05 Chords

 

Using Chordify to find chords

(30 minutes)

Chordify is an online music education service — made for and by music enthusiasts — that transforms music from YouTube, Deezer, SoundCloud, or your private collection into chords. Our service automatically recognizes chords from an audio signal and aligns them to the music in a simple and intuitive player. Chordify uses cutting-edge technology to help both novice and trained musicians play the music they want to play.

Visit https://chordify.net/ and upload or link up your favourite song. More instructions below.

Using Convert Melody to MIDI to find notes

(30 minutes)

(Note: the features discussed in this chapter are not available in the Intro and Lite Editions.)

When an audio clip is selected, four conversion commands are available in the Create Menu (or right click)

Convert Melody to New MIDI Track identifies the pitches in audio and places them into a clip on a new MIDI track. 

The track comes preloaded with an Instrument Rack that plays a synthesizer sound. Using the Rack’s “Synth to Piano” Macro, you can adjust the timbre of this sound between an analog-style synth and an electric piano. The instrument was designed to be versatile enough to provide a good preview, but can of course be replaced with another instrument if you choose.

Convert Drums to New MIDI Track listens to your beatboxing and attempts to identify kick, snare and hihat sounds and places them into the new clip so that they play the appropriate sounds in the preloaded Drum Rack. 

Optimizing for Better Conversion Quality

You can record yourself singing, playing guitar, or even beatboxing and use the Convert commands to generate MIDI that you can use as a starting point for new music. For the most accurate results:

1. Sing or hum the notes clearly. Notes that fade in or “swell” may not be detected by the conversion process.  Try to start each note with a soft D sound. Syllables like "da" or "do" work well. The conversion algorithm has a harder time if you glide between notes, or if your pitch is not steady.
2. Avoid noisy backgrounds. If other sounds are present, their notes will be detected as well.
3. If you use your phone to record your singing or humming, record to .wav or or .aiff if possible. If you record to mp3 it may result in unpredictable conversions, unless the recordings are at high bitrates.

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