Playing it

Twenty-four keys, and every one of them is a whole chord. Which chords, that is the loaded pack; which key and scale they sit in, that is yours. Mouse, MIDI keyboard or DAW.

Four gestures cover the whole instrument

	Gesture	What happens
	Short click	Steps to the next mode. The label always shows the current mode, so the button is its own display. Past the last mode it goes off.
	Hold 1.6 s	Switches the module off from any mode. The label returns to the plain name.
	Drag up / down	Sets the value; up is more. The label shows the value while you drag and returns to the name when you release. A drag never also fires the click.
	Mouse wheel	The same value in fixed steps. Trackpad included.

Two things tell you a module is on: a green stripe down its right edge, and the button itself pulsing gently between light and dark. Both stop the moment the module goes off.

	Click the empty background	Closes the open panel and returns to Perform.
	Drag keys out	Pulls the chord out as a MIDI file and hands it straight to your DAW. Several selected keys come out as the whole progression.

Every button

Header

	Oscilloscope — draws the output waveform continuously. Shows LOADING while sounds are read from disk, and the recorded waveform while REC runs.
	Preset field — the loaded chord pack, meaning the set of voicings placed under the 24 keys. The arrows step through the packs you marked as favourites; a click on the name opens the full browser.
	Volume — master output and peak meter in one. Drag −24 to +12 dB, click resets to 0 dB and clears the clipping mark. The dots read −30, −18, −12, −6, −3 dB and over.

Sequencer row

	Play — starts and stops the chord sequence. Needs selected keys; the label shows the position, for example 3/8.
	120 BPM — tempo and bar length in one field. The two small boxes choose which of the two you edit: T for tempo, B for how long each chord holds. As a plug-in the host owns the tempo, so only B responds.
	Sequence — turns the keyboard into a progression builder. The boxes appear on the key under the mouse and on every key you have already selected. Described under Building a sequence below.
	REC — records the output. When recording ends, an overlay shows the waveform and offers to keep or discard it.
	Arp — arpeggiator. Instead of sounding the chord at once, it plays the notes one after another. Rate, octave range, the patterns and Compose are set in the System panel.
	Beat — a drum loop that follows the tempo. Each click moves to the next loop; there are eight to begin with, plus any you added yourself in the sample panel. After the last one it switches off, and the click after that starts again at the first. Drag or scroll sets how loud the loop sits.
	Strum — spreads the notes of a chord instead of striking them together. S follows the host tempo, T is free milliseconds. The character and the amount are set in the System panel.
	Save — writes the current setup to your library, as a sound, as a sequence, or both.
	Load — opens your library. Two tabs, Sequences and Sounds, each newest first.
	System — opens the settings panel: arpeggiator column, Key, Scale, modulation.

Views and instrument

	Perform — the playing view with the chord keyboard. Closes any open panel.
	Custom — build a voicing note by note, record it, and assign it to one of the trigger keys.
	Ex/Import — bounce the performance to WAV, export chords or the progression as MIDI, or read chords from a MIDI file.
	Sound Preset — the on-board sound library: 425+ instruments from classic and modern synthesizers, samplers and acoustic sources, all sampled and mapped across the 24 keys. The field shows the loaded instrument. A click on the name opens the library, which sorts into categories with All first and a Favorites tab; the arrows step through the current category without opening anything.
	The padlock — protects the instrument from FACTORY. With the lock closed, FACTORY still rolls new effects, arp and Atmo, but leaves the instrument alone. Locking plays a short click so you hear that it caught.
	The heart — marks the instrument as a favourite. Marked instruments collect under Favorites in the sound library, and the arrows beside the field step through that set.
	LOOP — loops the instrument sample so a decaying recording can be held indefinitely. Default off; it is a live switch and is not stored with the project.
	Hold — the chord keeps sounding after you let go of the key, until you play the next one or switch Hold off. The new chord fades in over the old one rather than cutting it.
	Glide — portamento across all voices of a chord at once. The S and T boxes choose free milliseconds or note values that follow the host tempo.
	FACTORY — rolls a random combination of every effect at once. Hold 1.6 s to put all effects back to default.

Careful. FACTORY throws away whatever you had set up before it rolls — there is no way back to it. Save the sound first if you want to keep it.

Sound

	Help — switches the explanations on and off. With Help on, resting the mouse on any control for 1.6 seconds shows what it does.
	Sample — opens the sample panel for your own WAV files.
	Chord — how the keys respond. Four modes: Chord plays the full voicing, Scale plays single notes filtered to the current key and scale (the keys that belong to it turn blue), Trim thins the voicing, and Keys is a plain chromatic keyboard across all 128 MIDI notes. In Scale the 24 keys still play chords; the octaves around them play single notes, filtered to the key and scale.
	Bass — adds a low voice under the chord, root and fifth only. Auto follows the chord, Hold keeps the note until the next one, ADSR uses the Synth-page envelope. Volume −32 to 0 dB, default −21.
	Brilliance — the top end. Air lifts the highest frequencies, Sizzle adds harmonics above 8 kHz, Both does the two at once. Every mode also widens the stereo image a little above 6 kHz.
	Inflate — raises perceived loudness and body without raising the peak level. Amount 0–100 %.

