VST to generate harmony from midi

[BillW]

The project I'm working on has a strong chorus of harmonies under a rather simple melody. As hard as I try to listen for the individual voices, it's such a "wall of sound" it's almost impossible to pick out.

I don't do vocals on my one man garage band recordings. I make them instrumentals using an instrument like brass or keys or something.

Yeah - makes it sound like elevator music, but I'm just doing this for fun and practice playing, recording, mixing.

Anyway - I does anyone have an opinion on a free VST to automatically generate harmonies? A quick search came up with 2:
Vielklang 2 Instant Harmony and Harmony Rotator.

I wouldn't be against spending for a good one either, but not more than about $30.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Acoustica Eric]

How would this work? If you have no vocals, what are you generating harmonies to?
Are you looking for a vsti that sounds like a human singing? Try East West Quantum Leap Symphony Choir - With WordBuilder

[Hobbs]

Vocaloid is another

[Starship Krupa]

The Computer Music magazine plug-in bundle comes with MHarmoniser CM, which might be suitable for what you are trying to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK6PClTil-c

I heartily recommend this bundle; all you have to do is buy the latest issue of Computer Music and you get over 70 plug-ins, most of them simplified or versions of the developer's commercial plugs or sometimes exclusive versions made just for CM. At least 2 of them are so essential that I use them on every project. About a third of the rest see occasional use, and most of them were at least interesting to try out. So it goes with plug-ins.

You can just buy a digital copy of the magazine for $10 and you get access to all of the plug-ins. Not incidentally, you get to read an issue of Computer Music, which is typically so packed with information that it takes me more than a month of browsing to absorb.

[Starship Krupa]

Oh, wait, I just re-read the OP.

The word "voices" threw me.

BillW are you saying that the individual voices of the instruments you are using are not standing out?

If that's the case, it may not be a harmonizer that is best suited for the task. More like compression, EQ and so forth. Please clarify (pun intended).

And paradoxically, I have learned that if I want individual instruments, vocals, whatever, to be heard in the mix, I usually have to take things away rather than add them. Compress, cut with EQ, etc. I've had to train myself to first try cutting something before I try adding or boosting something, because adding something is how I wind up with the "wall of sound."

Funny you should use that term, because one of my current projects is an attempt to go for a Phil Spector Brian Wilson layered Wall of Sound.

[BillW]

Sorry for not being clear.

What I do is play the melody on my midi keyboard. Usually assign an instrument like a sax to that.

Then if the harmony is intuitive I'll play in on another track assigning maybe a different brass instrument

In this case the harmonies are tough to pick out. So I thought maybe there was a plugin where I could feed in the midi melody and have it generate several harmonies.

I know there are several pay plugins for this. I tried a fre one tonight called rotator but couldn't get it to generate anyrhing

So again, I have a midi track that plays the melody and am looking for a plugin that can generate 2 or more harmony midi tracks from it.

[MeanMrMustard]

Sorry for not being clear.

What I do is play the melody on my midi keyboard. Usually assign an instrument like a sax to that.

Then if the harmony is intuitive I'll play in on another track assigning maybe a different brass instrument

In this case the harmonies are tough to pick out. So I thought maybe there was a plugin where I could feed in the midi melody and have it generate several harmonies.

I know there are several pay plugins for this. I tried a fre one tonight called rotator but couldn't get it to generate anyrhing

So again, I have a midi track that plays the melody and am looking for a plugin that can generate 2 or more harmony midi tracks from it.

Bill, still not clear as to what you are referring to or if it is even possible as this would entail Counterpoint. (Consonance - Perfect Consonances, Imperfect Consonances, Dissonances) Motion (Direct Motion, Contrary Motion, Oblique Motion) . I don't believe there are apps that will actually write a correct melodic line for you, other than some form of random note generator.

However if you just want a vst that will create a second 'melody' line there are free vsts available that will generate a second line/chord and possibly conform to the given scale such as Ionian, melodic minor, ect.

