Still the Long Way is Easiest

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Ho to all Club Members

I have tried out the Chord looper and it is all fingers and thumbs.
I find it aggravating and playing with one hand is disorientating for me.
Once you get used to playing with a pair of hands that's it.
I have tried chord input programs to get a song chord sequence hoping that would save me time cleaning  style tracks in Cubase. (the flack leftovers)
Nothing really works as producer is latent and BT maker cannot use User styles.
Yes, this is the same as the Genos that cannot step chords for user styles. This would be great for making clean style tracks for recording
Come on Yamaha Make User Styles accessable for editing. This has been going on since 2017.
This is a must for the Genos, not gimmicky chord loopers that still need the drum fills buttons pressed and registrations changed

I have now come to the conclusion that just playing the song into the sequencer is still the best method even if it takes a dozen tries to get the song near as perfect as you can get it.
Eileen i know will recommend that the old way is best also
You cannot beat Eileen!!
At least i have tried out different things, but user styles and the step edit thing always leads you to a cul-de-sac, the same as all these other programs unless you are a hexadecimal expert.


All The Best
John

[EileenL]

Yes John I fully agree. Spend time getting used to playing chords and entering fills either by hand or a foot pedal and you can't go wrong.

[Graham UK]

The main use of Chord Looper is to input a number of chords and be able improvise around them and not for recording a complete song.

[EileenL]

Some people do use it to record whole songs and find it works well for them and what they want to do.

[SingerSongwriter]

Forgive if this is too obvious but sometimes I remind myself to slow the tempo WAAAAAAY down while inputting chords. It does seem somewhat arbitrary how it recognizes chords such as sus 4, major 7, major 9...

[mikf]

Dont forget  that not only can you slow it down, you can set the fingering mode to full keyboard and input complicated chords more easily using both hands.
Mike

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Dont forget  that not only can you slow it down, you can set the fingering mode to full keyboard and input complicated chords more easily using both hands.
Mike

The only trouble with not learning four fingered chords is that the rust gets you!!

All the Best
John

[JanCK]

I LOVE Chord Looper because it frees my left hand to more easily comp rootless chords in my left hand while soloing in my right; play counter melodies in my left hand without screwing up the style's harmony, and other techniques that those of us who come from an acoustic piano background as a soloist or a member of a band with a bass player use.  With Chord Looper I no longer have to voice chords in a certain way just to feed the computer the info it needs.  Yes, there are other ways to achieve that, but I find chord looper to be very quick and accessible, given my ability and interest level in learning the technology needed to use those other ways.  I don't mind adding my drum fills with an assigned pedal or pressing a button for a different voice/variation.  We all gotta press a few buttons.   When you program a chord progression of a song in sections, you can easily move around to different sections when you decide, in the moment, to keep the song or improvisation going. So yeah, I love that chord looper lets me play like a pianist in a band at any hour of the day for as long as I want and without it complaining or drinking too much...my whole reason for buying a Genos.

We each bring own unique musical background, skill levels and goals to our Genos.  Does that make any of us wrong in how we approach expressing our musicality through the different Genos' functions and features?  No, I don't think so.  What works for one, doesn't work for another and vice versa.  Genos has many features that I will never use, but that if I took the time to figure out, would be very helpful to me.  I don't use some of those features, but I don't think they are useless — just beyond my technical interest/skill, at least for the moment.  Some of its features require more musical knowledge to make them useful.

Given that music knowledge and skill is infinite, we all have our strengths and weaknesses as musicians. There's always more music theory and skill to be gained.  And yet we can still musically communicate and express in our incompleteness as musicians.   When any one of us can't see how a Genos feature could be useful or is less than perfect, others find it perfect for them.  Viva la difference, and isn't it great that the Genos (though not quite perfect) for the most part, allows us each to find our way of expressing our own musical uniqueness?  How lovely.

Guess I just wanted to send Chord Looper some of the love 💕 💕  I think it deserves. 😀 😃 😃    Jana

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Jana

Yes, we all have our own attributes and we are all different which makes the world go round.
I really like to play the chords and learn as many as i can because it make life so much eaier that relying on chord looper.
I had a go about step recording User styles and if Yamaha implemeted that it would make a recorded style clean.
An update for that would be a mega advantage.
Personally i cannot get along with chord looper because it is more buttons to press and still you have fills and reg changes to do.
It really is making more work for yourself.
The only advantage of chord looper is for piano players to add more melodies as you say and people that may have troubles with their left hand.
Step record user styles and rectify mistakes in the edit section is a must for an advanced keyboard such the Genos.
With Cubase it is still no go. I have informed Yamaha and the message has been put forward for a possible future update which would be so easy for them to do.
We can only hope that the important things get implemented and that is. No point in having a sequencer otherwise.


All the best
John

[EileenL]

Maybe it is better for you John not to use styles but to multi track all your song parts just like people that produce commercial Midi Files do. you would not then have a problem of dirty styles although I have yet to find one.

[mikf]

I always thought that the intended purpose for a chord looper was for someone who was live playing to capture the chord sequence while playing, probably behind their vocal,  then let repeat while they improvised solo breaks over it. Most of the discussion here seems to be for recording purposes, and to save playing. Is it really surprising that it turns out to be less than perfect for that different purpose?
Mike

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Maybe it is better for you John not to use styles but to multi track all your song parts just like people that produce commercial Midi Files do. you would not then have a problem of dirty styles although I have yet to find one.

Hi Eileen

I will start mult-tracking soon seriously , but i just at the moment want to polish my playing to a point where i do not have to record a song nervous of that red button
I keep going on something until i get it right .
When i start eventally getting on down with the VST's, i want to play passages without too much lego bricking so it keeps the creativity going
I have recorded the Love Grows song and mastered the transpose. Just have to do a minor volume cleanup. Also get style note partials cleaned out.
Like you say playing the song gives you the human touch which i try to keep.
I practice every day being now retired and it is really starting to pay off at 70 years old. I wish i was thirty years younger and living in the 60s/70s.
I want to make my own music but i have set the goal to play the instrument fully relaxed.
It is all fun striving for your own little dream even if you fail.


All the Best
John
Ps  It is rather weird for me as i can try to record a song and get it wrong twenty times, then all of a sudden everything falls into place in one go. Twighlight Zone stuff
Like Lee also said . Just playing is ok ,but The red button is a jinx!! . If i put money in a swear box it would be full!!

[EileenL]

Chord looper can be used any way that suits you but dose help when composing a song. A lot of members like to play two handed piano over the top and it is ideal for this. Also once recorded you can choose any style to play back using your chords at any time.