak the voicing with the chord selector. The hard part I see is how much the fixed chord track affects the voicings initially. For instance if the loop chord progression was doing some interesting with the ninths of a chord, but the fixed chord track stated only a triad, then what happens initially. Maybe a setting to allow embellishments?

And Yes, the chord selector issue grates on me even more when you are spending hours on this.

[BOYD STAMEY]

I own EZKeys and 3 midi packs. I love it!

But I absolutely agree – This is VITAL
Being able to tab to the next chord and edit it –
Or use the arrow keys to move to the next grid line to edit or insert a chord –
The current way is JUST TOO SLOW!

ORIGINAL: jcoyle
Anyway, I went back to band in a box for piano ballads. For anything large, EZKeys isn’t there yet.

Something I just tried and it works pretty well is this:

Generate a BIAB piano part and export it as a midi file.
or
Export an EZKeys midi block with the chords you want as a midi file.

Add the export folder to the Browser.
Load the midi file into EZKeys which analyzes it and displays YOUR chords.

Click “use browser midi” to audition clips
Click “Replace” when you find one you like.

Split the file wherever you need to and repeat.

Boyd

[Tom]

Almost a year has gone by. Two of my thee feature requests have been fulfilled. 1. EZK can now remember the chord sequence I have entered so I don’t have to type it again every time I want to audition a new style. 2. EZK can with the latest update send a midi signal so that I can use EZK with any instrument in any VST sampler I have.

Now we just need that simple thing for entering a sequence of chords, either just type the whole sequence directly in the bars or make it possible to move the wheel bar by bar without closing it first.

BTW I too have experimented with BiaB to generate styles I can use with EZK. Any idea about what chord sequence to use in BiaB to optimize this? I have just gone C-Am-F-G7 in BiaB hoping this would result in a template EZK could use for whatever chords I actually want in the song. But should the sequence be longer to cover enough variations in BiaB, should I use other chords?

[BOYD STAMEY]

ORIGINAL: tombuur

BTW I too have experimented with BiaB to generate styles I can use with EZK. Any idea about what chord sequence to use in BiaB to optimize this? ……… should the sequence be longer to cover enough variations in BiaB, should I use other chords?

Right now I just enter whatever progression I’m working on in BIAB, and generate a bunch of piano track midi files.

For a library, I’d suggest using various 8 to 32 bar phrases that you can cut to length
Hold the chords from one to 16 beats (whatever seems useful)
If you use ‘push’ chords add some of those too.
Give them a descriptive name that you’ll understand 6 months from now.

Boyd

[Author]

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