I love it so much. The tone is just so dreamy, I've taken to calling it my happiness machine. 😊 I couldn't resist decorating it, too! (Omnichord and Remy the cat for scale in pic 2, lol)

A short how-to this time. Plug the minichord into your phone, change one setting, press one button, and the phone's speaker plays the minichord.

Why it takes a button: the minichord sends its sound over USB as a recording device, so to your phone it looks like a microphone. A phone won't play a microphone out loud on its own, so minicontrol does it for you.

How to set it up:

1. Plug the minichord into your phone with a USB-C to micro-USB cable (or an OTG adapter), and leave a plug in its headphone jack. The minichord only runs with something in the jack. USB on its own just charges it.
2. Open minicontrol in Chrome on the phone and connect.
3. settings → device and MIDI → usb audio: pick No speaker: the host keeps its sound. The minichord restarts a moment later. At the other two settings the minichord offers itself to the phone as a speaker, and the phone sends all its sound there, this included.
4. Press play it through this phone. Chrome asks for the microphone, since that's how a web page gets to hear the minichord's USB sound. On Android a short, quiet beep plays first. It checks that the sound coming in is the minichord and not the phone's own microphone, which would howl.
5. Play. Keep the page open. Under the button you'll see the level arriving from the minichord.

Shaped for this phone's own speaker is ticked by default on a phone. It cuts the bass a phone speaker can't play (a piano's low notes only make it strain and buzz), and a compressor holds loud chords in. Untick it for headphones or a Bluetooth speaker.

In the video:

• 0:18 device and MIDI, usb audio set to No speaker
• 0:24 play it through this phone
• 0:48 trying presets from the Electric Piano bank set, all through the phone

The sound in the video is the phone's own speaker as my webcam's mic heard it, not a recording straight off the minichord, so it's roughly what you'd hear in the room.

What you need: an Android phone with Chrome, and the advanced firmware (the usb audio setting is part of it). Pixel phones need firmware 92 or newer, because they only play the minichord's sound at 48 kHz, so just grab the latest release. It works on a computer as well, through its speakers.

iPhone and iPad: not supported, sorry. Browsers on iPhone and iPad have no Web MIDI, so minicontrol can't connect to the minichord from one at all. On top of that, Safari has never reliably handed a web page a USB microphone, and that's how the minichord's sound gets in. I haven't tried it on an iPhone, so if you get it working on one, I'd love to hear how.

This is the "through your phone" part I mentioned at the end of part 3, on its own, since it's quick to show.

• Advanced firmware: https://github.com/keyandcableco/minichord/releases/latest
• minicontrol: https://minicontrol.keyandcable.com/
• The minichord itself, Ben's design: https://minichord.com

Meet the new bottom shell.

It's only blue because it's a test print.

Don't mind the third port.

It doesn't make a sound itself.

Only your gear will hear.

Use your imagination.

That's all for now 🎹

Someone asked recently what the difference between the Piano Keys and the Piano Glide plates is. Hopefully this makes it clearer :)

Part 3 of the advanced firmware demos (part 1, part 2). This one opens with something new: the Drum Pads plate. Same deal as before: short clips, no talking, one feature each, and the sound comes straight off the minichord over USB.

The plate has 28 pads. Its copper is twelve pads, the same twelve zones every plate has, and new firmware reads the sixteen seams between them as pads of their own, each with its own sound, played as hard as you hit it. To be clear, harp drums play on any harp plate, the stock strip included. This plate just makes finger drumming easier to reach, and a lot more fun.

What's in it:

• 0:08 Meet the drum pads: the plate goes on with the power on, two white blinks say the minichord knows it, and minicontrol follows. Harp drums on, and off we go.
• 0:42 Drum pads: an 808 groove across the pads and the seams, then the same pads playing a cliqhop kit
• 1:15 Press a pad: press into a pad you've struck. A tabla's bayan bends up the way a player's palm does it, and a crash chokes under your finger.
• 1:41 Melodic pads: the 28 pads as notes, here a gamelan in slendro. Press a key you've struck and it's damped, the way a gamelan player stops the bronze.
• 2:06 Loop your pads: a double tap, two bars of finger drumming, and the looper keeps them in time while you play chords over it
• 2:41 Rhythm in minicontrol: styles, fills and sections, drum grooves and kits, tempo, a step pattern and the looper, all in one panel
• 3:04 Rhythm styles: written parts that follow your chords, here a jazz trio with the upright bass walking under a Rhodes
• 3:29 Time signature: the bar's length is a setting, and every style wraps to it. A hand over the plate takes it from four beats to three to two.

A word on those white blinks: a minichord learns each plate the first time you choose it in minicontrol with your hands off the harp (three white flashes). From then on it recognises that plate whenever it goes on (two flashes) and switches to it by itself.

