Open the World of Harmony: Chordz Plugin by CodeFN42
Music is a language, and chords are its foundation. For many musicians, especially those who are not professional pianists, playing complex harmonic sequences in real-time can be a challenge. This is where Chordz by CodeFN42 comes in handy – a powerful and intuitive MIDI plugin that revolutionizes your approach to music creation. Forget about complex fingerings and awkward finger stretches. With Chordz, you can trigger full chords by playing just one note. This is not just a tool for simplification, it’s a pathway to new musical ideas and accelerating your creative process.
Main Features of the Chordz Plugin
- Simple Chord Triggering: Each incoming MIDI note (trigger) is associated with a separate chord. You can assign any chord to any note on your MIDI keyboard or in the DAW piano roll.
- Creating Custom Chords: Each chord can consist of any number of notes, located within a range of four octaves (two octaves below and two above the trigger note). This allows you to easily create inversions, unique voicings, and double notes as desired.
- Chord Suggestion Function: Based on the selected scale and root note, the plugin can suggest diatonic chords, simplifying the process of writing harmonic sequences.
- “Easy Mode”: In this mode, you can play chords in any scale using only white keys, with the note “Do” (C) always representing the tonic chord (I degree). Black keys can be used for chord variations (e.g., C# for chords with a seventh or ninth).
- Keyboard Zoning: The keyboard can be divided into three independent zones: one for chord triggering and two others (lower and upper) for playing single notes. Each zone can be transposed independently. This is perfect for simultaneously playing chords with the left hand and a melody with the right.
- Stay in Tonic: Individual notes outside the chord zone can be automatically limited to the selected scale. In “Easy Mode,” they will match the chord setting, ensuring you always stay in the tonality.
- Dynamics and Time Settings: The plugin supports scaling and randomization of velocity for each chord note. A delay function for the beginning and end of notes (with randomization) is also available, allowing you to mimic guitar strumming or create unpredictable textures.
- Large Library and Templates: Chordz comes with more than 40 scale/chord templates and a library of over 50 chord types. You can also add your own templates and chord types by editing the corresponding text files.
- Intuitive Graphical Interface: Adjusting chords and parameters is done directly in the user-friendly graphical user interface.
How Chordz Works
At the heart of Chordz lies a simple but brilliant idea: transforming a single MIDI signal into multiple. When you press a trigger note on your controller, the Chordz plugin intercepts this signal and instead generates a set of MIDI notes that correspond to the assigned chord. These generated notes are then sent to your virtual instrument (synthesizer, sampler, etc.), which plays the full chord. This allows you to play complex harmonies even with the simplest controller. The ability to assign chords in the DAW piano roll makes this plugin an indispensable tool for writing music, allowing you to quickly experiment with harmonies and create dense soundscapes without having to draw each note separately.
Who is Chordz for?
Chordz is perfect for:
- Electronic Music Producers: Quickly creating complex chords for house, techno, ambient, and other genres.
- Beatmakers: Easily adding rich harmonies to your beats.
- Composers and Arrangers: Experimenting with harmonies, creating unique voicings, and quickly sketching ideas.
- Musicians who Don’t Play Keyboards: The ability to easily use a MIDI keyboard to play chords.
- Performers: Using it in live performances to simplify the performance of complex parts.
- Beginner Musicians: Learning the basics of chords and harmony in an understandable way.
The Chordz plugin is a cross-genre tool that can find its place in the arsenal of any modern musician and sound producer.
Summary
Chordz by CodeFN42 is more than just a chord-playing assistant. It’s a powerful creative tool that expands your capabilities, allowing you to focus on musical ideas rather than the technical difficulties of performance. Thanks to its flexible settings, a large chord library, and intuitive interface, Chordz will quickly become an indispensable part of your workflow. It saves time, inspires new harmonic solutions, and makes the music creation process even more exciting. Try Chordz and feel the difference!
