The Schwarzonator Max for Live Patch: Non-musicians, welcome a new dawn!
By Paul Dakeyne
| Posted in Music Technology
Ok, hands up. I’m no musician. Don’t get me wrong, I took piano and guitar lessons in my twenties, know my way around musical scales, stumble around chord structures and stuff, but put me live on stage in front of a piano and I’d be jelly on a plate. When composing or programming in my studio, I rely on a mixture of what musically comes from my soul and combine that with the odd reference to (sometimes more) complex chord structure notes to confirm my noodling. I wish I could read music and perform confidently live but as I said, I’m not a ‘musician’ per se.
Right, now that confession’s out of the way, allow me to introduce to you what I believe will be one of the most innovative, though simple, pieces of plug-in software that will help countless ‘non-musicians’ around the world to confidently compose, record and even play ‘live’ with trained musicians on stage with absolutely no fear of hitting a bum note. For the Ableton Live DAW platform, electronic artist Henrik Schwarz, has made a Max for Live patch that does just that. This ridiculously easy to use patch not only allows creative options to musically, dynamically and structurally express a true set of performance nuances from the user, but will, under the one fingered button press of a pro-musician, allow a live, on stage accompaniment in whatever musical key is selected as a theme.
The Schwarzonator, as it is called, operates around six very easy to understand control parameters. Using the select dial, a chord set is chosen, all of which have funky names rather than key titles such as F minor or C major. Having chosen this major or minor musical flavour, any note on a MIDI keyboard will play, or default to, a musically correct semi-tone. For example, if an actual ‘E’ note was played on the keyboard, and said ‘E’ didn’t exist as an ‘allowed’ note within the chord set selected, the Schwarzonator would default this to the nearest ‘correct’ note to sound.
By dialing up the ‘add notes’ control, the user can instruct the software to start playing the components of actual chords within the confines of the chord set (key). The more you dial in, the more notes are played, therefore birthing actual, full chordal flavours. The next ‘spread’ dial then takes the previously numbered notes and spreads them further apart, up or down the keyboard, as the user dials in more ‘+’. In effect, this gives the rough equivalent of alternative chord ‘voicings’. The next two parameters are called ‘random’, which (unsurprisingly) adds random notes, similar to the ‘spread’ function, but concentrating on more erratic and wider spread voicings, and the ‘octaves’ dial, which shifts the exact notes up or down in, erm, octaves! The final control, called ‘dynamic’ adds (in the words of Henrik himself), ‘velocity randomness’ – there, couldn’t have put it better myself.
The next very cool part of the Schwarzonator is called ‘Little Brother’. This nifty MIDI tool slaves itself to the master Schwarzonator patch, enabling a bassline, for example, to be played underneath the main chordal instrument, again, faultlessly and in complete musical harmony to the master and within the correct semi-tonal confines of the original chord set. In fact, why stop there? More ‘Little Brothers’ will allow an emulated sax solo to be played, or how about some accompanying legato strings? At this point, you may be wondering if this is where the ability to ‘play’ with live, and bonafide pro-musicians on stage appears, and you’d be right. The musician in question (or indeed the non-musician, whichever the circumstances dictate) simply presses a button, or leans over to the Ableton Live screen and changes (or if initially, instigates) the actual chord set and hey bloomin’ presto, musician and non-musician in perfect unison. Also, any and all performance changes can be effected via Ableton Live’s automation tools, so really, there is no major limit to what is achievable on stage if the necessary pre-programming is done beforehand, and indeed, in the studio when recording and mixing.
So there you have it, one of the most simple and innovative tools for non-musicians to enter an albeit hand-held, new world of composition and live performance nirvana. Herr Schwarz, I and thousands like me salute you Sir!
The Schwarzonator requires Ableton Live (version 8.1 or higher) and Max for Live.
Tags: ableton live, Max for Live, patch, plug-in, schwarzonator