Looking for keyboard or DAW muse tool

[pbognar]

I'm a guitar player with no keyboard skills, with the exception of playing a chord and thinking "hmm, that sounds pretty nice, I wonder what it is?", or coming up with a little funky phrase, which may sound good, but usually never makes it into a serious or complete composition. I usually end up with a pile of musical fragments.

 

I look back, and most of my most successful and satisfying keyboard moments were with step sequencing, chord memory, playing parts, bit by bit over top of loops, arpeggiators, or fooling around with those Casio arranger keyboards at someone's house (stiff and awful sounds, but still fun).

 

Anyway - I'm looking for advise regarding keyboard workstations or software solutions which could help me jump start the old muse in me by, triggering musical phrases, chords, or background arrangements via a MIDI keyboard.

 

Whatever the solution, I want it to be interactive, where I'm at least providing to root note for what ever is happening.

 

I'm aware that the big three keyboards: Motif XS, M3, and Fantom X (G) have either realtime phrase triggering, or really musical arpeggiators or Karma (M3), and would welcome any tips regarding the use of any of these to accomplish what I'm after.

 

I'd also be interested in tips for triggering phrases / chords / patterns or backings via a MIDI keyboard for software DAW's such as Sonar, Logic, Cubase, Band-in-a-Box, Live, or Fruity Loops. BIAB would be cool, if I could provide input using a MIDI keyboard, and some sort of short-hand keyboard technique - but from what I've read, I don't think it supports that...

 

I'm looking at realtime MIDI data generation, so that whatever is generated can be easily modified. I'm not sure audio loops have the kind of flexibility I'm looking for.

 

Or maybe I just need to get a MIDI guitar controller - the only trouble is that keyboard chord voicings are so different that guitar, and I have a feeling I'd end up falling back into guitarist ruts I've been in before...

 

Yes, I know it sounds pathetic, although I'm not talking about stringing together a bunch of loops and calling it a tune, but with some of the newer arranger keyboards out there, you'd think that we'd see some of this technology make it's way into pro keyboards and DAW's.

[ggm1960]

You definitely need to try Reason. Know that the Adapted version comes free with a lot of interfaces, it's how I got hooked on it and had to get the full blown version.

[amplayer]

 

You definitely need to try Reason. Know that the Adapted version comes free with a lot of interfaces, it's how I got hooked on it and had to get the full blown version.

 

 

If you already have a decent computer and a MIDI keyboard controller, then I agree fully. You can't go wrong with Reason.

Even if you don't have a MIDI keyboard controller, you can get one for way less money than a fully featured synth controller. Get Reason. You'll love it.

[pbognar]

 

If you already have a decent computer and a MIDI keyboard controller, then I agree fully. You can't go wrong with Reason. Even if you don't have a MIDI keyboard controller, you can get one for way less money than a fully featured synth controller. Get Reason. You'll love it.

 

 

I took a look at Reason on the web and youtube, but I couldn't find the "device" which would help me. Are you talking about the arpeggiator or the matrix pattern sequencer, or the sequencer which comes with Reason? It seems that the first 2 are monophonic.

 

Maybe I have to do a little more digging. Also, so far, I haven't run across anything about triggering clips from a MIDI keyboard.

[Super 8]

I'll third Reason. I love that program.

I'm not using any kind of controller with it at present. Everything is done in the piano roll window of the sequencer. It's a pretty easy way to work, and the sequencer in 4.0 is really pretty slick.

 

I also think if you try out BIAB you'll find it's a very quick and easy way to get full arrangements of your ideas going. I've used BIAB for years. Prior to that, as a drummer, I had to try and translate my ideas using my fairly limited keyboard and guitar skills. BIAB changed all of that.

 

These days, I use BIAB to get my ideas reasonably worked out, and then turn the file into a .mid and load it into Reason where I play around until I get the sounds I want, and edit the parts closer to my vision.

From there I can render the Reason files into audio and replace/augment the Reason drums with my kit, add real guitar and/or bass and vox.

 

Reason doesn't record/edit audio. I'm currently doing all of that on 3 VSR-880's, but in time I'd like to get a decent audio interface and maybe use Reaper or something.

[pbognar]

I'll third Reason. I love that program. I'm not using any kind of controller with it at present. Everything is done in the piano roll window of the sequencer. It's a pretty easy way to work, and the sequencer in 4.0 is really pretty slick. I also think if you try out BIAB you'll find it's a very quick and easy way to get full arrangements of your ideas going. I've used BIAB for years. Prior to that, as a drummer, I had to try and translate my ideas using my fairly limited keyboard and guitar skills. BIAB changed all of that. These days, I use BIAB to get my ideas reasonably worked out, and then turn the file into a .mid and load it into Reason where I play around until I get the sounds I want, and edit the parts closer to my vision. From there I can render the Reason files into audio and replace/augment the Reason drums with my kit, add real guitar and/or bass and vox. Reason doesn't record/edit audio. I'm currently doing all of that on 3 VSR-880's, but in time I'd like to get a decent audio interface and maybe use Reaper or something.

 

I'll have to put in a post on the BIAB forum to see if you can input chords in real-time via MIDI.

 

Also found a cool feature of Logic 8 (hell, I have Logic 5.5, and I've never tried this) - touch tracks. There was a pretty nice demo on youtube. You can even trigger complete folders with your MIDI keys - unfortunately you have to go into the dreaded environment

 

And I'll have to post on the Sonar forum, to see if there is a way to trigger clips using MIDI key input. I also stumbled on something in Project 5 - some kind of matrix (really virtual pads) which can also be triggered by MIDI keys.

 

On the hardward side, I'm hearing that the Motif's have the ability to take a sequence pattern and create an arpeggiator from it.

 

The Fantom X/G and the Korg M3 have some interesting features too, but I already have a couple of hardware synths, and these solutions are out of my budget presently.