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Orb Composer - fully automated music composition tool

My latest Orb Composer playthrough is out. This time no unsuspecting poor women were harmed...
For this composition I've used "custom rhythm" for getting a consistent piano ostinato with bass and "opposing" block chords.
 
In my newest Orb Composer screencast I have the music prototyping system lay the foundation for some very basic Electronica style music.
The complete workflow inside Orb Composer is shown. Template creation and setup are skipped, no export and further refining steps inside the DAW are done.

 
Thanks HiEnergy, your videos continue to be very helpful. I continue to toy with the idea of purchasing, especially with the welcome price drop a little while ago. However, I'm disappointed that Artist, which I might go for at 149€, only has 4/4 time (I would've been more likely to grab if at least 3/4 were included too) and the severe limitation on chords to only major and minor (a few more of the common pop music chords would have been great). Paying an extra 250€ primarily (for my purposes) to lift those two restrictions is... a lot.

But anyway, I also have a question that I'm still curious about: for a given set of instruments and basic template, how different can the "AI" make a recomposition? In other words, given a given basic structure, can it actually generate significantly different-sounding progressions and melodies (which the user can obviously then tweak / change as needed)? Or do recompositions within a given structure sound more like variations on a theme?

(I hope the foregoing makes sense. And yes, I know I could just download and demo myself, but I'm so hesitant based on the time signature / chords issues discussed above that I'm just don't feel motivated to do so unless I know the program is at least capable of generating real variety.)
 
welcome price drop a little while ago
I agree, the price for Orb Composer Pro is still not exactly cheap and the restrictions for the Artist version are indeed a roadblock when it comes to composing more complex music (I guess that's intended), therefore I bought the Pro version during the pre-release phase for EUR 349.

for a given set of instruments and basic template, how different can the "AI" make a recomposition?
I'll try that recomposition task by regenerating notes for a given block/instrument clip over and over without altering any other parameters between regenerations.
Will record that session and put it on YouTube, when done.

In the Electronica video in my previous post, there's a situation where I modify an accompaniment clip and Orb Composer regenerates the melody. This might help you as a first hint on what variety OC can offer... but as said, I'll do a video with forced re-generation.
 
Orb is a truly impressive tool! My first trial on it had some really positive results. I find that if you let it just create the foundation of parts of the melody or supporting harmony, you can fill in the rest very well. I did this piece fully on Orb as it set the orchestral parts, and I just added my own piano.

 
Yes, that would be really interesting. What I am missing that there is no easy way to just get a normal simple chord track for other sequencer/arps/composing tools like the riff generation from in session audio for example. Or just the root note of the chords, maybe hold for more then a bar, something like this which is very easy to do in the daw (like in waveform or cubase for example) but I hate to do things twice...
 
Yes, that would be really interesting. What I am missing that there is no easy way to just get a normal simple chord track for other sequencer/arps/composing tools like the riff generation from in session audio for example. Or just the root note of the chords, maybe hold for more then a bar, something like this which is very easy to do in the daw (like in waveform or cubase for example) but I hate to do things twice...

If i recall, midi channel orb 0 is the chord track no? i think if you route that to an instrument you might be able to record chord information. Ill have to double check.
 
Thanks for the info, must have overseen that, will check too what happens when I route that to a track. Really looking forward to a "midi note view" of the tracks in Orb Composer.....
 
I have made a virtual midi port for the orb 0 with all channels on in my daw but nothing arrives on, do I have to choose a special instument or something else to get the chords from this one ?
 
I have made a virtual midi port for the orb 0 with all channels on in my daw but nothing arrives on, do I have to choose a special instument or something else to get the chords from this one ?

sorry i just tried to do it again myself. Im not sure if it was disabled on the recent update. Ill try and see what other options there are. there used to be a way to do strum patterns on guitar that would at least make a chord shape. there has to be some instrument that would provide chords. ill let you know what i find.
 
I thought of getting the full version of the OC. But after questions with the customer service I am abit scared as they say only 3 activation per license. What if we used up all activations?
 
Rey, of course I cant speak for Hexachord but maybe you should just ask them precisely again (if you already have a ticket open) that - as far as I understood - you dont need licences for more then 3 PC/Notebooks but want to be sure that if you change your system and need another activation for it that you can get another activation for that without need to pay. After my experiences with Hexachord that should not be a problem, but then you have it written down. Technically it should be no issue for them to generate another one. So far they dont have a system to just give a license back before changing something on the system and then take it back again, so I would say it is their turn to ensure that you can use three licenses. Really cant imagine any problem, they are nice guys :).
 
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