Manual
Explore harmony. Build ideas. Hear them immediately.
Choose → Shape → Play → Explore → Drag
Chord Factory is a MIDI instrument for exploring chords, progressions, voicings, rhythm and melodic movement. It does not generate audio: it generates MIDI, which you preview inside the plugin and drag straight into your DAW.
Start with a chord or a progression. Change the harmony, voicing, bass, rhythm or melodic movement while it plays. When you find something you like, drag it into your project. Everything else in this manual builds on that.
Getting started
Make your first chord
- Set the mode switch to Single Chord.
- Click a chord on the wheel.
- Choose a Position and a Bass.
- Choose a Motion and a Pattern.
- Press Preview.
- Drag the pad into your DAW.
Make your first progression
- Switch to Progression.
- Pick one of the fifty built-in progressions.
- Set Voice Leading, Bass, Tensions and Comping.
- Turn Loop on and press Preview.
- Keep changing things while it plays.
- Drag the take you liked into your DAW.
Load a ii–V–I, turn Loop on, and change nothing but Voice Leading. The chords stay the same and the music does not — that is the whole idea of the plugin in one experiment.
The two modes
Single Chord gives you one chord to shape and audition. Use it to find a voicing, or to grab a single stab.
Progression works with complete harmonic sequences. Start from one of fifty built-in progressions or write your own, then reshape the harmony with voice leading, bass movement, tensions and substitutions.
A few controls appear only in Progression mode, because they need more than one chord to mean anything.
The wheel
What it does
Puts every chord in the key within one click, and arranges them so that neighbours are the chords most likely to follow each other.
How it works
Four rings of twelve: major on the outside, then minor, diminished and augmented. Neighbours on the outer ring are a fifth apart.
In Single Chord mode — and while editing a custom progression — the wheel is a selector: click any node to pick that chord.
In Progression mode the wheel becomes a map of the progression. It draws the sequence across the circle and marks the chord currently sounding, so you can watch the harmony move. Clicking a node here sets the key rather than a chord.
Chord
What it does
Chooses the chord itself: its root, its quality and how much colour it carries.
How it works
Key sets the root and octave. Quality sets major, minor, diminished or augmented. Extensions then lists every chord sharing that quality, from a plain triad to a thirteenth.
If a chord is missing from Extensions, check Quality first — the list is filtered by it, so a major seventh will not appear while Quality says minor.
Voicing
What it does
Controls how a chord is spelled across the voices, and how those voices move from one chord to the next.
How it works
Position is the inversion: root position, first, second, third.
Voice Leading (Progression mode) sets the movement:
- Parallel — every chord in the same position.
- Smooth — each chord re-voiced to move as little as possible. Chooses the inversion for you, so Position is disabled.
- Open — spreads the voices apart.
- Drop 2 — moves the second voice from the top down an octave.
- SATB — four-part writing that avoids parallel fifths and octaves. Places the voices itself, so Position is disabled.
- Quartal and Pentatonic — see Quartal & pentatonic.
Load a ii–V–I and switch between Parallel, Smooth and SATB. Listen to how the same harmony changes character without changing the chords.
Bass
What it does
Decides what the left hand is doing underneath the harmony.
How it works
- Off — no bass note.
- Held — the root under the chord. In 4/4 it is one sustained note; in an odd, compound or triplet metre it is struck again on each group’s downbeat, so 7/8 as 2+2+3 gets three bass notes with the chord filling between them.
- Root + Fifth and Walking — Progression mode only: both need a next chord to move towards.
8vb drops the bass an octave. Bass Note forces a specific note into the bass — a slash chord, like Cmaj7/E.
Metre & comping
What it does
Sets the time the harmony is played in, and the rhythm it is played with.
How it works
Metre runs from 4/4 through 3/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, 11/8 and 13/8, each with the grouping that makes it work — 7/8 as 2+2+3, and so on.
