Creating a harmonized audio track

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manuboisdu
Posts: 1
Joined: 08 Jul 2020

08 Jul 2020

Hello all,
I see many threads re. harmonizing vocals, using "Neptune". I am trying to harmonize a guitar part (audio track). I have tried to use "Scales and Chords" but apparently it cannot be added to an audio track only to a MIDI track? Or I am using it wrong... Should I first convert my audio selection to MIDI then use "Scales and Chords"? Or "Neptune"? Or is there a simpler way to do this? My apologies if this has been addressed before - I will be grateful for a link to that discussion.

Thank you,

Reason 10.4 user on Mac OS Catalina

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selig
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08 Jul 2020

manuboisdu wrote:
08 Jul 2020
Hello all,
I see many threads re. harmonizing vocals, using "Neptune". I am trying to harmonize a guitar part (audio track). I have tried to use "Scales and Chords" but apparently it cannot be added to an audio track only to a MIDI track? Or I am using it wrong... Should I first convert my audio selection to MIDI then use "Scales and Chords"? Or "Neptune"? Or is there a simpler way to do this? My apologies if this has been addressed before - I will be grateful for a link to that discussion.

Thank you,

Reason 10.4 user on Mac OS Catalina
You can do this with Neptune, though I've never tried it on guitar. The way I've done it is to use the MIDI input and the Voice Synth to generate harmonies. I doesn't automatically create them in the chosen scale, so you have to play them yourself.
You are correct that Scales & Chords only works on MIDI note data, not audio.

Another possible way you could try is to use the pitch editor on the audio track, which would require adjusting the pitch of each note to keep the harmony in the scale of the song, again you'd have to know what notes you want and choose them manually.
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Boombastix
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08 Jul 2020

To little info to help in detail, but look at Polar or kHs Pitch.
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mcatalao
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09 Jul 2020

Neptune should work with any kind of audio.

I usually do this with multiple neptunes in a combinator. I use the first neptune just for tuning, a second o more neptunes for the chord lines. As i'm a piano player i don't use scales and chords. But you can do it, just add chords and scales to the synth neptunes.

I like to have this arrangement in a combi, so what i do initially is i create an empty combi and add a mixer inside because you want the chords to be paralel to the guitar.

So combi, with a mixer inside, then create the first tuning neptune (if needed, as you are working with an instrument rather than a vocal maybe you do not need it).
Now, add a spider audio splittler, and split the first neptune's output into channel 1 from the mixer. Then create a second neptune, and split the audio from the first neptune into the second neptune, pull the output of the second neptune into channel 2.

Now while the first neptune, must be in normal tuning mode, the second neptune must be in voice synth mode. This neptune will be controlled by either what you put on the midi track or scales and chords. But theres another catch. For thicker and bigger harmonies, i like to put octave doublers in between and add additional neptunes. So if you do something like that, you can add midi lanes in the combinator, and add a single track to the combinator and a single scales and chords over the combinator instead of the multiple neptunes.

I did something similar to this with 6 or 7 neptunes in this video. It works great for vocals, i'd say it will be fine for guitars too:


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mcatalao
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09 Jul 2020

Boombastix wrote:
08 Jul 2020
To little info to help in detail, but look at Polar or kHs Pitch.
I don't know about kHs Pitch, but polar is more or less static for real harmonizations. It works ok for fifths and octaves though. A navigation warning. This will ok for instruments, but it won't be natural for vocals as I think it doesn't have the formant editor.

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