ChordThingchords, streams and finger rolls

Windows 64-bitVST3 + standaloneoffline license

ChordThing is a chord synth for the guitar-brained. Pick a chord on a fretboard, give it a strum or a finger roll, build a progression in the stream and watch it flow. Under it sits a full synth with two engines, a modulation router and thirteen effects in the order the signal meets them. Play along over it, write over it, or use it as the band.

Quick start

1. Install. Close your DAW and run the ChordThing installer. It puts the standalone apps where you choose (C:\Program Files\Ill Sea\ChordThing unless you change it) and the VST3 plugins in your VST3 folder (C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 unless you change it). Rescan plugins in your DAW. The standalone ChordThing runs on its own, no DAW needed: open it from the Start menu and pick your audio device under Options > Audio/MIDI Settings.
2. Press PLAY. A fresh ChordThing already has four chords in the stream. You hear them strummed at 120 BPM.
3. Click a chord plate in the stream. The cutter above shows it. Change its ROOT, COLOUR or strum and the plate changes while it plays.
4. Pick a sound from the Sounds menu on the SOUND card. The SOLO BEDS section is voiced to leave room for a guitar on top.
5. Build your own. Set a chord in the cutter and drag its preview (bottom right of the cutter) down into the stream, or press ADD. Save the result from Progressions > Save progression as...

The header

Double-click the header band to make the window fill your screen's height (again to shrink it back).

The cutter

The cutter is where one chord is made. Whatever it shows is the selected plate in the stream: every change lands on that plate (and on every other selected plate, see The stream). With nothing selected the cutter is a scratchpad you can drag into the stream.

The chord

• The diagram shows the voicing on six strings. Click a fret to change a string by hand; the chord becomes custom. Right-click a string to mute it, open it, or make its note the root: the same frets, read from that root, so the ROOT box and the colour name follow your interpretation. LEFTY flips every diagram for left-handed players.
• ROOT and COLOUR pick the chord (major, minor, sevenths, suspended, power chords and more).
• SHAPE picks where on the neck it is voiced: the five forms (E, A, C, G and D shapes) or Open (auto), which takes the lowest form for the root. A chord that fits from the nut is always drawn from the nut; a higher one shows its fret number bottom-left.
• The line under COLOUR spells the chord's notes string by string.

Strums and patterns

A chord's strum is how the strings are hit; its pattern is when.

• HIT plays every string at once, DOWN and UP sweep across them, ALT follows the pattern's down and up cells, RAKE is a short, scratchy sweep. The little screen shows the sweep string by string and lights each string as it sounds.
• Spread is how long the sweep takes (up to half a second). Human scatters the timing and the force of each string. Accent lifts the beats above the off-beats. Life lets every string move on its own after it is hit: a little vibrato, drift in pitch, tone and level.
• PATTERN loads a factory or saved pattern. The cells under it are the rhythm: click a cell to cycle it (rest, down, up, chop), right-click to rest it. The button at the end switches the grid between eighths and sixteenths.
• BEATS is how long the chord lasts in the stream. RING / CHOKE: ring into the next chord, or choke the strings when the next chord starts.

The stream

The stream is the song: chord plates side by side, each as wide as its length. Up to eight fill the lane; more than eight scroll, with arrows at the ends. While it plays, the lane follows the playhead.

A chord change releases the chord before it. At every plate boundary the strings still ringing fade out on the sound's own Release (and ChordThing MIDI sends their note-offs); the new plate's strum or roll strikes its own strings. Nothing rings past its chord. Within a plate, the life of a note is the sound's AMP envelope: Sustain down gives a plucked note that fades on its own, Sustain up a note that holds until the next strike or the chord change.

Swing pushes the off-beats late (or early). Progressions loads a factory progression, grouped by mood, or one you saved.

SCRUGGS, finger rolls

SCRUGGS sits beside the cutter. Switch it On and every chord in the stream is picked instead of strummed, in a repeating 8-step roll. While it is on, the cutter's strum options the roll does not use (the type, the pattern and its cells, the division, Spread, Human and Accent) deselect and grey out; Life still rides the roll's notes. Switch it off and nothing about your stream has changed.