Comping is the rhythm the chords are struck in: whole notes, quarters, Charleston, bossa, samba and the rest. Swing is adjustable.
Note Rate is the subdivision an arpeggio or run moves at. Auto spaces by the chord’s size, which gives three-against-four over a triad. Choosing a metre sets a sensible rate for it, and you can change it after.
In an odd metre a run stays continuous across the bar, ignoring where the chord happens to be struck. Under a comping figure it does the opposite and follows the figure. In an odd metre the gaps are an artefact of the bass marking out the groups; in a comping figure the gaps are the rhythm. That interlocking is what makes an odd metre feel grouped rather than merely long.
Motion & pattern
What it does
Turns a chord into movement. Chord Factory does not only generate blocks: its patterns use each chord’s own underlying scale to create movement around the harmony, so a run over an altered dominant uses the altered scale rather than whatever the key suggests.
How it works
Motion picks a family; Pattern picks one from it.
- Chords — block chords and comping figures, including Gospel Roll, Strum and Scatter.
- Arpeggio — up, down, up-down, random, Alberti, ping-pong.
- Melodic — scale and pentatonic ladders in four directions; the fourths family, including the So What shape; and Combo, which builds a line rather than walking a ladder.
The fourths patterns skip three scale degrees rather than five semitones, which is what keeps them in the key. Combo builds a different line every time you press Preview, and fills whatever Note Rate you give it — the same progression at 1/8 and at 1/16 gives you two different players.
Set Motion to Melodic and Pattern to Combo over a ii–V–I, then press Preview several times without changing anything else. Drag the one you like.
Progressions
What it does
Gives you fifty complete harmonic sequences to start from — and the controls to reshape them.
How it works
The progressions cover major and minor keys, and can be chained and combined. Tensions controls the harmonic colour, from simple triads to rich 9th, 11th and 13th chords.
Lower Tensions when you want a simpler, more open sound; raise it when you want richer harmonic colour. The progression does not change — only what each chord is built from.
Writing your own
What it does
Lets you build a progression of your own, up to four chords a bar and sixty-four bars.
How it works
Switch on Custom. Type a chord and press Enter, or type a whole
line at once: Dm7+G7+Cmaj7+F7. Each chord becomes a chip, and rows hold
eight bars, so the second row starts at bar 9.
The full typing syntax — bar lines, slash bass, repeats and spans — is in Chord syntax.
Editing chords
How it works
Click a chip to select it; the wheel and controls follow it. Right-click one for its own menu:
- Chord Quality, Extensions and Chord Root — change the chord without retyping it.
- Inversion and Bass Note — per chord.
- Duration — 1 beat, half a bar, three-quarters, or a full bar.
- Split in Half and Merge with Next.
- Duplicate and Delete.
- Insert Progression — drop a built-in progression in at that point.
Chips can be dragged to reorder, and Undo and Redo cover everything here. Show: Dm7 toggles the chips between chord names and roman numerals. Save to Library keeps a progression by name, and it then appears in the Insert Progression list.
Preview & drag
What it does
This is the core loop of the plugin: audition an idea, change it, audition again, and keep the take you liked.
How it works
Preview plays the current setting. Loop keeps it going while you change controls — the new pattern swaps in at the next loop boundary. Drag to DAW drags a MIDI file of exactly what you just heard.
The random styles build a new line on every press. Combo, Arp Random, Scale Random and Pentatonic Random compose something different each time. What you drag is the take you just heard, note for note — not a fresh roll of the dice.
MIDI Trigger plays the current chord from a keyboard, one key per chord. Auto-Transpose advances the key every time the preview loops — round the circle, chromatically, in thirds — so you can hear an idea in every key before committing it to one. It needs Loop switched on.
Turn on Loop and Auto-Transpose, set it to move round the circle, and leave it playing. A progression that felt ordinary in C often is not in E.
Reharmonisation
What it does
Rewrites the functional harmony of a progression without changing its shape.