A few that come to mind are, Tonespace, HarmonizerW2, Notemapper. Codefn42 has a few melodic/harmonic generators.

http://codefn42.com/


Hope that helped.... MMM

[mick]

BillW, One way to get a "wall of sound" assuming you are using the Acoustica instruments is to ignore the "range" that each instrument plays. For example, you have a violin playing with a cello, the cello is in a lower register than the violin and so the range needs to be adjusted accordingly, the same applies for the violin. You have to look up the range of an instrument and set the range to correspond. If not, when you play a cello in the lower part of the keyboard you will also get the violin too bleeding through in this low range that is not natural, so in other words play the cello and you get some wrong violin and play the violin and you get some wrong cello both playing in an unatural register, thats mostly your wall of sound because there is no definition of each instrument, they are bleeding into each other. All these "out of the natural range of the instrument" tones are wrong and setting the range puts each instrument into perspective musically and this will help to clear the wall of sound and give you the definition you are looking for.

Harmonies, any plug-in works on a simple idea related to the way chords are built and by the wizard of mathematics will simply convert a single note into a chord by adding chord intervals, no other wonders are involved. Play a C chord and play about with the notes of C - E - G as an underlying harmony and consider that the top note of a chord will always be the most prominent, so you can play C E G and the G will stand out. Play G E C and the C stands out and so on, so you can make a 3 note melody just from a C major chord and the inversions. You can play a C major chord and introduce C E G as harmony tones using Cello flute or other on 2 more instrument tracks and try some panning.
I think a harmoniser is a gimmick personally but knowing a few basics of chord building will wipe the floor with such a plugin.
Not suggesting what to get but expressing an opinion based on experience.

EDIT:
Just found this, it explains in greater detail about chords and stuff, 53 mins tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xZ6m1vBQg8

[BillW]

Thanks for the responses. I think I'm going to skip this for now.

But to (hopefully) clear up what I mean:

I'm doing Stevie Wonder's I Just Called To Say I Love You.

I don't sing well, so instead of having a vocal I have a midi sax playing the melody.

When it comes to the chorus - there are several voices singing in harmony behind him. I'd play those harmonies on my keyboard as midi with different instruments.

That is - if I could only tell what notes each voice is singing. Very difficult to pull out the various harmonies.

I intend to do two more "voices" on two different tracks - one set as a trumpet and one as a trombone.

I wrote the harmony out based on the melody and what I can hear in my mind as sounding good. And I'll probably stick with that and tweak it so its a bit more interesting.

From what I read- the drawback on the harmonizers (free ones that is) is that they are too rigid. For example, as Mick is pointing out - if the chord being played is a C chord, they stick to those three notes. So you get a pretty boring harmony.

Or - it finds a harmony note by note to the main melody. Often that winds up sounding bad if the melody decides to stray a bit.

Often the best low harmony is just a couple of notes rather than a lot of range. I used to sing in a folk duo and I always did the low nearly monotone harmony to the the other guy (who was a good singer).

Again - thanks for the suggestions but I think after reading more about this, I should just plow in an write the harmony myself. Then maybe assign different instruments to duplicate tracks - or use a double tracking plugin or something to make it seem fuller.

[Starship Krupa]

if I could only tell what notes each voice is singing. Very difficult to pull out the various harmonies.

Another chance to pimp the Computer Music plug-in pack; there's an amazing one that comes with it called Photosounder SpiralCM that listens to an audio stream and shows you what notes are present in it.

It's a feature-reduced version of this:

http://photosounder.com/spiral/

He gives you a version that basically just has the display, with C at the top, and then a colour gain knob, but it is still useful and virtually free. You can try his demo, at least, although the full version is out of your price range.

His SplineEQ gets droolingly good reviews, but I tried the free version and it didn't make me want to spring for the full enchilada.