
It happens to everyone: creative blocks. You want to do something musical, but you keep falling into the same old patterns, or you need something new and different to prod you into being creative. Well, that's when it's time to load the Songwriter's Assistant preset into Studio One's Chorder Note FX. And although this uses virtual instruments, you don't even need to know how to play keyboards. Really!
Note FX Basics
A Note FX plug-in processes MIDI data coming from an external controller or Instrument track, before passing the data along to a virtual instrument. The Note FX inserts in an instrument track's Inspector (fig. 1).
Figure 1: Insert Note FX in the Inspector, like you would insert an Event FX for audio. We'll describe input mode later.
Studio One has several Note FX, but for assistance with smashing creative blocks, this tip uses Chorder as our Note FX of choice. And in the spirit of the holiday season, there's a gift you can download-the Songwriter's Assistant preset for Chorder.
Songwriter's Assistant.preset
Why Chorder Is Cool
Chorder can stack chords on a single key. This is why you don't need to play keyboards-just hit a key, and a chord of whatever complexity you want will play. The Songwriter's Assistant uses two keyboard octaves (fig. 2).
Figure 2: The Songwriter's Assistant preset.
The range C2 - B2 plays major chords. C3 - C4 plays minor chords. So if you don't know how to voice chords on a keyboard, no problem! And if you don't even know what notes correspond to C2 through C4, no worries there, either. Just hit keys that sound good, and later on, we'll deal with how to show what chords to play on guitar or other instruments.
Studio One's Help file has plenty of information on how to create your own Chorder presets or modify existing ones (like adding more chord types, like 7ths, to other keyboard octaves), so we'll just concentrate on using the Songwriter's Assistant as a plug-and-play Note FX.
Using It
After downloading the Songwriter's Assistant preset, import it into Chorder. Studio One saves Chorder presets in [drive]\Studio One\Presets\PreSonus\Chorder. Insert an instrument, and then insert Chorder as shown in fig. 1.
Now start playing notes, and come up with cool chord progressions. Record them in the Instrument track to build up your song's chord progression. That's all there is to it.
The instrument track can show the note(s) you played, or the notes Chorder generates. With Input Mode (fig. 1) set to pre (the same graphic as a send being pre), the track records Chorder's output. With post, it records your original input, although you'll still hear chords play back. If you selected post but want the track to include the Chorder-generated notes, right-click in the track, and choose Render Instrument Tracks. Now you'll see what Chorder generated.
Finally, if you don't play keyboards, just open the Chord Track and drag the instrument track up to it. Studio One will parse your chord progression, and show you the chord letters. Better yet, choose View > Chord Display to see giant chord letters marching across your screen.
And don't overlook the factory presets, where you'll find plenty more ideas for generating chord progressions. Is this cool, or what?
More from PreSonus
23/06/2022
How to Play Faster-By Playing Slower covered how to slow down tempo of non-MIDI based music without changing pitch. This allows playing a difficult part at a sl...
17/06/2022
as in, 10cc's I'm Not In Love. Back in those days, to minimize tape hiss, noise reduction compressed and increased highs when recording, then expanded...
10/06/2022
We already covered Mai Tai's FM synthesizer secret identity-but that was the start of fun things to do with Mai Tai, not the end. Here are five more Mai T...
03/06/2022
Almost all guitars, and many vintage keyboards, have mono outputs-but when it comes to recording and mixing, it's a stereo world. Ooops. Although you can al...
27/05/2022
This Main bus FX chain is all about an easy-to-adjust, useful set of controls for processing a stereo mix (or other buses, like background vocals or drums). Wan...
20/05/2022
On the surface, Mai Tai is an easy-to-program, fine-sounding virtual analog subtractive synthesizer. But let's dig deeper-and unlock its unique FM synthesis...
18/05/2022
I don't need a musical instrument when life plays the best notes
Chiara Luzzana (2022)
We at PreSonus are extremely thrilled to hear and see Chiara Luzz...
13/05/2022
The way I found out about Studio One and PreSonus: I had lunch with Bob Moses (president of the Audio Engineering Society at one time) and I asked him some que...
13/05/2022
Recently, I did some mix consulting on a 60-track project centered around Ukrainian relief-and as someone who usually works with far fewer tracks, it reminded m...
11/05/2022
Kris Xenopoulos, AKA KRIS XEN is a South African guitar player, musician and producer. Most well-known for his work with South African death metal outfit, Vul...
06/05/2022
We all know Impact XT is cool-but it's at its coolest when you use the individual audio outputs, because then you can add exquisite effects to individual dr...
29/04/2022
The Splitter is one of Studio One Professional's coolest features, because it can split by frequency and do multiband processing. I'm a huge fan of the ...
22/04/2022
Hum is like an unwanted house guest-when it shows up, all you really want to do is get rid of it. Unfortunately, I can't help you with unwanted house guests...
15/04/2022
Listening to speakers is a different experience than listening to headphones. Instead of your head being one point of an equilateral triangle with speakers, hea...
08/04/2022
Multiband compressors can seem daunting. However, they're just several compressors stuffed into one plug-in (or in the case of Studio One, dynamics processo...
