This little tune uses about 90% more chords than most current pop songs, it was recorded on the Audya in one shot and has lots of inversions and complex chords for you to analyse.

100 extra points if you can name the song
http://www.ketronmusic.co.uk/media/chords.mp3

You can hear the chords well enough there Ian

One more thing to add: Arranger keyboards using midi guitar sounds for the strumming parts definately have the advantage of reproducing exactly what your left hand is playing, the problem is you end up with KEYBOARD CHORDS VOICING instead of authentic guitar strumming. That sounds un-natural and even the best guitarists can't play chords the way we do on a keyboard when playing a song and moving from one chord to another.
On the Audya however you alwys get the most "guitaristic" voicing. Even if in some occasions, it has to use midi for the odd chord or inversion, you still get the real audio with TRUE guitaristic voicing. In my opinion its absolutely the best compromise.

Good example, Tonewheeldude!

If I can comment a bit, from what I experienced on Audya for more complex guitar chords midi tones are just added to audio part if major, minor or 7th chord can be used as root. If not, the chord is completely midi. But since this happens rarely the overall guitar experience is still very authentic.

In some R&R styles the complex chord reduces guitar part to one tone only, but R&R usually is not the style to exercise exotic chords

Best regards,
Luka

Hi Luka.

I spent alot of time with the Audya yesterday, most of what I found got lost in other posts. But essentially I tried playing every chord variation I could think of and discovered that the only chords the Audya doesn't play are those that are impossible to strum on a guitar. For instance the root inversion of a minority of chords had to use midi guitar for continuity, but the first inversion would play fine. Here are some excerpts, they are taken from the other thread so might not be in order but it should give you the idea. By the way I was using a tentative version of OS4 so I am not sure if any changes were made to this over OS3:

-------------------------------------------

anyway I am off sick and have a few minutes so I just tried the Audya I have here and played the following chord variations in C. I marked the ones with a * which I felt switched to midi guitars, but its pretty hard to tell on some as sometimes there are two guitars playing together and the midi guitars on the Audya are very high quality. In amongst a style the changes are not noticable particuarly as these odd chords tend to be played in passing. All the ones without the * definately played live guitars. I think I have covered about every chord variation, but if i missed any let me know.

I have a feeling if I gave this list to a guitarist he would laugh at me..but here goes:


Major
Minor
5
Dominant 7th
Major 7th
Minor 7th
Minor Major 7th
Sus 4 *
Sus 2
6
Minor 6
9
Minor 9
Major 9
Minor Major 9
11
Minor 11
Major 11
Minor Major 11
13
Minor 13
Major 13
Minor Major 13
add 9
Minor add9
6 add 9
minor 6 add 9
Dominant 7th add 11
Major 7th add 11
Minor 7th add 11 *
Minor Major 7th add 11
Dominant 7th add 13
Major 7th add 13
Minor 7th add 13
Minor major 7th add 13
7b5
7#5 *
7b9
7#5b9 *
m7b5 *
m7#5
m7b9
9#11
9b13
6sus4
7sus4 (* hard to tell on this)
Major 7th Sus 4 *
9sus4
Major 9 Sus4

it seems that if the guitarist is playing an arpeggio it will play ALL chord variations, but strumming is a different matter. So it seems for the sake of a keyboard player those some odd chords are replaced with a midi pattern so there are no drop outs in sound. But when the notes are picked one after another the audya will definately play every chord variation without any change in sound.

on styles with a strumming guitar AND arpeggio the arpeggio makes it almost impossible to tell when the change to midi guitar is made. The Audya only replaces the midi guitar in impossible inversions.

if i play the 1st inversion of a sus4 it will play correctly - because that is the inversion a guitarist will use. he physically cannot play every inversion. From a keyboard players point of view if an incorrect inversion was played in a sequence the sound would be worse than using a mixture of midi guitars and live guitars.

The audya always chooses the most appropriate combination to keep the sequence fluid.

In summary the Audya will play every physically possible guitar chord, but when a chord is not playable on a guitar due for example to an unreachable inversion the Audya will replace the live guitar with a midi guitar for the sake of the keyboard players continuity - I don't know about you but I didn't have a clue which inversions are possible on a real guitar.

If the Audya simply played a different inversion to the chord position the keyboard player is on the sound would be weird, so it is the only option to replace certain unusual chord inversions with a midi guitar. But even then its not easy to hear the difference.

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there is of course only one thing better than the Audya with Live guitar strumming in the style!

That would be an Audya with a live guitarist (preferably female, 27...nice legs) sitting next to you.

Most people dont buy the audya only to be solo guitar strumming, they buy it to have a realistic strumming guitarist in their "virtual band". And honestly speaking it is just like having a guitarist and drummer with you...takes me back to my time with Hammond.

For a professional studio recording most would want to use an actual guitarist, but for anyone who uses an arranger - this is definately the next best thing.

[This message has been edited by Tonewheeldude (edited 04-08-2010).]

As much as I like what they're trying to do here, I got some issues.
Drums sound great yes, until we get to a fill and 1 loop cuts off and another loop comes in, and abruptly we lose the ring of the tom or the decay of the cymbal when the new loop happens. So every time there is a transition it sounds like the drummer had to have the studio punch in there.

Second thing I don't get, why did the acoustic guitar pan off to the right in the B section? He was in the center during the verse, and in the chorus the mixing engineer thought he should be panned over???? Weird.

There's no doubt the audio loops sound better/more realistic, but there's just some details in their implementation that aren't right yet. A lack of smooth, contiguous flow from one section to another that is a bit offputting to me.

[This message has been edited by FAEbGBD (edited 04-08-2010).]

the panning of the guitars is entirely up to the user. each section is set up on style view: volume, pan etc.

So that was your decision as a user to pan the guitar off to the right on the B section? That was not how the original style was programmed from the factory? If that is indeed how the style was programmed from the factory, it was an odd choice to make as a default.

sorry i hadn't realised you meant the mp3 above.

The reason it sounds like this is because all the other parts of the style were cut so you could clearly hear the live guitar only. Because much of the style is muted your missing the normal stereo pan. However if you liked the style this way (without the other parts) its a simple job to adjust the pan for each arranger part.

Its still an odd decision. Rhythm guitar is one of the constants in a mix usually, it doesn't go traveling about the stereo field, regardless how many other instruments there are or aren't.

Hello ToneWhheelDude

The song you've posted is "Donner pour donner" performed by Elton John and French singer France Gall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1yvbb3e5-M

I don't have any TOTL arranger keyboard (I own a Ketron XD9), but I'd like to show what Band In A Box can do with Real Tracks
(Real Tracks feature audio recordings of instruments that can be assigned to replace any MIDI track in Band-in-a-Box. These tracks follow the chord progression that you have entered)

Here is my rendition of the tune using 2 Real Tracks for Electric guitar and Acoustic guitar
http://www.4shared.com/audio/ZfgQofYp/BIAB_AE.html

[This message has been edited by dralion (edited 04-09-2010).]

[This message has been edited by dralion (edited 04-09-2010).]