What have you done with my chords Ma

 In July 2024 Artiphon released new firmware and a new version of the Connect app for the Chorda and Orba 2. This had a big effect on Chord presets and this was a big blow to me. I will try to explain it and what I have been trying to do to mitigate the damage it did to my use of the Orba 2 and the Chorda.

The most obvious difference was that all chord presets by default play their standard chord set. Other chord sets defined in a preset are ignored and are no longer used. The standard set is OK, but it is restrictive and rather plain - but I could get round that by creating my own chord sets - I made a lot of them. That has now been stolen from us and instead the app only allows us two alternatives, the pentatonic chord set, again OK but even more restricted, and the chromatic set which bewilders me as I can find no rational to the choice (and placing) of the chords included, there's not even a basic set of chords for the chosen root key in there.

(Another change was that the Chorda now only plays 4 notes in a chord when it had previously played 6. That could have been a good thing as some chord sets I had made for the Orba 2 were wrecked by the 6 notes playing on the Chorda - but I can't take advantage from that because I now can't use those chord sets at all.)

It has been suggested that these changes were made partly to improve performance by embedding the chord sets in the firmware. I'm not convinced that's a real advantage as even some of Artiphon's own presets are spoilt by this.

So I had to try and find ways to get back some of the usability I used to have. Frankly, anything I have been able to do is a poor substitute. Artiphon have simply shut out the methods to do much better.

My first plan was to use pitch bend in a similar way to how I created presets that would enable playing chromatically on bass and lead presets. This works well for me, however the technique does not play well with midi output and doesn't play back when creating beats - the effect is mildly amusing but not useful. Configurations to give access to chords a tone above or below the stated pitch generally only add one or two chords that are really useful, but it is quite playable. It works with both synth and sample based presets and can play in any key - including pentatonic and chromatic scales.

The other method I am exploring is to hi-jack drum presets by using samples of played chords. This works quite well - and on the Chorda you can have a set of 12 chords. To make versions in different keys you have to make a new set of samples- which is very inefficient. There is some possibility to make versions that shift the pitch (using the previous samples) as there is a pitch parameter for the samples entries. I am not certain how this works and at this point in time I am not certain how far it can work. The example I have been testing works as far as going down a whole tone, beyond that I think the samples will sound bad even if the method works. The same will apply to raising the pitch assuming it can be done.

I will not go into detail about how to do all this - it needs a number of things to be done to make it work. Presets like this may have some limited function with DAWs if sample sets are transferred to the DAW, at least, for the first 8 pads not on the other four. Here I must a strong warning - it seems that there may be danger of bricking your device if you try to extend the midi output to all 12 pads (I am aware of one case of this, but I don't know the details of it).

Hi-jacking the drum mode like this is far from ideal, and has it's own restrictions. For example, it will not change octave (which is probably not a great loss).

This will only work with sample sets. It may be possible to create tonal synth sounds in drum presets but I have not worked that out, I doubt I will.