Device Details


Overview

Name | Version: ExpressiveChordsHelper 1.1
Author: Gross9978
Device Type: MIDI Generator
Description: 1.1- Adds the ability to generate chord sets based on the stacks midi tool.

If the clip has notes either recorded or drawn in it works as it did before, select the notes and it'll format them for use with Expressive Chords.

If the clip is empty it'll generate chords for each note of the scale based on the rules from the Stacks miditool formatted for use with Expressive Chords. If using Push they'll be laid out according to the note from left to right.

It's laid out so that each column is a note from the scale and each row is a different chord type as long as the scale has 8 or less notes.

A 7 note scale will be 6 rows of 7 columns, each column will be the same note from the scale and each row will be a different chord shape from Stacks.
A 5 note scale will be 6 rows and 5 columns etc.
Once it gets above an 8 note scale it gets a little messy, each note will be one after another with a 1 cell skip between the chord shapes.

Clicking the gear lets you choose the intervals from stacks to use for the available slots since Expressive Chords only has 6 usable rows of pads.

The interval UI only gets set once there are notes in the clip so the best way to use it to generate sets is-
Put expressive Chords and an instrument on the track first.
In an empty clip select the miditool from the generators tab, once loaded hit Create Chords.
Once the chords are in the clip you can change the root note or scale and it should stay in sync until the apply cycle is ended. 

Note-Changing the scale resets the intervals to their default 1-6 values. Changing the root note doesn't.

Without ending the apply cycle click the gear and select the intervals you'd like to use.  
On Expressive Chords at any time you can click Import and the current chords will be imported, as long as the apply cycle hasn't ended you can keep changing the scale/intervals and clicking Import to try them out.

The menus to select intervals are laid out so the bottom menu will be the bottom row on Push with Expressive Chords.

It should work with all of the built in scales with Live following the rules from Stacks but it doesn't  currently support the tuning system so it won't really work with scales other than the ones available from the clip menu.

Sometimes Expressive Chords names the chords something other than id expect but I don't really have any clue what some of the chords Stacks generates are so maybe its right haha.



I made this to quickly create midi clips for use with Lives Expressive Chords midi device. I got tired of drawing in chords to make sets so I made this.

1. Record a clip playing whatever chords you want.
2 Select all of the notes in the clip and click "Create Chords"
3. It'll transform the clip to be formatted in a way that Expressive Chords expects, if needed you can adjust the "Tolerance" of what makes a chord but generally it's good at 0.25

Hope someone else finds it useful:)

Details

Live Version Used: 12.2
Max Version Used: 9.7
Date Added: Jun 15 2025 03:19:00
Date Last Updated: Jul 07 2025 02:27:11
Downloads: 256
License: AttributionNonCommercialShareAlike
Average Rating (1)

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5

Files

Device File: ECHelper.amxd
 


Comments

was poking around for similar yesterday. THANKS!
Me too haha, I was hoping someone had already done it. 

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