How it works
- Tritone Sub replaces a dominant with the one a tritone away, so D–G7–C becomes D–D♭7–C.
- Secondary Dominants inserts the dominant of each chord before it, so the progression pulls towards each of its own chords in turn.
- Cadence appends an ending: authentic (V7–I), plagal (IV–I), deceptive (V7–vi) or half (ii7–V7).
- Neg. Harmony mirrors every chord around the key’s axis, turning a major progression minor and back while keeping its shape.
Tritone Sub and Secondary Dominants apply to built-in progressions, which have functional harmony to rewrite.
Take a plain I–vi–ii–V, switch on Secondary Dominants, then add Tritone Sub on top. The same four chords become a jazz turnaround.
Quartal & pentatonic
What it does
Builds voicings from stacked fourths or from the chord’s pentatonic scale rather than from thirds — the modal sound rather than the functional one.
How it works
Quartal stacks fourths — the So What sound. Built from the chord’s scale rather than by adding five semitones, so it stays in the harmony over altered chords. It is rootless, so switch the bass on if you want the chord to be unambiguous.
Pentatonic does the same over the chord’s five-note scale, giving open fourths and seconds.
Under both, Tensions chooses the stack’s size and which extension it must contain, and Position steps through the stack’s rotations — which is what an inversion is for a rootless voicing.
Chord syntax
A chord is a root note — A to G,
with an optional # or b — followed by a quality. The
root is required: maj7 alone will not parse, Cmaj7 will.
Separating chords
| You type | You get |
|---|---|
| Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 | three chords, one bar each |
| Dm7+G7+Cmaj7 | the same — +, , and a space all mean “next chord” |
| Dm7,G7|Cmaj7 | | is a bar line: Dm7 and G7 share bar 1, Cmaj7 fills bar 2 |
| Am|F|C|G | four bars, one chord each |
Chords sharing a bar split it into whole beats, as evenly as they can: two take 2+2, three take 2+1+1, four take 1+1+1+1. A bar is never split into thirds, and only the first four chords in a bar are kept.
Suffixes
| Suffix | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| /note | slash bass | Dm7/F is Dm7 with F underneath |
| *N | one chord spanning N bars | Cmaj7*4 is a single four-bar chord |
| xN | N separate copies | G7x4 is four one-bar G7 chips |
They combine in any order: G7x3*2 and G7*2x3 both give
three separate chords, each two bars long.
*N and xN apply only to a chord alone in its bar.
Combined with chords sharing a bar there is no unambiguous meaning, so both are
ignored. A token that cannot be parsed is skipped rather than stopping the line,
so one typo costs you that chord and not the rest.
Spelling the quality
Common alternate spellings are accepted, so you can type what you would write by
hand: CM7, CMajor7 and Cmaj7 all give the
same chord.
| Family | Examples that parse |
|---|---|
| Triads | C · Cm · Cdim · Caug · C+ · Csus4 · Csus2 |
| Sevenths | Cmaj7 · Cm7 · C7 · Cm7b5 · Cdim7 · Co7 · CmMaj7 |
| Extensions | C9 · Cm9 · Cmaj9 · C11 · Cm11 · C13 · Cmaj13 · Cadd9 · C6 · Cm6 |
| Altered | C7b9 · C7#9 · C7#11 · C7b5 · C7#5 · C7alt · C9sus4 |
Chords & scales
All 60 chord types and the scale each one plays over. This is the map the arpeggios, ladders and fourths patterns read from.
