Everything that the plug-in was playing in real time is available for exporting to MIDI notes, so that you can remove the plug-in from the track later. This is called to Process the part. Perform some standard Cakewalk actions.

For the 1st step select all guitar track.

For the 2nd step open the Console view in Cakewalk and click on FX to Apply MIDI Effects (in SONAR select Edit/Apply MIDI Effects command).

Now for the 3rd step open the Piano Roll view window of the Guitar track and you'll see the resulting chord part:

Now that you have learned and understood the work of our plug-in, the only thing you'll have to do is to use your creativity to make your own guitar parts.

To get a basic impression about the work of the plug-in load Guitar techniques.wrk song into Cakewalk. You see 2 open windows of the RC Strokes track, to which the plug-in is assigned. The window at the left hand side is the Chord Chart view window with chord symbols, while at the right hand side is the Cakewalk Piano Roll view window with rhythm patterns written with note events selected from the Stroke Map. Play Cakewalk and you'll see and hear some examples of guitar parts performed by the plug-in. The plug-in turns chord symbols into guitar chords and note events to various guitar techniques for performing these chords.

To demonstrate more plug-in's features we have supplied a number of demo songs created by our personal friend great guitarist and composer Victor Borilov. Having mastered the plug-in for the very short time he revealed about his unexpected desire to sequence guitar parts in his MIDI arrangements. We asked him to create several orchestral pieces in various music styles where the guitar tracks were made with the using of Rhythm'n'Chords plug-in. Take a listen of these pieces. Watch rhythm patterns used there as well as the way of creation of chord progressions. You can copy any of his rhythm patterns to use them for exploring your creativity with the plug-in.

- Demo songs with Rhythm Track built of patterns taken from Rhythm Library of the plug-in(Spanish Reminiscences.wrk, That's A Plenty.wrk, etc.) Demo Songs (Library)

- Demo songs with rhythm written in Cakewalk track: (01.Dolly.wrk, 02.House of Rising Sun.wrk, etc.)

We hope our product will be quite a useful tool for your music projects inspiring new and fruitful ideas.

Please, feel free to contribute the products of your creativity to our user libraries so we can make them available for everyone on our site.

Let's try to understand in practice the main principles of guitar part performing on a MIDI keyboard via the plug-in. (See also: Manual Playing )

Step 1. Open Cakewalk. Connect MIDI keyboard to the computer and test your connections.

(If no sound refer to Troubleshootings)

Step 2. Load the Manual playing.wrk song in Cakewalk. You see the opened plug-in window with Keyboard zones page and Chord Chart with 8-measure chord progression:

Step 3. Select the keyboard image preset corresponding to your MIDI keyboard range:

(Black dot in the left corner of the C key shows the position of the middle C.)

You can create your own keyboard image preset changing octave range by assigning the highest and the lowest note of your keyboard,

or changing middle C position by pressing the icons with arrows on the both edges of the keyboard image:

If your MIDI connection has been set correctly all your actions on the MIDI keyboard will be reflected on the keyboard image (check if octaves are represented correctly).

The red line on your keyboard image splits it into 2 zones: Chord Zone and Rhythm Zone.

Step 1. With your left hand press a key in the Chord Zone on your keyboard (for instance G) and hold it. You have just selected C major chord, the first one in the Chord Chart.

Step 2. Now with your right hand strike (press and release) a key from the Strum group in Rhythm Zone (for instance the lower C). Now you hear strummed C major chord:

While you hold the key in Chord Zone the chord will sound independently of the Rhythm Zone keys.

Step 3. Release the key in Chord Zone and the chord will stop sounding. Repeat steps 1 to 3 several times to learn the way chords are articulated (press G with your left hand).

Step 4. Holding G with your left hand try striking Down strum and Upstrum keys in Rhythm Zone one after another with your right hand (for instance the lower C and highest C). This will allow you to simulate guitar strumming technique - to alternate down and upstrums. Experimenting with various rhythm patterns you can achieve a kind of performance quite close to the real guitar sound.

Step 1. Press another key in Chord Zone with your left hand, for instance A. The next chord F7 will be cursored:

You have just changed the chord, though have not played it yet:

Now play the chord with your right hand.

Step 2. In the same way play through all the chords of the progression, alternatively pressing white keys with your left hand and creating rhythm pattern on the Strum keys with your right hand.

Step 3. To go back to the first chord press the lowest C in Chord Zone.

The plug-in constructs 5- or 6-voice chords, which have the root note in either of 2 lower voices, as well as alternative bass (if possible). Unlike the Strum group keys, the Strings group keys let you pick every chord voice individually. Every key produces the sound of the corresponding voice:

• B key (1st string) plays 1st voice,

• A key (2nd string) plays 2nd voice,

• G key (3rd string) plays 3rd voice,

• F key (4th string) plays 4th voice,

• E key (Bass I) plays root note of the chord,

• D key (Bass II) plays alternative bass (if 6-voice chord is assigned).

Now let's try to play the first C major chord with these keys. Set the cursor to the first chord.

Step 1. Press any Chord Zone key with your left hand to sustain the chord.

