HARPNOTEstrums a chord on the keyslight / dark

HARP

HARP turns the keyboard into an Omnichord: the low twelve keys are chord buttons, the high fifteen are a strum plate. Pick a root with the left hand and run a finger up the right half; the chord comes out one string at a time.

strums a chord on the keys

Half

NOTE

Reach it

the slot picker

ALGORITHM

QUAL

Playing it

A key from F3 to E4 picks the chord's root. QUAL sets its quality: KEY stacks thirds on that degree of the scale, so the same key gives a minor chord in a minor scale, and a root outside the scale gets a major chord. The other QUAL settings force one shape on every root.

The fifteen keys from F4 to G5 are the strings. Each plays one tone of the chord, climbing through the octaves, so a run from left to right strums upward and the reverse strums down. A string still ringing when you change the chord keeps its old note until you let go of it, so nothing hangs and nothing jumps.

PAD sounds the whole chord underneath while the root key is held, as the Omnichord's chord buttons do, so a root key alone plays its chord; at 0 the root keys are silent and the plate plays alone. BASS adds the root an octave below the pad, so it needs PAD above 0. REG sets the plate's lowest octave.

STRUM, on the LINE page (SELECT from MAIN), strums the plate for you: hold a root key and HARP plays its chord one string at a time, UP, DOWN, UP+DN or RAND, over SPAN strings from the first. With the transport running it strums on the part's DIV (the SEQ page's); stopped, in sixteenths at the tempo. Let go of the root and it stops. Change roots as it runs and the strum starts again from the new chord's first string. The strings you play by hand still play over it, so you can strum along.

HARP plays whichever SOUND is in front. PHYS gives plucked strings; SHOCK with PAD up gives a held brass chord with arpeggios on top.

HARP is not on the default wheel: pick it on the PAIR page (hold HOME, tap GLO, KNOB 2) or give it a black key with the slot picker (The wheel).

MAIN

Pages

LINE

Knob	Label	Range	Starts at
1	STRUM	OFF UP DOWN UP+DN RAND	OFF
2	SPAN	2 .. 15	8

Where it comes from

The Suzuki Omnichord (1981) put chord buttons on the left and a touch strip on the right; HARP keeps that division and maps it onto keys. The engine is firmware/src/harp.c, from databurn's note engines (MIT).