| Chord | Name | Plays over |
|---|---|---|
| 7alt | Altered (7alt) | Altered |
| dimMaj7 | Diminished Major 7 | Dim Major |
| 7#5#9 | Dominant 7 #5 #9 | Altered |
| 7b5#9 | Dominant 7 b5 #9 | Altered |
| 11 | Dominant 11 | Mixolydian sus |
| 7#11 | Dominant 7 sharp 11 | Lydian Dominant |
| maj11 | Major 11 | Ionian |
| m11 | Minor 11 | Dorian |
| m11b5 | Minor 11 flat 5 | Locrian #2 |
| m7#11 | Minor 7 sharp 11 | Dorian #4 |
| add9 | Add9 | Ionian |
| dim9 | Diminished 9 | Whole-Half Dim |
| 7b9 | Dominant 7 flat 9 | Half-Whole Dim |
| 7#9 | Dominant 7 sharp 9 | Half-Whole Dim |
| 9 | Dominant 9 | Mixolydian |
| 9#11 | Dominant 9 sharp 11 | Lydian Dominant |
| 9#5 | Dominant 9 sharp 5 | Whole Tone |
| 9sus4 | Dominant 9sus4 | Mixolydian sus |
| maj9 | Major 9 | Ionian |
| maj9#11 | Major 9 sharp 11 | Lydian |
| maj9#5 | Major 9 sharp 5 | Lydian Augmented |
| m9 | Minor 9 | Dorian |
| m9b5 | Minor 9 flat 5 | Locrian #2 |
| madd9 | Minor Add9 | Dorian |
| mMaj9 | Minor Major 9 | Melodic Minor |
| cluster | Cluster (stacked 2nds) | Ionian |
| add4 | Major Add4 | Ionian |
| madd4 | Minor Add4 | Dorian |
| 5 | Power Chord | Mixolydian |
| quartal | Quartal (stacked 4ths) | Dorian |
| 7sus2 | 7sus2 | Mixolydian sus |
| 7sus4 | 7sus4 | Mixolydian sus |
| 7#5 | Augmented 7 | Whole Tone |
| maj7#5 | Augmented Major 7 | Lydian Augmented |
| dim7 | Diminished 7 | Whole-Half Dim |
| 7 | Dominant 7 | Mixolydian |
| 7b5 | Dominant 7 flat 5 | Lydian Dominant |
| maj7 | Major 7 | Ionian |
| maj7b5 | Major 7 flat 5 | Lydian |
| maj7#11 | Major 7 sharp 11 | Lydian |
| m7 | Minor 7 | Dorian |
| m7b5 | Minor 7 flat 5 | Locrian #2 |
| mMaj7 | Minor Major 7 | Melodic Minor |
| 6/9 | 6/9 | Major Pentatonic |
| 6 | Major 6 | Ionian |
| m6 | Minor 6 | Melodic Minor |
| m6/9 | Minor 6/9 | Melodic Minor |
| 13sus4 | 13sus4 | Mixolydian sus |
| 13 | Dominant 13 | Mixolydian |
| 13b9 | Dominant 13 flat 9 | Half-Whole Dim |
| 13#11 | Dominant 13 sharp 11 | Lydian Dominant |
| 13#9 | Dominant 13 sharp 9 | Half-Whole Dim |
| 7b13 | Dominant 7 flat 13 | Mixolydian b6 |
| maj13 | Major 13 | Ionian |
| m13 | Minor 13 | Dorian |
| aug | Augmented | Whole Tone |
| dim | Diminished | Whole-Half Dim |
| m | Minor | Natural Minor |
| sus2 | Sus2 | Mixolydian sus |
| sus4 | Sus4 | Mixolydian sus |
Settings & presets
Settings
The gear icon.
- Note length — how much of its slot each note sounds. 100% is the normal articulation; lower shortens every note.
- Preview tempo and Follow host tempo — with Follow on, the project’s tempo wins and dragged files carry no tempo or time signature of their own.
- Preview volume and Theme — five palettes: Midnight, Graphite, Moss, Ember and Iris.
- Open with the last chord used, and Reset all settings.
Presets
The bookmark icon. A preset stores the whole configuration — chord, voicing, pattern, metre, theme, everything — so it recalls the sound you had, not part of it.