Step 2. Now press E key from the Strings group with your right thumb. You hear the root note, in this case note C:

Step 3. Press the F key from the Strings group and the 4th voice will sound, in this case note E:

Step 4. Press other Strings group keys through the B key:

4. Change chord to the next one (F7) and repeat steps 2 through 4. Now the E key (Bass I) performs the new chord's root note, which is F:

the F key (4th "string" ) will play E-flat, which corresponds to the 4th voice, and so on through the 1st voice.

Now you see you can easily simulate Fingerstyle technique with the Strings group keys performing wide 2-octave arpeggio patterns without changing your right hand position.

You can find the Top Strum group keys to the left of String keys. Any of these keys plays only the upper part of a chord:

You can easily simulate Bass & Strum technique with only two fingers – little finger plays bass String keys (alternating Bass I and Bass II) while the thumb plays Top Strum key.

When the sequencer is in the Play mode the chords will be transmitted automatically from Chord Chart, which lets you perform a guitar part using only your right hand to create rhythm pattern. You can use your left hand to perform articulation by pressing/releasing any key without considering chord changes, as well as using sustain pedal, pressing it to sustain the sound and releasing it for muting the sound.

Load Home On the Range.wrk song.

Playback the song. You’ll hear the arrangement lacking the guitar part. Try to perform it by yourself playing rhythm with your right hand on Rhythm Zone keys and articulating with your left hand on the Chord Zone keys or with your foot pressing sustain pedal. (Try strumming and fingerstyle techniques.)

Having selected Sustained mode in Additional Parameters/Manual play/Right hand/Articulation you can simply play rhythm with your right hand never thinking about both chord changes and articulation:

In this case all chord notes will be held automatically until the next rhythm event or chord change occurs.

We have learned how to play MIDI keyboard with the chord progression pre-recorded in the plug-in and automatic chord changes. In that case Chord Chart served as Chord source for performing the guitar part.

Playing along with sequencer makes it possible to play in one more performance mode, where Cakewalk plays pre-recorded rhythm pattern (see Rhythm, Stroke Map chapter ). This allows you assign chords freely from MIDI keyboard to plug-in, which automatically turns them into a sounding guitar part.

Let’s try to perform a guitar part in Chords Only mode.

Step 1. Load Funk Rhythm.wrk song to Cakewalk.

Playback the song. Enter any chord on your MIDI keyboard and you’ll hear the resulting rhythm guitar part playing the chord. Watch the rhythm pattern playing your chord in Piano Roll view. Try to adjust the performance parameters in the Main Window of the plug-in:

Everything you play on a MIDI keyboard via the plug-in can be recorded to a track the same way you work with Cakewalk (all key actions are recorded). You can play this MIDI recording via the plug-in, edit, quantize, as well as export it to Cakewalk track in MIDI notes to later remove the plug-in from the track (Apply MIDI Effects command).

For quick and convenient creation of a chord progression we have developed a special score type Chord Chart view. The window looks like a standard score sheet with staves split into measures. The measures are divided by "diagonals" which have chord symbols. On the first opening (or creating a new Chord Chart) C major chord and 4/4 time signature will be assigned in the first measure.

You have to construct a chord in order to enter it in the Chord Chart. There are 2 ways of chord construction in the program:

• automatic, allowing you to select chords from the Chord Menu (Program Chords),

• manual, allowing you to create your own chords (Custom Chords).

On entering chords in the Chord Chart the highest note of each chord (melodic position) will be shown on the staff. (You can hide the melodic positions of the chords if you wish.)

You can view all notes of the current chord on the virtual piano keyboard. (The size and position of the keyboard and octave shift can vary).

See also:

Preparing for work with Chord Chart

Program Chords (automatic chord construction)

Custom Chords (manual chord construction)

Auditioning chords in Chord Chart

Before you create a chord progression in Chord Chart you have to specify meter, total number of measures, measure division into parts, etc. All those settings are made from contextual menu on right-clicking the mouse

• Meter (Insert/Meter change) (default is 4/4)
  

• Number of Measure divisions for chord change assigning (Set Division) (default is 4, equal to number of beats in the measure)
  

(It's possible to divide the measure independently of the time signature up to 16 divisions per measure, so that you can assign more frequent chord changes.)

• Number of measures in staff (Measures in Staff) (default is 4)
  

• Total number of measures in song (Song Length) (default is 40)
  

There are no preset chords in the program. However the program automatically constructs multi-voice (up to 6 voices) guitar-type chords on selecting corresponding chord symbol from the menu, the same time considering:

1. melodic position of a previous chord;

2. standard 6-string guitar tuning;

3. maximum possible number of voices in the range;

4. preferred settings.

The chord is being constructed so that all its inversions have the root note in one of the 2 lower voices and if possible have an alternative bass. (This very important feature is described in the Rhythm chapter.)

See also:

Selecting a chord from the Chord Menu

Chord's melodic position (inversion) selection

Bass selection

Quick way of entering chord and bass

Program Chords melodic position editing

Entering chords via MIDI (chord identification)

Program Chords construction settings