Nothing like that on Montage/MODX, not even chord memory and playback.

browse:

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/28347/any-app-that-detects-midi-chord-input

Thank you. I looked at that thread, some of the posts and apps mentioned are old, but appears that an iOS app called Tonality is still there and may work. I'll take a look. Or could just buy a cheap $100 Casio or some other basic keyboard that shows chords or just can connect a Korg MicroKey midi keyboard to Mainstage. I realize the MODX is not an arranger, however it is still a musical instrument and it baffles me that something as simple as showing the name of the chord on the screen is not included. My Korg EK-50 Entertainer keyboard has this feature. Wanted to do some simple transcribing once in a while and wanted to confirm what chords I am playing.

Cheap keyboards display chords because of the target audience. A target audience that doesn't know the notes of the keyboards or chords. Not that expensive keyboards target only an audience that has enough theory to recognize the chords they are playing necessarily - but I think there are some implicit expectations given the feature-set.

Other than Cubase, you may want to to try:

http://lassi.io/chord

It's a webmidi app so you'll need to use Chrome and allow permissions for MIDI.

or

https://chord-display.rednet.io/?noteStart=C1

or

... keep searching - there's more.

[quotePost id=115865]Cheap keyboards display chords because of the target audience. A target audience that doesn't know the notes of the keyboards or chords. Not that expensive keyboards target only an audience that has enough theory to recognize the chords they are playing necessarily - but I think there are some implicit expectations given the feature-set.
[/quotePost]

Spectacular levels of horse dung and odd defences and justification, too.

This is is a problem of poor thinking and a company lost at sea. On the keyboard split screen, only the first key touched is ever shown. Nothing could be more empowering to the "acclaimed" arp engine in these things than a chord feature. Nothing could be simpler to implement and use, too.

There's a hundreds of these little quality of life features that don't exist in this keyboard, because they don't have the time or commitment to it as a product that might make it fun to use. But this one does stand out, right up there with the lack of screen brightness controls and undo facilities.

[quotePost id=115864]MODX comes with a free copy of Cubase and Cubase can display chords.[/quotePost]

Once you've dealt with the repeated needs for a 15GB download and 30+GB install, the license server failing with each Windows update, and whenever the wind changes direction (and requiring these new downloads and reinstalls when it super fails) a few times, this "free" software starts to lose a lot of its minor lustre.

I've dealt with Autodesk methods of software licensing and DRM for 3 decades. Steinberg is one of the few companies that makes the Autodesk approach to these matters look tame and graceful.

[quotePost id=115863]Thank you. I looked at that thread, some of the posts and apps mentioned are old, but appears that an iOS app called Tonality is still there and may work. I'll take a look. Or could just buy a cheap $100 Casio or some other basic keyboard that shows chords or just can connect a Korg MicroKey midi keyboard to Mainstage. I realize the MODX is not an arranger, however it is still a musical instrument and it baffles me that something as simple as showing the name of the chord on the screen is not included. My Korg EK-50 Entertainer keyboard has this feature. Wanted to do some simple transcribing once in a while and wanted to confirm what chords I am playing.[/quotePost]

There was a brief moment when Yamaha released a couple of new thoughts on what iPad creative music apps could be. I think they're long gone, now. And the programming talent went, too. Sadly.

It's absolutely amazing that something as programmable as chord recognition and display isn't just a default feature of anything with a screen to show it, at this point. Programming languages are almost purpose built to do the if/elseif to find what a chord is, could be, and what could be done next. And with the arpeggiator... I don't even know where to begin on how much this could help people see and then learn to exploit the otherwise pretty much obscured behaviours of the "arpeggiator" in these things.

The arp engine is really a phrase sequencer with all sorts of conditionality upon which it decides what to play. Making that transparent would make it more than something everyone fumbles around with. Making it programmable, from an end user point of view, on the keyboard, would be amazing.

But there's gotta be some reasons for that not having transpired. I've always presumed it's because the fundamentals of the code are so old that nobody knows who wrote it, how to understand what it's doing and how it may or may not impinge on patents for similarly extrapolating algorithms and approaches to responding to key input.

