|
Post by Jerome on Mar 5, 2020 15:32:00 GMT 1
Actually the C7M#5 is already present in JJazzLab 2.
|
|
|
Post by bluebeat on Mar 8, 2020 3:37:34 GMT 1
About the Roland and Ketron styles.... "Note that my personal objective for JJazzLab is to do "better" rather than "more"" I think you are missing one major point... To have a universal program that can handle variety of styles... that is "better" 1manband already had/has Yamaha style player / arranger. Actually several versions of it, including ios. It does not look "pretty", but very capable. I had it for many years. It is priced fairly too. Also, there was Livestyler, which was advanced piece of soft (unfortunately developer died a few years ago). Not to be on negative side, but why re-invent the wheel? I understand that your "price" is more than fair and I am confident if you continue with same pace, you will get a solid following... BUT again, I feel you are missing out GREATLY by not looking into Roland / Ketron styles. It might be harder to implement these at later stages. I urge you to consider implementing support for these. Music is about variations P.S. Please do not forget to make separate threads in this "feedback" forum section. It might get a bit cluttered soon. Thank you.
|
|
|
Post by bluebeat on Mar 8, 2020 4:11:25 GMT 1
Jerome, I re-read what I wrote and I think I might sounded a bit harsh... I DO think you done a great job so far. Actually your pace is SIGNIFICANTLY(!) faster than developers mentioned above. On personal level, I do want you to succeed! I just feel that you will have much more chances if you figure out how to adopt Roland and Ketron styles.
Another thought. As far as sound engine goes... If I remember correctly, coolsoft main developer is a reasonable person, perhaps he will allow to integrate sound engine with your program so it is "one download / one install"? For someone like me, it is fairly easy to locate software in different places and make things work... but some folks might find it complicated. What I am trying to say, please give more thought about "end user"
Thank you.
|
|
|
Post by Jerome on Mar 8, 2020 21:40:24 GMT 1
Embedding VirtualMidiSynth installer: yes, on the to-do list (need approval of author). Ketron/Roland styles: sure, supporting these files would be good. But to give you an idea, adding Yamaha style support with a detailed and up-to-date specification doc., it was about 1 year of work for me (and there is still room for improvement). So imagine without a spec... If you want the feature this badly, I encourage you to try to start on your own (or with other people): find or create this spec., code a basic implementation as a proof of concept. I would be happy to support you in this task.
|
|
|
Post by TheMaartian on Mar 11, 2020 19:06:33 GMT 1
In Reaper you can duplicate the chord notes diatonically in the yamaha styles. Maybe you could get it to send or receive midi sync, slave or master. If I want to record some tracks from the exported midi it would be good to have the chords.
How is loopMIDI working for you? It introduced some noticeable latency for me that LoopBe didn't, so I bought a license for LoopBe30. It's been really solid. Just wondering if the latency issue was unique to my setup.
|
|
alexc
New Member
Posts: 5
|
Post by alexc on Apr 11, 2020 13:02:47 GMT 1
Selecting different tempo mid-song. I haven't tried different time-signatures mid-song, but those are some things I'd love to see in an upcoming version. I've already asked this tempo question and received an answer but it should be in this thread.
This is an exciting project. Thank you!
|
|
|
Post by dzjang on Apr 13, 2020 14:40:34 GMT 1
Wonderful new version, very intuitive. I’ve tried adding accents and holds... works nicely. The fact that, if you enter a “shot” on the wrong beat, you can just drag your chord shot to the right beat, that is very intresting indeed. You should promote that in your documentation. It’s certainly a “plus”. Tried some styles, some are quite good, but most styles are very one-dimensional with very limited dynamics in bass or drums. I will take some time sifting through the hundreds of styles I collected to try and locate some good ones. Fact remains that most styles, even the good ones, stay in that 50’s idiom. Nobody plays jazz like that anymore, . I’d welcome the idea of being able to make user styles, but I understand that would demand a whole new bunch of code. Wish you the best with this new version and -hopefully- more new versions to come.
|
|
|
Post by Jerome on Apr 14, 2020 8:59:02 GMT 1
Selecting different tempo mid-song. I haven't tried different time-signatures mid-song, but those are some things I'd love to see in an upcoming version. I've already asked this tempo question and received an answer but it should be in this thread. This is an exciting project. Thank you! The current version already supports multiple time signatures: just select a time signature then right-click menu. Note that I think there are usable rhythms only for 3/4, 4/4 and 5/4. In practice you can't have more than 2 or 3 rhythms because of the 16 channels limitation. For the tempo change, I've planned to add in the next release.
|
|
|
Post by Jerome on Apr 14, 2020 10:40:12 GMT 1
Tried some styles, some are quite good, but most styles are very one-dimensional with very limited dynamics in bass or drums. I fully agree. I created the "YamJJazz Extended styles" to overcome the Yamaha style limit of only 4 variations. It's far from perfect but, if you try for example 16beat.s556.yjz, you'll have more dynamics. Personnaly I like this style to build up the atmosphere during long solos. My goal is to add a feature similar to Logix Pro X virtual drummer. It's really impressive. I'd like to have the same concept for drums AND bass, and in the future for all the instruments of the style. It's obviously a LOT of work AI-based algorithms might help on this work. Note I updated the JJazzLab SoundFont yesterday, fixing some drums sound balance issues, the YamJJazz extended styles should sound better. That would really help, thanks! I could create a directory like "Best Of" in the rhythms directory. I think you could find on the web some software to edit Yamaha styles. I do this using CASMEdit2000 (just to get the Yamaha style meta information) and Cubase for editing music. It's not super simple but not that complicated too. I'd like to do a video tutorial someday, just one more item on my endless todo list...
|
|
|
Post by dzjang on Apr 14, 2020 11:03:45 GMT 1
Hey Jerome Still: great work. I noticed two things that are annoying - Drums: if there is no drum set in the style it says in the mixer: not set! If you choose an instrument, it won’t give you a list of drumsets, it remains blank. But ok, if I choose instrument 41 (brushes, named violins, I think) it remains ok, but every time I press play the drums return to program 1. Since I chose another drum,it, it’s better that it stays selected as long as I don’t switch styles or anything.
