Re calibrate User Scale steps in Harmoniser

  • The thing with Hotel California is that it's not related to an exact scale. It has an E-major as well as an E-minor chord in it. That makes it tricky because you need G and G#.

    Stolen from wikipedia: >

    The Doric bebop scale is derived from the Doric scale and has its chromatic transition tone between the third and fourth (in the example E with G and G# ).

    This scale is often used with minor seventh chords. <unquote


    As it is an 8 interval scala it will not work with the given 7 intervals.

    I'm afraid that is not a good example for our application.:)


    But now on topic.

    I think many ways can reach a goal.

    I also would prefer the Interval counted from base tone to have a better understanding , but it comes really to an presentation problem if you want to avoid enharmonic mix-ups.

  • Hotel California :P - really not a simple example for a single user scale with that kind of chord progression...


    Probably two pitch fx blocks with different scale settings and toggling between both could do the trick.

    BTW is it possible to switch/morph between 2 scales?


    One could really have fun programming an Eventide H6000 for this task as well. ;)

  • Before I get into it below I just want to reiterate this is ONLY about the "custom scales' function and no other harmonisation functionality in the KPA.


    I honestly fail to see the problem OR difficulty of replacing numbers with actual 'note names'.


    Eventide are no slouch in this dept. and have done EXTENSIVE market research over decades and yet there is a pushback here, why? Eventide's UI approach to this is considered world's best practice. Again, because it works.


    The most comprehensive and far reaching fix would be to have the existing note numbers and you can THEN toggle and have actual note names showing instead. (If it's too difficult to toggle between both actual note names should be the only thing showing)


    Everyone is a winner and the current Kemper design is still in play commercially.


    I guarantee MORE guitarists, universally, know the note names on their instrument than the many scale construction intervals & degrees.


    This should be so simple and yet time is being wasted going back and forth for nothing gained.

  • This feature is something that is probably not often used and once set up you forget about it.


    I had a few tracks with harmonic minor harmonies crossing over with octave parts and managed to construct it with a little trial and error. Working in production with melodyne and autotune, it seems a very natural way to think, although I understand some with good theory expect a different approach.

    Karl


    Kemper Rack OS 9.0.5 - Mac OS X 12.6.7

  • although I understand some with good theory expect a different approach.

    it seems to me, that someone with a good/solid understanding of the underlying theory can think either in intervals or half steps without issue.


    not trying to be an ass - honestly :)

    I'm also not trying to patronize anyone, I'm just saying it's kinda like the difference between saying 'see you at 3 o'clock' and 'see you in 30 minutes' to give an example.

  • Don’t I think the real issue comes when you need to use more than one scale at a time.


    Althought user scales might appear to be a fairly esoteric use it is currently the most useable workaround for some pretty basic applications. While the Hotel California example was a pretty extreme case it showed me what I would need to do to play simple horn part, keyboar or twin guitar parts in a huge number of simple pop, blues, rock songs.


    Lets take a simple example of a 12 bar blues in A. Something that is pretty common to most guitarists.


    The three main chords are A (I), D (IV) and E (V). All three are in the same major key of A right? So we can just program a harmony in A major right? Eh, No,


    The I chord A isn’t actually A its A7 which is the V chord in D. So we need to harmonise this with a D major scale. In theory terms this is known as A mixolydian mode. Ah, OK. So we just set the harmoniser to D major and we’re good to go?


    Mmmm, hold on their Tonto not quite. Because the IV chord D isn’t actually D but D7 which isnkt in the key of A or D. It’s actually the V chord of G. In this case we call it D mixolydian. So we actually need two different scales to play lots of harmonies even over this simple little 2 chord phrase.


    Now add in the V chord E. You guessed it it’s not actually E but E7 which is actually the only chod here that fits the apparent key of A. So we need a third scale to be able to play a harmony over this chord.


    Fortunately, in a blues or rock context it is common to play the Dorian Minor Scale over the a Dominant 7 chord. A Dorian is actually just G Major. What that means in our simple example is that we can use the same G major scale over both the A7 and D7 chords but we still need to change to A major for to E7 chord.


    There are two ways to achieve this in our simple blues.


    1- assign two differen harmonisers to different Stomp slots and toggle between them. If you want to use all three different scales you would need to tie up 3 individual slots.


    2- set up one harmoiser effect with two user scales and morph betweem them as required. Personally I find morphing with an EXP pedal more natural than stepping on and off fotswitches on the second row of the Remote.


    Take another example.


    Many rock and blues based part include both the major and minor 3rd. To play lots of fairly simple harmonies you need a way to copes with this. The best I can come up with at the moment is to use two user scales and morph between them. So in a common case , over an A7 chord I might need both A dorian and A mixolydian. The only difference is that Dorian has a minor 3rd and mixolydian has a Major 3rd. I would set up a user scale 1 as dorian and user scale 2 as mixolydain and just morph between while playing.


    Finally, you mentined the Harmonic Minor or Melodic Minor scale in a previous example. In classical harmony each of these is actually 2 different scale. The ascending Harmonic Minor is 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7 1 which creates a strong resolution to the 1. However, descending has a b7.


    Again this needs the ability to think in two scales simultaneously when programming. Working with offsets instead of notes or intervals makes this exponentially more difficult.


    This is all just a really long winded way of explaining that to get the most out of the harmoniser, even in very simple musical applications you often have to do quite a lot of work. We all work in different ways and I can work in musical notes, musical intervals or semi tones. Some work better than others in certain situations. For creating harmonies in a user scale context musical notes or musical intervals work MUCH better than semi tone offsets IMHO.

  • I thought of a way the user scales would be easy to handle:


    instead of having:

    Step 0 -> +3

    Step 1 -> -4

    Step 3 -> +5


    one could take the selected Key into account and sees for the selected key the resulting notes.

    for Example if D (major) is selected then Step 0 represents D and so on.

    D -> F (+ 0 Octaves)

    D# -> B (- 1 Octave)

    E -> A (+ 0 Octaves)


    if you select D# (major) for the same user scale you see

    D# -> F# (+ 0 Octaves)

    E -> C (- 1 Octave)

    F -> Bb (+ 0 Octaves)

  • The most comprehensive and far reaching fix would be to have the existing note numbers and you can THEN toggle and have actual note names showing instead. (If it's too difficult to toggle between both actual note names should be the only thing showing)


    Everyone is a winner and the current Kemper design is still in play commercially.

    This suggestion, to me, should keep everyone happy surely ...?


    As long as it's practical from the GUI point of view.