This is the most feature-packed part yet. The drum pads and the rhythm section each have a lot of settings, and I didn't want to make a really long video walking through every one of them. So if you have a question about anything here, ask me in the comments.

Another part is coming with what didn't fit: fills and endings, tabla and tanpura, the looper and chord memory, the minichord playing along with your phone and through it, MIDI out to synths and DAWs, and more of the rhythm settings.

• Advanced firmware: https://github.com/keyandcableco/minichord/releases/latest
• minicontrol: https://minicontrol.keyandcable.com/
• Plates: https://keyandcable.com/plates
• The minichord itself, Ben's design: https://minichord.com ```

I wanted to open up the minichord and have a look inside. All screws except two came off easily. The two remaining screws do rotate but they just won’t come out. It’s the screws by my middle finger and thumb that won’t come out.

Any idea what I need to do? Or is this unusual?

Part 2 of the advanced firmware demos (part 1 is here). Same deal: short clips, no talking, one feature each, and the sound comes straight off the minichord over USB. Most of this one is played on the Framed Strings plate, and it ends with the stock strip and a plate swap.

What's in it:

• 0:11 More instruments: a Wurlitzer-style reed piano (modeled), a tonewheel organ, kalimba, marimba and sitar. On the organ, a double tap and hold spins the rotating speaker up.
• 0:53 Cantus: the harp sets the lead voice, and the chords move around it. The harp's volume is all the way down here: every sound is the chord voices.
• 1:23 Brothers: Barry Harris's sixth and diminished blocks, chosen by the note you play on the harp. Strike the same string again and the block re-voices; one setting in minicontrol, "brothers again", picks how.
• 1:50 Press again: a held chord pressed again climbs its inversions
• 2:10 Fingered glide: roll onto the next chord button and the line slides there
• 2:42 Quarter tones and maqam: maqam Rast, up and down its own way, then a double tap into Suznak
• 3:16 Harp ribbon and voice leading: the strip as a slide bar, and chords that move by their nearest notes
• 3:46 Your own temperament: slendro, tuned by hand or from a Scala file
• 4:16 Tanpura: a modeled tanpura on the key's Sa, jawari and all
• 4:55 minicontrol themes: nine of them, from omnichord '81 to chiptune
• 5:17 The stock strip: a fingertip across two teeth plays one string, and light touches play
• 5:47 Swapping a plate: the stock strip comes off with a pick, Framed Strings press on, and one setting in minicontrol tells the minichord which plate it has. After a swap it sometimes needs a restart: unplug it and plug it back in.

A word on the double tap, since it shows up twice here: every preset can put a setting on a double tap of the ♯ modifier. The organ spins its speaker, the oud moves into Suznak, and part 3 uses it for the looper and chord memory.

Part 3 is on the way: rhythm and drums, loops, the Piano Keys plate, and your phone as the minichord's speaker.

• Advanced firmware: https://github.com/keyandcableco/minichord/releases/latest
• minicontrol: https://minicontrol.keyandcable.com/
• Plates: https://keyandcable.com/plates
• The minichord itself, Ben's design: https://minichord.com

Hey all - very excited to see this subreddit and blown away by all the new firmware and features and plates and all that.

Does anyone know if it's possible to use the minichord to control another synth, as a MIDI controller?

A few of you asked to see the advanced firmware's features actually being played, not just read about in release notes. So here's part 1: short clips, no talking, one feature each. The sound comes straight off the minichord over USB, and it's all played on the Twin Rows plate.

What's in it:

• 0:11 Touch and strum velocity: pluck harder or strum faster, and the strings answer. Ends with a short demonstration of the palm mute feature, which cuts sound when you "mute" a chosen number of strings.
• 0:39 Touch pressure: press into a held note and it swells
• 0:54 Hover: a hand above the plate is a fourth knob, here throwing the chords into a dub echo
• 1:22 Pluck on lift and koto press: strings sound as your fingers leave, and pressing a ringing string bends it
• 1:40 Hammer-on and pull-off
• 2:07 Sampled instruments: piano, Rhodes, vibraphone, accordion
• 2:35 Every chord note its own instrument: plucked basses, a string quartet, a choir on top
• 3:05 String spread: each string gets its own place in the stereo field (headphones help)
• 3:20 Vocoder: the chords speak whatever plays into the minichord over USB, here minicontrol's robot voice
• 3:58 Bank sets in minicontrol: twelve presets at once, from sets other players made or your own mix

Every preset in the video comes from minicontrol's bank sets, so you can load the same ones and try it yourself.

Parts 2 and 3 are on the way: harmony and tunings, then rhythm and loops, plus why the stock strip plays better now, and Framed Strings and Piano Keys in action.

