@Ezel I believe all of these have that feature you were interested in on the chordcat
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in depth scaler discussion- The Scaler 3 Thread
https://youtu.be/tb1vQGrYUxs?si=R8x7Klu_9VA0UuMi
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chordmist is now a vst as well as a max 4 live app
Ableton Expressive Chords
I’ve tried chodimist, i believe is a max for live thing? not sure
I am interested in super “Church” “Gospel” “Soulful” “RnB” complex chords
the basic stuff I can do myself. I like when things get interesting adding tri-tone alterations etc…
I’ve also tried Scaler 2, I haven’t go that deep but it seems that one give you a pocket of suggestions chords based on a song / or genre or style.
What really grabbed my eyes for the chord cat is that I am under the assumption that the chord suggestion is somewhat AI driven, meaning
If I play a chord and place it on slot 1 of the chord holders immediately he has 12 different chord suggestions for what should be the next (2nd chord) of the progression that could stay there (2 chord progression) or I could choose to make it a 3rd or 4th chord progression so basically based on the 2nd chord that I selected from the suggestion now she has reset and its now offering me what could potentially be the 3rd chord like is reacting dynamically to the ones I choose to keep.
THIS → this is what I want to recreate in terms of UI and workflow in the box.
That would mean effectively creating a chord progression of let say 4 chords for lets say verse 1 that where I have discriminated among who knows how many chords looking for either lush, expensiveness, complexity or simplicity and the unexpected factor rendering a more special chord progression that I would have done with my own music theory means and what I can play with my hands.
It helps at lot that on the ChordCat demos i’ve seen so far the chords are at least somewhat complex like all I hear are minor 7th and 9th and 11th etc… etc…
Lush stuff that for house, RnB, or anything soulful that needs certain specialness is perfect
I say that has to be in software, with a similar workflow… because in reality that exact workflow of the chordcat that’s everything.
You can see how people fly thru putting together the progression and get so many good happy accidents trying things out.
TBH, pretty much all my songs are just a random chord I like put into chord memory and then I play the black keys. My musical vocabulary is a bit limited, but it does work every time.
it’s a vst now, on sale for $129 intro price
ChordScout will suggest at least 4 different chords based on the last chord that was played.
This might be the ChordCat like function Ezel is looking for
Tried ChordScout, in theory goes there but its not nearly as intuitive.
You have to assign them a scale parameter and then hit a chord from their list as I didn’t find a way to make the device “listen” to a chord I was playing myself.
Secondly the choice of proposed chords it have at least for the music I wanna go feels pretty uninteresting, voicings are not as lush as what I heard on the chordcat and my theory is 1) Japanese love jazzy shit so they probably trained the chord chat chord cruiser thing with the right type of chord inversions voicing etc that inmediately resonate with people wanna do House or RnB etc that are very aware of the type of timbres in chords that gives them vibes… Usually stuff that has rootless chords, open voiced and sometimes tri-tones alteration embeded into heavy 9th 11th complex chords… You may not know the full theory but you can hear how that feel right away because it gives you that soul / gospel feel.
Lastly the premise that without assigning nothing you hit a chord and imediately the next step is hitting that 16 spot matrix and finding chords that are as lush as the one you just hit I haven’t found that on this device. I am going to try scaler 3 today and see what I can get going. But yea that workflow I need it precisely just in this max for live format… something I can put on any midi track and be like lets go not a lot of fussing.
Another thing worth pointing out that I feel is the dopeness of that Chord Cat system is to have in mind what are we trying to do, in my case would be trying to do a very “original” (for me) chord progression to spice up my production. So I would like at times a) To depart from a known place lets say I can rock a minor 9th chord on its root position (grade 1) properly but from there I usually pivot to lets say a 4 grade or any other grade related to the diatonical scale I am working on but I’ve been doing this over and over so this system the way I understand it will present me with chords that will make me think new connection or routes with regard to the chord progression as a whole (lets say my chord progression is basic only 4 chords on a 4 bar section or complex 4 bars where I will do 1 chord on the first bar and then move via 2-5-1s or other known passing chord technique all within 1 bar and mix and match as i go.
Basically it would be using the limited knowledge I have of music theory but use this thing as a inteligent help (inteligent being subjective) so for me it would be a robotic chord suggestor that knows a lil bit more articulating complex chords and that gives me exactly the right tones with the context of the style I am working on.