Mode lists

These buttons add character to the sound rather than just shaping it. Each one works the same way: a short click steps to the next mode, past the last one it switches off, holding for 1.6 seconds switches off from anywhere, and dragging or scrolling sets the mix amount.

	Tape Tape (off) / Subtle / Warm / Sat / LoFi / Worn
	Crunch Crunch (off) / SP-1200 / MPC60 / MPC2000 / Mirage / S950 c / S950 w
	Crystal Crystal (off) / Reverse / Glitch
	Chorus Chorus (off) / Chorus I / Chorus II / Ensemble / Wide / Detune / 6TapRnd / DualEns
	Atmo Atmo (off) / Soft Rain / Heavy Rain / Waves / Jungle / City / Kids / Crowd / Temple / Police / Underwater / Grass
	Bass Bass (off) / Auto / Hold / ADSR
	Brilliance Brilliance (off) / Air / Sizzle / Both
	Chord Chord / Scale / Trim / Keys

On Chord, Keys is not an off state but a chromatic keyboard playing single notes.

Modules

Selecting a module puts its parameters in the row underneath; the four gestures work here like everywhere else.

	Effects
	Phaser — sweeping notches through the sound, the slow hollow motion.
	Flanger — a very short delay swept against the dry signal; sharper and more metallic than the phaser.
	Delay — echoes. Time, feedback and dry/wet are in the row below; time can follow the host tempo.
	Reverb — the room. Size, diffusion, decay and dry/wet sit underneath.

Synth shapes the sound itself rather than adding something to it — envelope, filter, movement and a sweep, applied to whatever instrument is loaded.

	Synth
	ADSR — the envelope of every note: attack, decay, sustain, release. Defaults 20 ms, 500 ms, 0.8 and 1500 ms.
	Filter — low-pass, high-pass or band-pass, with cutoff, resonance and a slope of 6, 12, 24 or 48 dB. Default cutoff 2 kHz at 24 dB.
	Orbit — stereo movement. Five characters: Circle, Spread, Scatter, Orbit and Pulse, with width and dry/wet.
	Sweep — a filter sweep across the note: Up, Down, Up-Down or Down-Up, with a time in seconds and a depth.

Building a sequence

Press Sequence and a narrow box appears along the bottom edge of every key. That box is the whole mechanism: a click inside it adds the key to the progression, a second click takes it out again. The keys join in the order you click them.

Play starts and stops it, and so does the spacebar. The label counts the position, for example 3/8. How long each chord holds is the B box in the tempo field, not something you set per key.

The boxes on a key

In Sequence mode — and only there — a small stack of boxes appears on the key under the mouse and on every key you have selected. There are four, from the bottom up:

Box	What it does
the bottom strip	The sequence box. The only place a click adds the key to the progression; it carries the position number.
B	Bass. Moves the bass note for this key alone. Drag it up or down, or use the wheel.
V	Voicing. Drag or scroll to move this chord up or down. A plain click without moving steps through the layers instead.
S	Spread — how wide the chord is voiced. Drag or scroll only; a click just plays the chord.

Scrolling a voicing

Put the mouse over the V box and turn the wheel. While the value is zero the box is just an outline; as soon as you move it, the box fills and shows the amount with an arrow — up for higher, down for lower. Dragging up and down does exactly the same thing.

The V box holds five layers, V1 to V4 and R, and each can carry its own voicing for the same key. While the sequence runs you do not pick them: the loop counter does. First time round V1, then V2, V3, V4, then R if you gave it one, then from the top. That is what makes a repeating progression change on its own — a chord voiced only on V4 stays plain for three loops and opens up on the fourth. A layer left at zero shows just its label and plays the chord unaltered.

Dragging things out

Two places hand a file straight to your DAW, without ever writing it somewhere you then have to go and find.

From the keyboard. Press a key and pull the mouse more than ten pixels in any direction: MONOCHORD writes that chord as a standard MIDI file and starts a normal file drag, so you drop it on a MIDI track like any other file. Select several keys first and the drag carries the whole progression in order instead of the single chord. The arpeggiator setting is baked into the exported notes, so what you drop is what you heard.

From the Ex/Import panel. The six tiles under Sequence Export can be dragged out the same way; see the panel further down.

Keyboard modes

All four modes sit on the one Chord button and the label tells you which is active. Chord and Keys need no picture; the two that change what you hear are shown below.

The panels

Each panel opens over the keyboard area. A click on the empty background closes it.