I don't know if you can agree or not that Montage/MODX have been designed with its primary target as a live performance instrument. I say this due to removal of "workstation" features like sampling and (initially) sequencer. Therefore, it its initial offering I believe that live performance was the target.

If that can be agreed to then seeing chord display would be incompatible with a live performance keyboard due to the impracticality of watching what chords the keyboard thinks it recognizes while playing.

For me, there's absolutely no reason for this feature to be resident inside the keyboard. For the initial design, if you agree to the above, there's no reason for it with that focus. That there are so many ways to get to chord recognition for free without a heavy burden - I see no reason for Yamaha to waste the, as you also see it, limited resources on such a feature.

Still, it's fair game to request adding this feature on ideascale.

Cubase. Yes, it's harder to install than it should be - but not impossible. And those with problems receive support from a variety of sources to get over the hump.

Yamaha's personal Pollyannaish promotions officer?

In my opinion recognizing and displaying Chords on a full keyboard is not practical, not to mention that also not necessarily useful.

I've used many arranger keyboards, Korg PA and Yamaha PSR, and they only do recognize and display Chords when both the Split (ACMP in the PSR) and Memory functions are Engaged, so that the algorithm differentiates between your left chords hand and your right melody hand. There is also the Chord Recognition / Fingering Type algorithm that detects Chords based on the selected option (1, 2, or 3 Fingers or AI), so not that easily programmable.

Also used Korg Triton, Trinity, Kronos, and many SW Synth and none of them have this feature, so I don't see it a Synth Feature or missing from the MODX.

[quotePost id=115880]In my opinion recognizing and displaying Chords on a full keyboard is not practical, not to mention that also not necessarily useful.

I've used many arranger keyboards, Korg PA and Yamaha PSR, and they only do recognize and display Chords when both the Split (ACMP in the PSR) and Memory functions are Engaged, so that the algorithm differentiates between your left chords hand and your right melody hand. There is also the Chord Recognition / Fingering Type algorithm that detects Chords based on the selected option (1, 2, or 3 Fingers or AI), so not that easily programmable.

Also used Korg Triton, Trinity, Kronos, and many SW Synth and none of them have this feature, so I don't see it a Synth Feature or missing from the MODX.[/quotePost]

Let me know when you begin experimenting with the "Arpeggiator" on the MODX/Montage, and realise that there's a whole raft of reasons that insight into the chords being played and the "Arpeggiators" subsequent responses would be invaluable.

Not overstating it.

All good responses here. Regardless of whether competitor synths like Kronos and others include it or not, Yamaha should still do it, how hard can it be. From the comments here it sounds directly related to arpeggios, therefore very baffling it's missing. It might be in fact true that Yamaha is not catering to
an amateur target market. I know most of my chords, but when I am struggling to transcribe something by ear I like to have a quick readout on screen of the chord I stumbled on. I don't want to deal with software DAW's and computer connections.

Example of chord recognition using WebMIDI + Microsoft Edge on a Mac and using arpeggios. I set the MIDI I/O to play arpeggio output notes instead of my trigger notes so the display is interpreting what is being played by the arpeggio - not what I used to trigger the arpeggio. The Performance was "Piano & Strings".

There are plenty of discussions elsewhere that discuss the pitfalls of choosing one interpretation of any given harmonic collection of notes. The issue is that chord interpretation has a lot to do with key signature and also surrounding context to determine what likely is the "correct" chord assignment.

But if it's something comparable to something that would be hypothetically built-in, then your options are plentiful.

Bill,

You certainly know more about this, but I don't quite understand your comment. I can read music, however this is just a hobby and I know very little about transcribing nor playing by ear. Let's say for example, I have a particular piece of music I want to try to jot down on some staff paper. Let's use the The Battle theme from Gladiator an example, something orchestral with strings and brass. I "transcribe" the right melody notes, that's not too hard for me. But for me it starts getting harder when I need to find the proper chords to work with the melody line. I'm not arranging sophisticated bass clef here, mainly I just want to capture the chords and the melody. I do not have any great training in scales or music theory. So I sit at my Korg EK-50 (want to upgrade to MODX) and eventually find the right chords and the EK-50's on screen chord recognition just helps me confirm the chord names during this process. Do I really need to see the names on screen? I guess not, but it's a nice feature to have.