If I download a guitar loop to Audacity can I change each measure/bar to play a different chord?
Example: Measure 1: play G chord – Measure 2: play C chord – Measure 3: play D chord
Thank you in advance for any help,
yeto
You could apply the “Change Pitch” effect, but note that:
a) Large changes may sound unnatural.
b) A real guitarist will play different “shapes” for different chords. Pitch shifting just tunes the entire chord up or down.
Try both the “high quality stretching” and the normal stretching - The “high quality” setting sounds better in many cases, but not all cases. Sometimes the “normal” stretch can sound better.
I looked at that but will it be possible for me to change to like an Am7 or Gmaj7 type chords?
Thank you for your reply,
yeto
You can’t change a major chord to a minor chord with pitch shifting. The entire sound is “stretched” by the same amount, so pitch shifting Gmaj7 up by two semitones becomes Amaj7.
yeto,
You might look into [u]MIDI[/u]. (Audacity is not a MIDI application.)
With MIDI, the “notes and timing” are stored on the computer. I think of it as “sheet music for the computer”. There is no actual audio in the MIDI file (and MIDI files are very small compared to audio files). When you play a MIDI file on your computer the sound is generated by virtual instruments (software). So you can edit the notes (including the notes in a chord) and/or timing or you can change the virtual instrument from guitar to trumpet, etc. If you had a full (virtual) MIDI orchestra you could change a guitar chord without changing anything else.
[u]Cakewalk[/u] is a popular DAW (Digital Audio Workstation application) that supports MIDI, and it’s now FREE!
Most of the background music you hear in movies and on TV is MIDI. (In the old days it was real musicians.)
Most people who are “serious” about MIDI use a keyboard (a musical keyboard, not a computer keyboard) and the MID software can capture (record) the notes & timing being played, or the MIDI file can be played-back through the keyboard. But, it’s possible to do everything in software. You can also buy packages of virtual instruments.
“[u]Cakewalk[/u] is a popular DAW (Digital Audio Workstation application) that supports MIDI, and it’s now FREE!”
I have been using Ujam but their site has been down for a few weeks now and I am not sure it will come back. I am looking for the next best thing. I am looking for some software where I can just type in the chord name for each measure/bar, select the rhythm pattern loop and compose a song. I don’t think cakewalk has this capability. I have looked at Band in a Box but the loops in the starter pack don’t match what I am looking for. I would like for the software to have its own loops/samples. Any other suggestions?