• A roll is written in roles, not strings, so one roll fits every chord: the thumb's bass (the lowest string of the chord), the thumb's alternate bass, and the G, B and high E strings. Two roles on one step pick together (a pinch).
• The screen is the roll as tab on the chord being played: the time signature, the fingers above (T thumb, I index, M middle, P pinch), the real frets on the strings, and beamed notes below. While the stream plays, the step under the playhead lights up.
• Edit a roll by clicking a string's line in a step: add a note there, or take it away.
• The menu holds the factory rolls (forward, backward, forward-reverse, alternating thumb and more) and your own: Save roll as.... The rate picks 1/8, 1/16 or triplets. Meter, in the same menu or by right-clicking the tab: 4/4 (eight steps) or 3/4 and 6/8 (six steps); the tab's time signature follows, and the Waltz and 6/8 rolls are written for six.
• Accent lifts the thumb and the beat. Human loosens the timing. Swing pushes the off-steps.

The sound

Two engines, chosen at the top of the SOUND card: SUPER, a model-based synth voice (analog shapes, strings, bars, plucks, particles and more, plus a second oscillator), and FM, a six-operator FM voice that also loads .syx banks (LOAD .SYX). Its levels, envelopes, key scaling, velocity, feedback, LFO and pitch envelope follow the original hardware’s measured tables, so a bank sounds as it was voiced; MK I (in NERD’s ENGINE header) adds the first hardware’s output character, a floating-point converter that grits up quiet tails and its 15 kHz roll-off.

• LEVEL and PITCH (transposes the whole sound in semitones, to tune to other instruments).
• Five macro knobs. Their names and jobs follow the engine and the model: each one moves several controls at once. On SUPER, AIR opens Spread: every string renders its oscillator twice, a few cents apart, one copy left and one right — low is a thick unison in the centre, high is wide.
• DARK, both engines: the highs ease down, a high-cut closes with it and even harmonics come in — tape, not fizz.
• The screens: the engine (what the voice is doing), FILTER (drag the node: cutoff left-right, resonance up-down; right-click for the filter type), ENVELOPES (the amp and the filter envelopes; drag the nodes), MOTION (the two LFOs and the tide; drag the edge nodes, right-click for sync and shape).
• The Sounds menu: twenty-five sounds by use — PADS, KEYS, PLUCKS, SYNTH, BEDS and TRIPPY, three of each, and seven MULTI sounds (a different voice on each pair of strings, or six that differ a little, every string on its own oscillator and pan), every one written for the rack as it is: a different kind of synthesis under each (a model per string, the STRING device's strike, body, FM and chew, the FM keys, the sub, the breath, the MOUTH) and at least three of the eleven devices on it — every one made to be strummed and rolled, plus your own (Save sound as...). A sound carries its effects and its modulation routes.

NOISE

SUB (in the SOUND card, beside MOTION) puts a simple wave under the chord, the way most synths do: Sine, Tri or Square, an octave or two down, through the string's own filter and envelope. Strings picks how many strings carry the sub, counted from the low E: 1 is the E, 2 is E and A, 3 adds the D, 6 is every string; a string the chord mutes has no note and so no sub. Drive adds harmonics. The Pitch pot is the line's pitch control: click its label to change the feel: OCT snaps to octaves, 5TH to fourths and fifths, FINE moves by cents.

NOISE adds coloured noise to every string of the voice, before the filter, so it breathes with the sound: air on a pad, a pick's scrape, a hammer, dust, surf. The colour is picked in the device's header: white, pink, brown, blue, violet, or crackle. On, beside it, switches the noise in and out; Off is silent and keeps every setting, and switching On with the level at zero starts it at a level you can hear. The screen shows the noise's spectrum and its decay, with two nodes you drag anywhere:

• The green node rides the green line: Tone (left-right, it sits on the frequency) and Level (up-down; the line follows the node, so wherever you put it is how loud the noise is there).
• The purple node: Decay (left-right: a short chiff at the left, held with the note at the far right) and Focus (up-down: broad at the bottom, one narrow ringing band at the top).

Hold Shift while dragging for fine moves. Double-click a node to reset it (green: 6 kHz at 15 %; purple: broad and held). Right-click a node to modulate or MIDI-learn either of its two controls.