- If you double click a chord and change the harmony, the original root is preserved. If you right click and choose Edit , it defaults to E! This seems unintentional and wrong.
A question: I really like the “harmony” idea. If I enter Db, it plays. But, if I go to “edit chord symbol” and choose the tab called “harmony” and select Db lydian dominant, it doesn’t change the chord symbol. This is a nice idea, but wouldn’t it be best to make at least Db7 out of it? Maybe not, maybe you use this method because If you enter Db and think Lydian dominant, the accompaniment will just stick to triads, and this is a nice idea. Was that your reasoning? I could live with that. Would even be very smart. your idea of every chord having a defined harmony or scale is soooo important. This way, hopefully, you could be trying out reharmonizations, like Mulgrew Miller, Bill Evans, Hancock, and the style would play it right (unlike band in a box, which is harmonically very poor). It would be such an important software. Your workflow for editing or making styles is indeed complex: a bunch of midi files of equal length with correct filenames, my, my! Sadly, the alternative is expensive stylemaking software. Nice software! Really is.
|
|
|
Post by Jerome on Apr 14, 2020 14:22:09 GMT 1
Thanks ! Please create a specific thread for the 2 first issues, I'll answer it I think it's not as sophisticated as you expect, you might be disappointed...
To answer I first need to explain how Yamaha styles work (or BIAB) in general. If we take the bass line for Variation Main A for example, the .sty file defines a bass phrase for a reference chord (usually C7M). JJazzLab uses this phrase and modifies it to fit the leadsheet chord. So if the C7M reference phrase contains E and leadsheet chord is Cm7, JJazzLab changes E to Eb. What if the C7M bass phrase contains a D (9th) ? By default JJazzLab will assume it's a dorian mode (with a natural 9th), so D will remain unchanged. But what if the song was in C phrygian (with a flat 9th) ? The harmony tab lets you tell JJazzLab the harmony mode to be used for each chord. This way JJazzLab will be able to change the D note to Db for Cm7 phrygian. Note that in many cases you won't hear any difference in the rendering: this is because many styles only use simple notes for maximum "portability". For example the bass lines often just use root and fifths, so changing to Cm7 phrygian (natural 5th) will have no effect.
|
|
|
Post by dzjang on Apr 14, 2020 17:50:22 GMT 1
Hi Jerome,
That makes perfect sense. In Biab, the principle should be the same (except, it isn’t)
I think that approach works for most chords, except the phrygian modes in major and melodic minor, players will avoid b3 and notate it as Db/C (C phrygian). On the other hand the III chord in functional jazz is phrygian, too and you would play the b3 there, like in bebop or standards.. So, you’re right.
I’ll open threads for the issues.
Thx
|
|
|
Post by shimmy on Apr 20, 2020 10:59:38 GMT 1
Hi guys. I'm new to JJazzLab. First of all I'd like to thank you folks for this awesome product! Can't thank you enough. What I'd like to see is more pre-set rhythms to create Jamming-Tracks by putting in chords, more styles, for example, bebop, polka, bluegrass, some irish standards etc. Thank you!
|
|
|
Post by Jerome on Apr 21, 2020 8:36:35 GMT 1
Hi Shimmy and welcome ! JJazzLab can read Yamaha style files (.sty, .prs, .sst). You can find thousands of them for free on the web, I give a few links here www.jjazzlab.com/en/resources/ The quality of the files may vary a lot though. To use the downloaded files: in the Rhythm selection dialog, use the "Add rhythms" button to test the new style files. Then you can copy the files that you like in your User Rhythm directory (see Options/Rhythms), so that the files are read upon startup.
|
|
pluto
New Member
Posts: 9
|
Post by pluto on May 15, 2020 10:23:51 GMT 1
Hello, congrats for your great work, really inspiring taking in consideration easy of use and the big number of styles resources from the web.
Beside the fact that a Vst version for Mac will be really amazing and I will pay for it 100% (or in the begining at least a midi sync and why not midi in functional),
I have another a big request if that possible, when I export the midi file all the parts have one bar of silence before the midi track starting, do you think you can do something about it? I tried to understand why is that and was impossible for me to get it but if that thing has a point can you please do a option in preferences to have the midi file without that silence bar in front (i want to mention I never make a full track inside of Jjazlab with more parts of the style, I export just individual parts of the style (mains, fills, intros) and import them into Ableton and use it there as scene, so that break bar its an editing killer for me...)
Also will be great when is playing and load another style to go directly with the new one without stop play, and also to have the option to "lock" the tempo when changing the styles, so these 2 things will make the audition much smooth (at least for my case).
Thank you so much
Waitting news from your part
George
|
|