Embellished Chords

[Keith88]

I use iRP with the piano muted in the mixer (I'm a pianist myself) but I noticed a new feature: Embellished Chords, and tried it out with the piano sound turned on. I don't hear much of a difference between renderings with the embellished chord feature turned on or off. Maybe I'm missing something. Could one of the iRP team please let us know about this new feature?

Thanks.

 

[dflat]

Hello Keith,
The embellishments are things like adding an 11th or 9th to a minor 7 chord; a plain E chord might have the maj7 or maj9 as additional color etc.
If you want to analyse the differences, you can export the midi file of the same song with embellishments on and off and compare in a notation app (bearing in mind the random nature of generating the instrument's comping each time, so run it for a few repeats). If you export the XML as well, you can (copy) paste the chords above the measures.

Background for anyone else interested: Pianists, guitarists (etc.) often comp voicings adding various upper extensions to the basic chords. We had some complaints in previous versions that the voicings sometimes included notes not described specifically in the chord quality, so we now have both options with more harmonic interest with it on. Initially they are turned on for Jazz and off for Pop.
From memory, I think we stayed away from adding the 9th (b9 or 9 or #9) in plain dominant chords with embellishment on (like A7 etc.) because of possible clashes with the soloist using iReal Pro, whereas someone actually comping might put them in.

 

[Keith88]

Thanks for the comprehensive explanation. I'm so used to playing from lead sheets with simple chords in them and adding my own extensions on the fly that I didn't catch the differences between the embellishment feature on or off. For "my kind" of music, chords with four to six different notes in them are just part of the musical language, but I know that for different genres of music, it is important for the performer to be able to control the style of chordal accompaniment with respect to added notes. This makes the embellishment feature very useful for many of the iRP users.

 

[dflat]

I'm so used to playing from lead sheets with simple chords in them and adding my own extensions on the fly that I didn't catch the differences between the embellishment feature on or off.

Yes I know what you mean, the extended voicings come so naturally under the fingers you do not even think about it

 

[CyrilleB]

Please, is it possible to have embellished chords option turned off as default setting for all styles (including jazz styles)?
Thanks!