Syntakt Chord Mode

Elektron Gear Syntakt
#1

Is it possible to set the chord type relative to the scale? If not, it would be an awesome additional feature to toggle on/off when long pressing the scale mode… perhaps a secondary page on the long press? This would allow for quick adjustments relative to the key. i.e.

Diotonic Major Scale:
I = Major
ii = minor
iii = minor
IV = Major
V = Major
vi = minor
vii = diminished

so on and so forth with respect to various modes and scales. You could maybe turn a secondary knob for extensions… or maybe that’s something you could just parameter lock in.

Thanks!

10 Likes
#2

I’m not sure how easy this is to implement, but it’d be really nice to have more musical control in chord mode. (It seems geared toward techno-genre moving m7 or m9, or m7b5 chord stabs around?)

If I might add to a wish list on Elektron possibly improving the list of chords in chord mode:

  1. Keys players generally prefer rootless right-hand voicings for better sound: (Fmaj9, for instance, is played EGAC or inversions, while the F is played by the bass or implied by the melody. 5ths are also often omitted with [edit:no] change in character.) When you skip the root, it lets you play other very common chords: this opens 9, 6/9, 13th chords, and much better voicings.
  2. Rootless voicings open possibilities for adding some of the more commonly used dominant chords: 7#9, #5b9, alt (#5#9). Purple Haze. Josie. These are good sounds.
  3. Some of the chords in the list of 38 are … well, wrong? That is to say, they describe different, more simply named chords in ET harmony: C M6add4no5 = Fmaj7; Csus4add#5 = Fm add9 (awkward voicing); Maj7/6 no5 = Amadd9, CSus4#5b9= C#maj7.
  4. Different organization? It’d be really nice to have functionally similar chords—major, minor, dominant—adjacent to each other on the list so LFOs could, for instance, comp or substitute between, e.g. m6, m7, m9, or 13 and #5b9.

Sorry to respond with a slightly different topic (been thinking about this), but I also definitely agree with you that some way to lock to a key—so that moving around triads in C, e.g. would just play white notes—would be really nice and make the chords much more useful. I doubt it’d be easy, programming-wise, to peg it to the KB SCALE feature, but that would be amazing. Or: since there are only 38 chords in the list, so presumably they could be added to, and maybe even the I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, and half-diminished vii of the pressed key could be in the additions.

Custom chord configurations, like on the Nymphes, would obviously be cool too.

7 Likes
#3

I imagine this might be challenging to release in updated firmware, because it would have to be done in a way that did not alter the performance for people who had already used the current setup.

2 Likes
#4

:cold_sweat:

#5

I think that’s right, a change to the existing settings would definitely be destructive. Depending on how it’s coded, it might be difficult to do rootless voicings, too.

What gives me hope, though, is the fact that there are only ~38 chord settings currently, out of what I assume is a possible 127-ish. There might be room to duplicate (minors in the 40s, majors in the 50s, e.g.). Room for doubles or even triples of all the classic chords.

My current workaround, in case it helps OP or others, is to mainly use the major and minor triads, with a MIDI controller with pitch bend (not recordable into sequencer) or a CC value knob (recordable with mixed results, getting the hang of it) set to move the Type parameter between 4 and 5 for major and minor chords. That allows for reasonably natural playing of simple progressions (e.g. C-Am-F-G) on one track/channel.

A few jazz chords are easily playable by transposition on the fly (Am7 /F bass = a decent Fmaj9), too, or (a little trickier for me) by tuning the oscillator up a 3rd or 4th.

1 Like
#6

At least, I think it would be interesting to change chords list order, in order to be able to modulate them with an lfo.
Group major and minor chords firstly.
As is, it can’t be modulated.

Unison × 2 • Unison × 3 • Unison × 4 • minor • Major • sus2 • sus4 • m7 • M7 • mMaj7 • Maj7 • 7sus4 • dim7 • madd9 • Madd9 • m6 • M6 • mb5 • Mb5 • m7b5 • M7b5 • M#5 • m7#5 • M7#5 • mb6 • m9no5 • M9no5 • Madd9b5 • Maj7b5 • M7b9no5 • sus4#5b9 • sus4add#5 • Maddb5 • M6add4no5 • Maj7/6no5 • Maj9no5 • Fourth • Fifth

I propose a different order, made quicly, it has to be improved, so suggestions and corrections welcome !

