It's cheating... =D -- But honestly, there's so much artistry in the sound design, mixing, effects and mastering that comes between this and a releasing a beautiful track that no guilt is necessary for anyone using these kick-starters.
It's cheating of course, but if it's all in the service of using whatever tools are needed to help get the job done while making the song yours, then why not? Even if the plugins are used to make a bunch of terrible tracks, it could be that making those tracks will eventually lead to hopefully making better ones.
For someone like myself, whose knowledge of Music Theory is somewhat rudimentary a Plugin series like this gives me the creative springboard I need in order produce music where, under other circumstances I might struggle ! ... Thank you for an excellent set of highly instructive and easy to follow video's ... All the best ... Siobhan
No more cheating than any other kind of writing prompt. The whole set of plugins amounts to being an idea generator like any other. My lo-tech version of Captain Chords is rolling 4 dice. For beats I used to grab a random line from the book 1001 Drum Grooves and program it in. The starting idea is never the final idea. You get better ideas as you go along and trash the prompts and placeholders. I’ve been using these plugins for a couple months now and they are super helpful in terms of getting a starting point for each element into Ableton without my having to manually draw in a bunch of MIDI notes. Almost always I end up editing them heavily or trashing them, but I wouldn’t get that far in the first place without some kind of prompt, I don’t think.
I bought these plugins when I first started my music production journey, so would be really interested to see your deep dive on each plug-in. I think these will really help new producers who aren't musically trained or understand music theory. Looking fwd to seeing the follow-up vids & I don't believe this is cheating. Thanks Will , another great tutorial!!
Thanks for this one. I've gotten Captain Plugins awhile ago, and now Captain Beat, so will have time to play with it. I'm very much looking forward to your individual deep dive into each of the plugins. This looks to be a good tool for playing around with different ideas and getting them quick, with the knowledge and the relief that it'll still take work to get the song done and make it yours. I'm subscribing to keep track of the forthcoming videos and more; thanks!
I use these and I see it as a tool to help...just like any other hardware or software option you would use in your music making process....sometimes I use them to start a track and other times I use one of them in an existing track and at times not at all...midi packs use them too...audio loops also use them....making music is like cooking...give 10 people the same things to work with and you will get ten different results...some may be similar but not exactly alike....all people truly Care about is if they like the song or the dish you put in front of them...not how you got To the end result...
I bought this sometime ago - used chords a bit then went to use cthulu and forgot about it until the other day when i made a new ableton template that uses chords, deep, beat and melody... I think the deep plug is weak and the melody one is good - i might try having no deep but 2 melodies plugs, one for bass and one for a melody... The deep created basslines are a bit simple/boring to listen to for me.. For the money and for people not grade 8 on piano they are a good buy...
Would you ever consider doing an update to this? they just did a big upgrade to their product "epic" that ties in all of their plugins. Seems interesting... Most of what I've come up with so far is rubbish, but the bones leftover after a night of tinkering ended up a pretty funky track. It's a lot to go through though. Could use the Will spin.
I don’t consider it cheating at all. I know my music theory, and I still consider this useful. It’s basically a major upgrade to working exclusively in a piano roll editor, which can sometimes be a bit like a carpenter working with a plastic hammer. Even with good music theory under your belt, it can difficult to get your job done without good tools. The Captain plug-ins Suite is like upgrading to a metal hammer (and complementary toolbox!) 👍🏻
First off You've been a huge help in my upcoming as a producer hoping to start putting music out later this year and a lot of it thanks to you and your masterclasses on ADSR! Anyways, It's not cheating. Music theory should still be something someone should know even to use this tool to its maximum ability. People forget that a lot of making music is being able to efficiently work through, and it's a great tool to help break the boundaries that one usually ends up going to frequently. It's a tool, not a solve-all. Anything that can help breaking blocks is incredible. Still, I wish I could move around single notes & maybe I'm wrong but I wish when I wanted to playback a single chord I could do so without having to hear the whole loop over again. I find myself because of these issues finding a solid base then exporting the midi in Ableton and mess with it from there since I have more control over the individual notes. Minor things I have they fix with it in the future until then though, it's still an awesome tool, and a great way to bounce around different key changes to your song, and being able to change from Major to Minor in a click is SOOOO convenient. People who are haters are hating just to hate. Everyone should know the casual music listener isn't going to give a damn about how the song was made. I bet I could give a group of people a sample/midi pack containing all the same samples/sounds, and I bet even though they would obviously have some similarities they would also all probably sound different it's about the creator, and how you do your thing
I like a lot these type of plugins. Sadly, I use Reason, and this DAW still has a limitation on receiving MIDI from VSTs :( , crossing my fingers for a future update that fixes this :D
Will, you allegedly just now opened the plug-ins up and you allegedly don't get a kick back but you can already offer a 30% discount on the plugs if I join your course? So, how does that work?