Opened from the preset field in the header or from Load. The grid lists 25 packs per page; the arrows at the lower right turn the page. Selecting one shows its key, genre and style tags and a description underneath. Listen Preset plays it without loading, Favorite adds it to the set the header arrows step through, Load loads it and closes the panel. User Preset switches the grid to the packs you saved yourself, Presets switches back to the factory ones, and Favorites narrows the grid to the marked packs.

Four columns. The left one is the arpeggiator, the middle two set the key and the scale every chord is built from, the right one adds movement.

	Arp — the same switch as the Arp button in the sequencer row, with the settings beside it. Rate is the note value it runs at, Octave how many octaves the pattern spans. The tiles below choose the order the notes are played in: Down, Up-Down, Random, Dotted, Euclidean, Shimmer, Cascade and, on the second page, Breathe, Pedal, Spiral, Broken, Swing and Shuffle. More turns the page, Back returns.
	Compose — writes a fresh arp and melody phrase, drawing on TECHNO, FILM, CLASSIC and POP vocabularies. It switches the arp on and plays it straight away. Click again for another one.
	Save — keeps the phrase and asks you for a name. It only works while a composed phrase is playing; at any other time the button briefly shows a dash and does nothing.
	Key — the root every chord is built from, all twelve: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A# and B. Changing it moves the whole keyboard into the new key at once; the pack keeps its character.
	Scale — ten to choose from: Major, Minor, Dorian, Phrygian, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Lydian, Blues Minor, Locrian and Mixolydian. Together with the Key this decides which notes exist at all — in Scale mode the keyboard will not play anything outside them.
	Modulation — the right-hand column, three tiles. Each is taken in turn below.
	Pitch — transposes everything in semitones. The two arrows step it up and down, a click on the middle bar puts it back to 0. This tile does not respond to dragging.
	Strum — spreads the notes of a chord instead of striking them together. The arrows pick the character. S locks the spread to a note value that follows the host tempo, T sets it in free milliseconds, 0 to 1000. Drag the icon to set the amount; the label shows the value while you drag.
	Human — varies the velocity of each note a little, so a chord you play twice does not come out identical. Drag to set the amount. Below about 10 % it does nothing at all; from there the spread widens the further you go.

Careful. The next click on Compose overwrites the phrase and there is no way back to it. If you like what you hear, press Save first.

A saved phrase gets a name and becomes a tile of its own. You reach it through the pattern tiles: on the second pattern page press More to get to your own pages. A click loads the phrase, a double click renames it, the small red cross deletes it.

Your own recordings, laid out in sample zones across the keyboard — the grid on the left grows as you add files, up to forty zones. Load Files opens a file dialog; you can also drop WAV files straight onto the large field. Add Beat puts a loop into the Beat rotation instead of a zone. Save Set to Sounds writes the whole arrangement into your library as one instrument. Loop switches looping for the selected zone; Listen and Listen as Chord audition it alone or as a full voicing.

Pick a slot on the left — that is which of the 24 trigger keys you are writing to. Arm REC Chord Voicing and click notes on the chromatic keyboard; each click puts one in or takes it out. Listen Chord plays the result, Delete Voicing clears the slot. Notes go in by clicking, not by playing a MIDI keyboard.

New User Preset saves the set as a pack of your own, Add to User Preset puts the current voicing into one you already started. MIDI Import reads the chords out of a MIDI file, and dropping a .mid file onto the panel does the same. The strip at the lower right moves the keyboard to another octave.

Two columns. Sequence Export renders what you have built: MIDI Progression writes every chord of the sequence with its timing, MIDI Bass only the bass notes, Audio Dry the instrument without effects, Audio FX the same with every active effect, and Audio Full the complete mix including bass and Atmo. MIDI Import works the other way: drop a MIDI file on it and MONOCHORD reads the chords out of it and lays them down as a new progression. A tile can be dragged straight into your DAW instead of being written to disk.

DAW Recording on the right captures a live performance instead of rendering the sequence. Click a lane to start recording, click again to stop, then drag the result into your DAW. The five lanes are Audio Dry, Audio FX, Audio Full, Bass and MIDI Chords — the last one keeps arp, strum and the human timing in the notes.

Setup

macOS	Standalone app, VST3, Audio Unit. 10.13 or later, Intel or Apple Silicon, universal 64-bit.
Windows	Standalone app, VST3. Windows 10 or later, 64-bit.
Space	About 13 GB free; the sound library alone is 11.8 GB.
Internet	To activate or start the trial, and once for the library download. After that MONOCHORD checks the licence quietly in the background whenever you are online — working offline for up to two weeks at a stretch is fine (on a rent-to-own plan, about a week between instalments).

On first start a blue card asks for your key — type it and press Activate, or start the 14-day trial. The sounds are not in the installer; the card that follows downloads them. Everything lives in ~/Library/Application Support/MONOCHORD on macOS and %APPDATA%\MONOCHORD on Windows: the library, your own sounds and sequences, the licence. One folder, shared by the standalone app and every plug-in version.

Trouble, or something you cannot find: support@orph.audio.

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