Unison × 2 • Unison × 3 • Unison × 4
Fourth • Fifth

minor • m7 • madd9 • m6 • mb5 • m7b5 • m7#5 • mMaj7 • mb6 • m9no5 • dim7

Major • M7 • 7sus4 • sus4 • sus2 • Maj7 • Madd9 • M6 • Mb5 • M7b5 • M#5 • M7#5 • M9no5 • Madd9b5 • Maj7b5 • M7b9no5 • sus4#5b9 • sus4add#5 • Maddb5 • M6add4no5 • Maj7/6no5 • Maj9no5

5 Likes
#7

This seems practical and eminently doable. There’s of course the fact that it mucks up all previous songs made using the chord engine.

2 Likes
#8

Which thus renders it impractical I think ? Unless of course Elektron want to put effort into the challenge of doing that without messing up previous songs

2 Likes
#9

Probably sucks, because of the lack of lfo on chords type. :pl:
Yeah, late in the party, I guess this chord list is the same for MCycle. Weird order.

#10

It’s possible this might be too orderly and why they chose not to do it.

Yes, it’s the same on the MC.

1 Like
#12

Yes, this is along the lines of what I was thinking up-thread. I think this list could start at setting 39 and non-destructively duplicate chords that are already there (there’s likely room for up to 63 or 127 settings, I would guess).

I like the unison, 4ths and 5ths together. I’d split the rest by major7-type (tonic), minor-type (, and dominant, and skip the “made-up” chords (see above).

The dominant grouping could include at least: M7 (usually notated 7), 7b5, 7#5, 7sus4, 7b9, 7#9 (not currently included, should be), and maybe others if they added rootless voicings.

I agree that being able to comp between functionally similar chords with an LFO would add a lot to the chord machine.

2 Likes
#13

Very good suggestion!

I think choosing a convenient order suiting everyone is not easy. I proposed a list lazily made, grouping minor and major chords, but I didn’t group them according to refence scales (major, harmonic, melodic, and other scales corresponding to chords I don’t know/use).

@Humanprogram And sorry I didn’t read properly your suggestions, I posted in that thread thinking it was related but didn’t read everything.

Too tired to group chords by scale, reference like 5# chords you can find in harmonic scale. Many chords can be used in different scales !

It would be great to have different order suggestions for a consensus.

1 Like
#14

I honestly think, even though I have no idea what their code is like, that any trivial re-ordering is likely to change how any previous song created with sy chord will sound. And not just the ones that use chord with lfo … ALL patterns that use chord.

If I’m right elektron have a choice of

  • doing something trivial which will wreck all pre-existing songs
  • doing something very hard that tries to both support patterns created with the initial chord ordering, and patterns created with a new chord ordering.

If this re-ordering ever surfaces, I suspect it might be some while away. Like, how long after Digitakts launch was it, that it got 2 lfos?

#15

Not with an additional order with the free “slots”, if you read more carefully above posts. :wink:

Better late than never. As Elektron seems to continue to listen to users requests, it worth to talk about it, and propose them something elaborated! :wink:

#16

I’m not convinced there are “free slots” :wink: You may have done your sums but you and I have no idea how they are mapped internally. Not everything in the elektron world is a linear mapping of the numbers 0-127.

EDIT: But I should probably stop posting on this topic. We’re all of us guessing what’s possible, some optimistically, some pessimistically.

#17

No problem ! Just thinking/talking about optimisation between users, Elektron decide ! We had very good surprises, so I think it’s not useless.

#18

Could have a “Legacy Chord” option in the settings so people have the choice to opt in or not. Similar to the AR effects routing options I believe

4 Likes
#19

Mostly for external midi control !
(Maybe based on human max life :thinking:)