How to get a chord progression into your DAW as MIDI

Get a Cymasphere progression into your DAW by copying the notes onto the clipboard and pasting them into a MIDI clip, or by sending live MIDI from the plugin or from the standalone app into an instrument track. Use the C major loop C, G, Am, F as the part you are moving, with the three-voice stack C4 E4 G4, then B3 D4 G4, then C4 E4 A4, then C4 F4 A4.

Paste the notes into a MIDI clip

COPY AS MIDI, on the track menu for Pattern, Voicing, and Sequencer tracks, puts generated or stored notes on the clipboard so you can paste them into a DAW.

1. Drag C, G, Am, and F from PALETTE onto the progression timeline, one bar each. Drag a block's right edge to change its length.
2. Use a Voicing track when you want the clipboard to carry notes generated from that progression and your VOICING settings. Use a Pattern track when you want the stored melody, such as E4, D4, E4, F4.
3. Open the track menu in SONG, or the TRACK menu, and choose COPY AS MIDI.
4. In the DAW, paste into a MIDI clip on an instrument track. The clip holds the notes, and the instrument on that track plays them.

Pattern tracks copy the notes stored in the piano roll. Voicing tracks copy the generated chord notes. Sequencer tracks copy the generated sequencer notes. Groove tracks and Aux tracks are outside that command.

After the paste, check the clip against the spelling. The C bar should stack C, E, G. The G bar should stack G, B, D. The Am bar should stack A, C, E. The F bar should stack F, A, C.

Piano rolls label the same MIDI note as C3, C4, or C5 depending on the DAW. Confirm a major triad by counting four semitones, then three. Confirm Am by counting three semitones from A to C, then four from C to E.

EXPORT AS AUDIO on that menu renders the hosted instrument. COPY AS MIDI leaves the pitches editable.

From C4, E4, G4 into B3, D4, G4, G4 holds, E4 moves to D4, and C4 moves to B3. Follow that motion in voice leading.

Route live MIDI from the plugin

Cymasphere runs as an AU plugin on macOS and as a VST3 plugin on Windows and macOS. Hosts that take those formats include Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, Bitwig, and Digital Performer. AU is the format for Logic Pro, GarageBand, and other AU hosts.

Loaded as a plugin, Cymasphere generates MIDI. The DAW owns the audio device, the mixer, and transport. Cymasphere's MIXER view is in the standalone app.

1. Insert Cymasphere on a track as AU or VST3.
2. Route that plugin's MIDI output to an instrument track. Some hosts do this with a MIDI FX slot or with side-chain style routing. Others need a separate track that receives the plugin's MIDI. Look for the control that sends one track's MIDI to another instrument.
3. Arm the Cymasphere track when the DAW is sending MIDI into the plugin.
4. Press Play. The plugin follows the DAW's transport and tempo. Where the host drives transport with MIDI CC, Play defaults to CC 105 and Stop defaults to CC 104.

Set the loop in the DAW. The LOOP button on the Songbar is a standalone control. In the plugin, the host owns cycling.

Mute and solo apply to plugin MIDI output. A muted track goes silent there, including notes that were still held.

Route live MIDI from the standalone app

Standalone Cymasphere can turn itself into a system MIDI source. The DAW receives that port as a MIDI input.

1. Open the Profile menu and turn on Virtual MIDI Device, where that toggle is supported.
2. Open Audio / MIDI Settings from the same menu and choose the virtual MIDI output.
3. In the DAW, set an instrument track's MIDI input to that virtual port.
4. Press Play on the Songbar. Space toggles playback. The notes leave Cymasphere as they play.

If the instrument stays quiet, open MIDI Monitor from the Profile menu. You want events leaving Cymasphere and arriving in the DAW. MIDI Monitor also shows whether a Voice / Channel Matrix split is arriving on the channel you chose.

Send bass and chords to different channels

The Voice / Channel Matrix is a grid of 16 MIDI channels by 13 voices: bass, plus voices 1 through 12. Toggle a cell to put that voice on that channel.

1. Open VOICE/CHANNEL MATRIX from TRACK or from the track menu. On a Pattern track, the MIDI Output control in the left panel opens the same grid.
2. On a Voicing track, toggle bass onto one channel and the upper voices onto another. Bass on channel 2 and the upper voices on channel 1 sends the bass line and the chords to two instruments.
3. Pattern playback normally uses voice index 1, so a melody such as E4, D4, E4, F4 needs a single cell on the channel your lead instrument is listening to.
4. In the DAW, set each instrument's MIDI input channel to the channel you toggled.

One channel is enough when a single instrument should play the whole track. Groove tracks use MIDI OUT for one channel, CH 1 through CH 16, for every lane.

Play the same progression on CymaSynth

In the standalone app, CymaSynth can play the progression directly. Cymasphere scans for it, and a new Pattern, Voicing, or Sequencer track can start with CymaSynth loaded. With that instrument on the track, press Play and you hear C, G, Am, F from CymaSynth. Open the editor from the track, or from MIXER, to change the preset.

CymaSynth is also its own AU and VST3. On the live routes above, load CymaSynth as the instrument that receives Cymasphere's MIDI, and that plugin plays the chords in the DAW.

An AI assistant can operate Cymasphere while you decide what to keep. In Agent mode, Ask Cyma (Profile menu, Ask Cyma) edits the song after you confirm. See connect an AI assistant to Cymasphere.

Write the next loop with the chord progression generator. To check the notes you pasted or routed, go through the same C, G, Am, F spellings in music theory for producers.