NERD, every control

The NERD button opens a window with every control of the voice, laid out in rows:

• SUPER: OSC A (its own envelope, the model's three hands, its level, drift), STRINGS (six boxes under it: each string may take its own model — a bar on the low strings, a pluck on the high ones; All follows the Model; every model is tuned to land on the note, and Strings and Chip, which play a chord of their own, take the octave chord on a string of their own so six strings stay in tune; the Bar is inharmonic by design away from HARMONICS 0.3). A string on a model of its own plays an OSC A of its own: its own three hands, level and envelope. The OSC A screen draws every oscillator in play, each in its own colour (the string boxes wear the same colours), and the one in front — the last string you picked a model for, or the engine's when a box goes back to All — is the one the screen's nodes and the sliders edit. Under each box a pan slider slides that string from its place across WIDTH to either edge, in either engine. Then OSC B (its wave and octave, its own envelope, semitone, fine, level and width). Each oscillator's envelope shapes it before the filter, so one can swell in under the other.
• FM: ENGINE (the algorithm, the six operator levels, feedback, LFO depth, envelope scale, brightness) and SHAPE (the selected operator's tuning and its envelope).
• FILTER, AMP (with Spread, Width — the strings’ own left-to-right tilt — and the attack shape: Linear, or Fast so plucks and keys hit at once), MOD (the two LFOs, the tide, dice and the two envelopes; the drop-down above each screen picks its division (up to eight bars) and the SYNC badge toggles it against free, where dragging the screen sets the rate), and ROUTES, the list of every modulation route.

Modulation

Right-click any knob or slider to route a modulation source to it, at any amount, positive or negative. The sources: LFO 1, LFO 2, ENV 1 and ENV 2 (they restart on every strum), TIDE (a shaped, smooth cycle), DICE (a new random value every step), OSC A and OSC B (the two oscillators' own envelopes), and VELO (how hard the last strum or pick was, held until the next — route it to the cutoff or a timbre and a hard strum gets brighter). A routed control shows a coloured band of its range and a tick where it is right now. Alt+drag a routed control to trim its amount. The ROUTES list in NERD shows them all: click a name to open its menu, x removes it.

Right-click an effect’s name (BODY, WARP, SWIRL...) for two more: Randomize Effect Modulation gives every slider on that effect one route from a random source at a random amount (10 to 50 %, up or down), replacing what was there; Remove all Modulation clears every route on that effect. Each is one undo step.

The effects

Eleven devices, read left to right and top to bottom in the order the signal meets them. The colour that is different per string runs inside each string's voice: STRING (its body, strike, FM and chew). Everything else runs once on the stereo mix: MOUTH, SWIRL, ENSEMBLE, ECHO, GRAINS, SPACE, DIRT, WOBBLE, DUCK and MASTER. Each has an On switch; switching fades in and out rather than cutting.

Tempo and sync

• INT: ChordThing is the clock. BPM sets the tempo; the play triangle plays and pauses (so does Space), the stop square returns the stream to the beginning; pressed again while stopped, it scrolls the stream back to its start. A plate clicked while stopped is where the next play starts. Delete or Backspace removes the selected plates.
• HOST (in a DAW): the host's tempo and transport drive the stream. While the host is stopped, PLAY still runs the stream on ChordThing's own tempo.
• CLOCK (standalone): follow a MIDI clock on the port you pick. The status shows when it is locked; Start plays, Stop parks. The ms knob moves the stream earlier or later to line it up by ear. Clock start lead (Options menu; in a DAW the logo menu) says how far ahead of its first beat the sender puts its Start: 15 ms for NoAMP, so the first step lands exactly on STIX's; 0 for gear that sends Start on the beat.

MIDI learn

Right-click a control and choose MIDI learn, then move a knob or press a button on your controller. Learned mappings are remembered on this computer.

Undo, colour schemes, updates

• Undo / redo covers every control you touch, every chord and stream edit, and modulation routes. Loading a sound or a progression undoes in one step.
• Colour schemes: Options > Colour scheme in the standalone, or right-click the header band in a DAW (or click the Ill Sea logo). ChordThing (the house colours), Black Panel, Midnight, High Contrast (colour-blind safe), Light, Tweed.
• Check for updates: the last item of the same menu. It asks illsea.com for the newest version and, if there is one, offers the download page. Nothing else is sent.

