Best Music Theory Plugins in 2022
Need some help with your melodies and chords? We got you covered,
Music theory for electronic music and if you need it. A divisive topic around the internet that we happen to have a detailed blog post for it. And the short answer is yes, you need to have some basic knowledge if you want to call yourself a musician. But even the best-trained musicians are sometimes stuck or feel uninspired and could use a little boost.
And that’s why we gathered a few plugins that can help you create melodies and chord progressions fast in no time!
Scaler 2
We are starting the article with possibly the best music theory tool out there. Scaler 2 by Plugin Boutique is simply amazing. I tried hard to think of something that this thing does not have when it comes to music theory and I couldn’t find a single thing.
Scaler 2 is deep and feature-packed. So instead of just listing all of its features (there are a ton), we will focus on the things that we think make it unique and extremely useful for any producer.
Key recognition: The first very useful feature is key/ scale recognition. Simple but effective. With Scaler 2 you can play on your keyboard and it will suggest the scales that match your playing or drag an audio file and it will detect the key and chords played. Very handy for remixes and samples.
Chord Patterns: In Scaler 2 you can find hundreds of chords to choose and you can easily customize them by using variations, inversions, etc. The plugin can also suggest chords to use which is great when you get stuck and repeat yourself.
Expression: This is my favorite feature. You can choose from a vast catalog of expressions to play your chords. So instead of having a regular chord strum, Scaler 2 plays your chords in any way you can imagine so you can choose what fits your song.
Melodies: Another killer feature is that you can assign your chords for your left hand and then play melodies with your right hand that will always be related to the chords you play.
I could go on all night trying to explain Scaler 2 features and I would probably miss a few. The work that has been done is phenomenal and it will probably become the only plugin you’ll ever need for writing music. Highly recommended for anyone. From total theory noobs to pro musicians.
Melody Sauce 2
Melody Sauce 2 by EVAbeat is another great melody generator. It is super simple to use and you get instant results.
What you only need to do is to set the key of the melody you want it to generate, adjust a few parameters like speed, loop length, and groove and just press the big MPC-style buttons to create a new melody. And that’s it. If you don’t like what you got, you can press another one and get a new one. Simple as that.
Melody Sauce 2 is also an instrument as it has a few built-in sounds with reverb, delay, and chorus options to choose from but I think that you’ll probably be going to use it as a MIDI source. Another cool new feature added is the ability to play your melodies harmonized and essentially create some basic chords instead of monophonic melodies. The melodies come in groups of different styles like Trap, EDM, House, etc so you can choose the style that fits your music.
There is also the ability to tweak the chords and melodies manually if you want to make some minor changes, but the main idea is to have the plugin generate ideas by itself and not to spend time tweaking MIDI notes.
Overall Melody Sauce 2 is a nice plugin that helps you generate ideas fast. The styles are mostly based on popular genres so don’t expect some really emotional or complex stuff out of it.
Chords
Just as the name implies, Chords is a VST plugin by W. A. Production that generates chord patterns.
In general, writing interesting chord progressions over and over again is quite hard. Especially for tracks that do not rely heavily on melodies and vocals, chord patterns must be carefully selected and exciting.
And that’s where Chords comes in. Through a very clear interface Chords creates chord progressions for any key you assign. And once you have the progression you like, it lets you go in more depth and try different inversions of those chords to make things a little more interesting. It may sound very basic but chords are the core of a song and nailing those progressions really makes a difference so Chords is definitely a very useful tool.
Conclusion
Music technology has taken a lot of leaps forward and it’s here to help us create music faster and more efficiently. And tools like that are making music and its complex themes accessible to anyone. And that’s a good thing.
But remember, these are just tools to spark your creativity and bring you inspiration. Trust me, you won’t get the same level of enjoyment if you just let an AI write a song for you. Chords, melodies, and basslines are a form of expression of who you are as an artist and you have to find your own way of using them to express your own self.