04/04/2022
From April 1, 2022 until May 31, 2022 get a FREE*** PreSonus MicroStation BT when you purchase a new pair of R65 V2 or R80 V2 studio monitors from participating...
01/04/2022
Last week's tip covered using the Mixverb to create the 80s gated reverb effects with drums. This week, we'll present a more universal solution. But als...
25/03/2022
The gated reverb effect on drums was one of the signature sounds of the 80s, with probably the most famous example being Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight. ...
18/03/2022
A modular synthesizer's VCA (Voltage-Controlled Amplifier) changes gain in response to an input control voltage. One of my favorite applications is controll...
11/03/2022
It's probably obvious that I love the Chords track. It's so useful that if you haven't made friends with it yet, look over the Reference Manual then...
04/03/2022
One element that can help make drums exciting is including the room sound where the drums were recorded. If you don't believe me, listen to the drum part in...
25/02/2022
First, some news: If you own The Huge Book of Studio One Tips and Tricks, the free update to version 1.2 is available from the PreSonus shop. Just go to your ac...
11/02/2022
Version 5.5 introduced Chord Stack and Strum features, which are pretty cool (for the basics on how they work, check out Gregor Beyerle's YouTube video). We...
04/02/2022
Wouldn't it be cool to add a harmonic element to beats? Well, thanks to Harmonic Editing and a little pink noise, you can. The goal is to have your beat or ...
28/01/2022
Let's go right to the audio examples, because they're worth a thousand words.
The problem: You want a big, lush reverb on drums. But that overpowers th...
21/01/2022
It may seem like VU meters are a relic of the past. However, the VU Meter plug-in that's available for free in the PreSonus Shop is well worth the download-...
14/01/2022
It's a streaming world-and streaming services have their own audio standards with respect to LUFS and True Peak levels. LUFS is not the same as peak or aver...
14/01/2022
Perry Sorensen, Head of Mastering for NAXOS of America, gives us his favorite fe...
11/01/2022
Happytwobehere is a duo from Covington, Louisiana comprised of two young ladies: Isabel Mathes (vocals) and Lillian Stegen (drums, keyboard, programming, produc...
11/01/2022
Studio One 5.5 has arrived, adding a ton of new mastering power to the Project Page - including Automation - as well as plenty of other features, including a st...
08/01/2022
Although this isn't an actual talk box, it does give humanized mouth sounds with Studio One Professional. This is possible because the human mouth is a filt...
31/12/2021
Mix referencing, where you compare your mix to well-mixed music, can be a big help if you want a reality check on what you're doing. There are even curve-s...
24/12/2021
Check out renowned composer, Robin Hoffmann's, rendition of The Night Before Christmas created exclusively in Studio One showcasing the use of Sound Varia...
24/12/2021
It happens to everyone: creative blocks. You want to do something musical, but you keep falling into the same old patterns, or you need something new and differ...
17/12/2021
The Fat Channel is a versatile channel strip plug-in that, because of all the other cool Studio One individual processors, is easy to overlook. But it has sever...
10/12/2021
Hardware is making a comeback. Real-time, improvisation-based drum machines and synths are gaining popularity, and you can find occasional bargains for used syn...
08/12/2021
So why is BTS ( ) Fake Love official video shown above? Because their hit song was mixed in Studio One Professional by our latest PreSonus Sphere Featured...
03/12/2021
An astute Friday Tip reader commented that while the tip on how to level the outputs of amp sim presets was indeed useful, I should also write about the importa...
27/11/2021
It's great we can store presets, trade them with other users, and download free ones. But when selecting different Ampire presets to decide how they fit wit...
23/11/2021
Brody Tullier (aka Zeno) is a 17 year-old composer based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana who has been composing and arranging original music for the past four years.
...
22/11/2021
Click here to find a dealer! Instant Rebate! Now through the November 29th 2021,...
22/11/2021
Click here to find a dealer! Now through the end of December, get an instant reb...
22/11/2021
JOIN PRESONUS SPHERE
SOFTWARE
HARDWARE
TUTORIALS
BUY...
20/11/2021
Click here to find a dealer! Now through the end of November 2021, save $30 on t...
19/11/2021
Studio One includes multiple algorithmic composition tools, but I'm not sure how many users are aware of them. So, let's look at the way some of these t...
12/11/2021
I'm a fan of hand percussion. Tambourines, cowbells, claves, guiros you name it. But mixing it just right is always tricky. When mixed too high, the percuss...
05/11/2021
For this tip to make sense, I need to be upfront about two personal biases.
Personal bias #1: Drums should sound percussive. I can't remember the last time...
02/11/2021
Now through the end of Dec. 2021, - save $50/ 50 on the ioStation 24c at participating dealers! When you're a solo artist, you have to be more than just cre...
02/11/2021
Now through the end of Dec. 2021, - save $30/ 30 on the Revelator USB microphone at participating dealers! Stand out from the crowd! Revelator is the first USB ...
30/10/2021
As reverb transitions from being simply a way to emulate an acoustic space to an effect in its own right, new reverb designs are becoming more popular. One of t...