@@EDMTips Interesting discussion. You said in your video that you don't get kick-backs and that this is the first time you've actually opened up the Captain Plugins software. Then you say in your video that if we join any of your courses, we can get 30% off of Captain Plugins. Right? Are you going to pay us 30% or how does this work? The previous comment was asking how this 30% off works but you failed to explain. So, I just went to your website and couldn't find an explanation or discount coupon either to Captain Plugins. I'm also interested in knowing how the 30% discount will apply BEFORE having to purchase a course, and if you just opened Captain Plugins, why would you offer a discount? What if you found the plugins to be crap? Would you still endorse them? So, would you mind explaining how the 30% discount works?
@@jamessmithurst6011 First time I'd opened the update to 4.0, but I had used the previous versions before. I don't get a kick back, but I negotiated a 30% discount for students of my "Music Theory for EDM Producers" course: www.edmtips.com/products/music-theory-for-edm-producers
this is dope..whats sad we spend so much money on a daw and most dont provide nothing like this..you have to spend money on a few daws or upgrades for you do
I believe it is possible to load external sounds into this plugin however I haven't tried it yet but have seen a lot about this online. Hope this helps :)
using these plugins is cheating would be the same as saying using a calculator is cheating.... when someone is working on a math problem no one will say oh you used a calculator? you cheated you should've just done all the math in your head... same thing with this the way i ssee it. in the end it depends on the artist using the tools... give the same tool to 2 different people and the results will be drastically different
I haven't used CaptainChords suite, but I regularly use Scalar from Plugin Boutique. Scaler is similar, but a bit more focused in its scope, but I think it is a great tool for experimenting with and working out cool chord progressions. It also lets you select modes like "strum" to drop in guitar chords. It might be worth checking out. I really like it.
I have been using Scalar for a while but yesterday thought I would try Captain Chords, big mistake, unless you stick to a plain old Major scale the chords its gives you half the time are just plain wrong, and even using Major the names can be wrong, for instance if you select 7th for the 5th chord you get the notes of a dominant 7 but the chord name shows as 'maj7'! If you select Mixolydian and select 7th for the 1st chord its worse, the name is maj7 and the notes are for a major 7 so you have to go and change the 7 to a flat7 manually. None of this is probably noticed by the majority of users with little or no theory knowledge. Anyway, I will be sticking with Scalar and keep my fingers crossed that the money back guarantee is honoured for Captain Chords.
Hi, @5:47 can we play the chords with our midi keyboard while in the verse tab? I find it frustrating having to use the mouse or my typing keyboard to try out the chords. Thanks for your help.
This app needs constantly to be connected to the internet, no offline work. I was so disappointed when I discover that after . Now I'm selling licence for a half price.
Unless if I can find a tutorial video on tweaking samples, I'm taking a break from the producing thing. So I'll just be waiting for a software program, that I can just select a genre with one push of a virtual button, to create my own music without being concerned about how to tweak my samples without the muddy or, unclean sounds. So as soon as that comes out, then I'll be back to the producing thing again.
First one here! Looks great. I've seen it before and would help me for sure. I gotta stop buying plugins and pay my rent LOL! 😅 Gave you thumbs up bro.
@@EDMTips They work in Studio One as I bought them with the 2020 special, HOWEVER it is all a web based application interface which I can't stand so and feels SO DISCONNECTED I will be refunding. I will stick with other options I have.