Presets and your files

Everything you save lives in %APPDATA%\IllSea\ChordThing\, in folders named Sounds, Progressions, Patterns and Rolls: one small file each, easy to back up or share. Your session (the stream, the sound, the roll) is saved with your DAW project, and by the standalone when it closes.

License and demo

• Your license arrives by email as a small file, ChordThing.chordthing-license. Once ChordThing is installed, double-click the file: ChordThing opens, licensed. Only using the plugin? Drag the file onto ChordThing's window, or open the License menu (Options > License in the standalone; in a DAW, click the Ill Sea logo or right-click the ChordThing name) and choose Load license file.... It works offline, forever, on all your computers.
• The license is personal: your address is signed into the file and shown at the top of the License menu.
• ChordThing MIDI, the version that plays your other synths from the same cutter, stream and rolls, comes with your ChordThing license, free.

ChordThing MIDI

ChordThing MIDI is ChordThing without its own sound: the cutter, SCRUGGS, the patterns and the stream play any instrument instead, as MIDI notes with the same timing, strums, rolls and humanising. It comes with your ChordThing license (the same file unlocks both). It installs as its own plugin, ChordThing MIDI.vst3, and its own standalone, ChordThing MIDI.exe.

• Where the SOUND card and the effects were, the MIDI OUT device: the channel layout and channel in its header, then Octave, Velocity (the curve: softer or harder), Ring (a note rings until the string is struck again, choked or the chord changes, or for a fixed 1/16 to 1 bar), Bend (the bend range) and Life. The monitor shows each string's last note, its channel and its velocity, lit as it goes out.
• INSTRUMENT INSIDE (right of the monitor): LOAD... lists the VST3 plugins installed on your computer (or browse for one). Pick a synth or a sampler and ChordThing MIDI plays it inside itself: its sound comes out of ChordThing MIDI, on the same track. No MIDI routing, works the same in every DAW. OPEN shows the instrument's own window (pick its patch there), REMOVE takes it out. The instrument and its patch are saved with your project. The notes still go out as MIDI as well. PER STRING (the pill in the header) opens six rows: one instrument a string, a bar on the low strings, a pluck on the high ones, a different sampler on each. ChordThing feeds each one its string's channel, renders the six across your processor's cores, lines them up to the slowest one's latency and sums them. Every instrument and its patch is saved with the project.
• One channel (the default) works with any instrument. Per string puts each string on its own channel, the low E on the chosen one. MPE puts the strings on channels 2-7 and sends LIFE as real per-string pitch bend and tone (CC74) to MPE instruments.
• Every note ends cleanly: when the string is struck again, choked, at the chord change, when its Ring length runs out, and when the transport stops.
• The standalone sends to the MIDI output you pick in Options > Audio/MIDI Settings: a hardware synth, or a virtual MIDI cable into any program.
• In the demo, after 10 minutes in a session every note ends and no new notes go out (the DEMO block says MUTED).
• In a DAW a new ChordThing MIDI (and ChordThing) starts in HOST sync: press the DAW's play and it follows the DAW's tempo and position. With the DAW stopped, ChordThing's own PLAY still runs it.

Two ways to use it in a DAW

1. Instrument inside (the easy way): put ChordThing MIDI on an instrument track, click LOAD... in INSTRUMENT INSIDE and pick your synth. Done: one track plays.
2. Its MIDI into another track: leave INSTRUMENT INSIDE empty. On a second track with your synth, choose ChordThing MIDI's track as the MIDI input (in Ableton Live: MIDI From = the ChordThing MIDI track, the chooser under it = ChordThing MIDI, Monitor = In). Use this to play an instrument that lives on its own track, or hardware.

Troubleshooting

• No sound: check the header (a DEMO block saying MUTED means the demo time is up for this session), the LEVEL knob, and in the standalone your audio device under Options.
• It doesn't start in my DAW: in HOST mode the stream follows the host's transport. Press play in the host, or press ChordThing's own PLAY while the host is stopped.
• CLOCK never locks: pick the right port, make sure the sending device actually sends clock, and watch the status line.
• Crackles: raise your audio buffer size, and turn off devices you are not using (TEXTURE and the reverbs are the heaviest).
• More: tips & troubleshooting, or write to support@illsea.com.