The Yamaha Harmony Director (HD-300) is a great tool for developing tone quality and better intonation in your band. This page collects a number of resources that offer ideas on using the HD-300 (especially for younger bands) as well as potential alternatives that offer similar results.
Introduction to the Harmony Director
Though I had done a ton of research, I didn’t have a lot of hands-on experience with the HD when I recorded this video. I covered the use of drones, the Demonstrate mode for modeling interference beats and chord balance, and an introduction to pure/just temperament.
Follow-up after a year with the HD
After using a Yamaha HD-300 with my middle school band for a year, here are my favorite features, a couple surprises, and my thoughts on if it was worth the investment.
Alternatives to the Harmony Director
For playing drones, you can use apps like Tunable and Tonal Energy. I also like this YouTube playlist of Cello Drones.
For playing parts along with your band, you don’t need a Harmony Director. You can use any sort of keyboard. You may have to experiment with your keyboard’s settings for how to set the transpose quickly.
Apple Mainstage as an HD substitute
After using a Yamaha HD-300 with my middle school band for a year, here are my favorite features, a couple surprises, and my thoughts on if it was worth the investment.
Click the image to the left or here to download the “Tuning Keyboard for Band” Mainstage file. It is compressed in a ZIP file. You may not distribute it any further, but you may freely use it for your personal and instructional use.
This video walks you step-by-step through setting up the Mainstage Tuning Keyboard file in Mainstage on your Mac.
Recommended MIDI controllers
There are a wide range of devices that can supply the functionality for this setup. You can choose one that covers all the bases – keys, drum pads, and knobs – or you can plug in multiple devices to cover everything. Two things to note: 1) I have a lot of good experiences with AKAI products, so that’s why you see their products well-represented on the list below. Other brands may have products that fit your needs better. And 2) a disclosure: the links below are affiliate links. I may make a commission when readers purchase items through these links.
In addition to 25 mini keys for playing chords and notes, the MPK Mini has 8 drum pads for selecting sounds, hold, and transpose, as well as knobs for controlling tone volume, metronome volume, and tempo. It’s small, which is both a plus and minus, but it offers a lot of functionality. You’ll need to get comfortable using the octave shift buttons for different playing ranges.
The Mini Plus adds another octave of keys, which should eliminate the need for much octave shifting. The keys are still small, but I think if I were buying a controller specifically to use as a band tuning keyboard with Mainstage, I would likely go with this model.
If you already have a MIDI keyboard and just need some drum pads and knobs, this is an effective and affordable unit. I wish it had a few more drum pads, but I’ve used multiple LPD8’s, and they function really well.
This controller gives you eight drum pads, eight knobs, and almost as many keys as a Harmony Director.
(At this price point, unless you really can’t afford any more, I suggest you save up and get a real HD.)