What I do - and you could too

Perhaps I should explain what I have been doing with modified and created presets.

Presets that use the built in synth can be made with the Preset Creator. There's not real need to do other than use it, however there are tweaks that can (and perhaps should be done) before they get loaded onto your Orba 2 or Chorda.

I always save the product of the Creator app to a working folder and there I can add my own name and description to my work. I mostly add an image to be used in the app for it. Sometimes they are new images of my own, sometimes I re-use existing images from Artiphon. I also ensure that two parameters, "readOnly" and "factory" are set to "0" so that I can tweak the presets later or delete them if I don't like them after all. These things apply to all presets.

Presets made in the Creator app use a single sample. That can give good results but it's likely that it doesn't. The recording quality of the samples used is also important so I prefer to make a set of samples for each preset - I usually use Audacity to make these, and try to make them as fit for purpose as I can there. Making a preset that uses those samples can be a bit of a chore, but the results are better and that's not just about recording quality.

For most Lead presets I change the "TuningEntry" to give me a diatonic scale by default. I'm not a fan of pentatonic scales, though they are useful for some presets, for example, if an oriental feel to the sound is appropriate.

I often make two or three versions of a preset. Since I can make it possible with pitch bend to make pads give notes a semitone or whole octave apart on each pad I will make a version for both options. The semitone option makes it effectively chromatic. (The octave option is not so needed for the Chorda since the keyboard has a greater range so it doesn't add as much as it would on the Orba 2.) And yes, I know you can change the octaves a preset plays, but that involves using the A button which prevents fluid playing over the whole range.

I can also make presets that will slide or jump from one note to another on the pad. This is useful with semitones and whole tones. Semitone sliding can be good for expression and whole tone is good with pentatonic scales, again for an oriental feel - and it can also make it viable to play it as diatonic, although that's not an ideal way of doing it.

These pitch bend methods will also work with bass presets and also chord presets with the whole chord being shifted. I favour setting a pitch bend of a fifth up with chords, this offers a few extra chords. I am beginning to experiment with shifts of a whole tone up or down - these offer a greater range of extra chords but the layout can be confusing It should be possible to create more logical sets than I have so far managed.

To illustrate the methods I have used you can try these five presets here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/4vhfvfnjd4c4dqc/TYYTset1.zip/file

These will work for both the Orba 2 and the Chorda however, ideally, I would tweak them a little depending on the device you have and your own preferences (look at the Orba Alternatives V1-2 PDF I linked to earlier to find help) but you can do that later if you want.

There are four lead presets all using a whistle (or small wooden pipe organ) sound and use the built-in synth. Set the devices pitch-bend setting to 100% for them to work as intended (in the settings page).

PennysWhistle plays in diatonic major scale with the "true" notes on the outer area of the pads (the far side on the Chorda) and notes a semitone lower close to the center (the near side on the Chorda).

PennysWhistle-Oct works the other way round with the "true" note near the centre and shifting up an octave to the outside.

PennysWhistle-PT uses a pentatonic scale and instead of switching pitch it bends over a whole tone in the middle area.

PennysDoubleGlide is included for the Glide(portamento) effect - but excessively! Depending on which side of the puberty line you are you will either find this funny or annoying. But you can delete any of these if you don't want to keep them.

Finally there is Bladechords-xXx - this uses a sound that when I made it reminded me of the soundtrack of Bladerunner. This has non standard chords, shifts pitch of the whole chords like Whistle-Oct but only by a perfect fifth. It also has some tilt gesture effect - it sounds better on the Orba 2 though. The gesture effect is weaker on the Chorda and it also messes with the chords a little, but not too badly.

You can transfer all of these in one go by merging the "Common" folder in the zip file with the same file in your user>Artiphon folder. Or you can transfer those only you want into the matching folders if you prefer. TheNinth is the image for BladeChords, Steaming for the Whistles.

The things that are of my own interest at the moment are a) the differences of the handling of chords on the Chorda, b) experimenting with mixed sample sets for chords on both the Orba 2 and the Chorda, and c) adding tilt gesture effects when using pitch bend on the pads. I'm also looking back on some of the things I tried but didn't work at the time when I didn't know as much as I know now.