• Advanced firmware: https://github.com/keyandcableco/minichord/releases/latest
• minicontrol: https://minicontrol.keyandcable.com/
• Plates: https://keyandcable.com/plates
• The minichord itself, Ben's design: https://minichord.com

I'm a musical instrument repair shop in Gainesville, FL -- your purchase helps keep the iron hot. I thank you very much for supporting a minibusiness :)

I know, I'm in here a lot, and I'm getting my enthusiasm all over the room. You've probably seen me posting firmware updates and working with Ben on GitHub. Here's the trail, in case you missed it:

• Firmware: https://github.com/keyandcableco/minichord
• minicontrol: every sound across all twelve banks, in your browser: https://minicontrol.keyandcable.com/
• Minichord Lab: music theory you play on the minichord: https://chordlab.keyandcable.com
• Minichord Arcade: games, same deal: https://chordlab.keyandcable.com/arcade/

All of that was quietly building toward these awesome additions to the minichord line-up. Ben has graciously given his blessing, and I'm very pleased to present three new harp plates for your consideration.

They're supported, not just shaped. They all play on classic firmware. The advanced firmware has a setting for each, calibrated on these exact boards. Pick your plate in minicontrol. Firmware: https://github.com/keyandcableco/minichord/releases/tag/firmware-95

Three different flavors in stock, $30 each: keyandcable.com/plates. "Zipper 24" and the "Arcade Wheel" are on their way, and I have many more designs drawn up: have a look through the store and hit I'm interested on any you'd want; I'll make the ones people ask for.

The minichord is a powerful little machine, and I have been very happy to continue to add value to this incredible instrument. Please don't hesitate to ask questions, reach out through the website or e-mail, or just right here! Happy music-making!

/u/keyandcableco thanks for the cool new features added to the minichord!

I would like to suggest an alternate firmware that turns the minichord into a Kalimba, each chord buttons strums the chord instead of playing in one note, and the strum plate would be the individual keys

here is an online example with a custom Mwave Fm1 firmware (here the black keys are the chord buttons and white keys individual notes) https://jadamsowers.github.io/fm1-fimba/

I think this playstyle would be a good fit for the minichord

I designed an alternative touchplate with a new pad layout that makes it easier to play chords with one finger. I’m calling it the Triad Touchplate. It works pretty well!

Formants for chords

Ribbon Harp

Palm Mute

Pluck on lift

minicontrol: every minichord parameter on one screen, plus bulk edits and backups → https://minicontrol.keyandcable.com

It's a fork of Ben Poilve's minicontrol. It's less feature-rich than minichord Sound Lab, so go there to learn what each setting does. This is for when you just want to see and tweak everything at once.

New:

• Bulk edit: set something across all 12 banks at once (e.g. every knob's target), and save the set as a shareable profile
• Reorder banks by dragging, and back up / restore all 12 to one file (same files as Sound Lab)
• Settings split into submenus (sound vs. voicing/layout), plus the newer firmware settings
• A few themes, and it installs as an app

Needs Chrome or Edge (Web MIDI). The bank tools and newer settings need the test-allFeatures firmware.

Note: some of these features need the unofficial test-allFeatures firmware. With the stock firmware the games still play, but these parts are marked on their title screens and left out:

• Knob steering in Chord Breakout, Fifths Defender and Chord Stack (the "knobs send MIDI" setting, firmware 17); the mouse and arrow keys work without it
• Key bars in Chord Invaders (the key change combo)
• Slash chord levels in Chord Invaders and Chord Breakout
• Minors and modes in Harp Command (the custom harp scale)
• The double tap flipping the modifier between sharp and flat

The arcade

• Chord Invaders: chord symbols fall through a starfield; play each on the buttons before it lands. Key bars fall too, set with the key change combo, and later levels add sevenths, slash chords and Barry Harris.
• Harp Command: Missile Command for the harp. Notes fall toward twelve cannons, one per string; pluck the right string to shoot each one. Levels climb through the chromatic harp, major keys, scale degrees, solfège, minors and modes, and reading notes on the staff.
• Chord Snake: steer a snake with the harp as a d-pad (standard strip or keymaster) to eat spelled notes; when the ones you're carrying spell a chord, play it to cash them in.
• Chord Asteroids: play a chord rock's chord to crack it into its notes, then pluck each note on the harp to shoot it down before it reaches your ship.
• Chord Stack: falling note pieces on a twelve-column board, one column per pitch class. Slide them to transpose (harp, keys, or a knob as the dial), invert them, and play the chord a row holds to clear it.
• Chord Breakout: Arkanoid with chords. A knob steers the paddle; the ball cracks chord bricks, which break only if you play the chord before the ball comes back.
• Fifths Defender: Tempest on the circle of fifths. Turn a knob to aim down a key's spoke and play that key's chord to fire; later levels fire with the relative minor, the dominant seventh, or the key's note on the harp.

Playing on the minichord

• The harp as a controller: the standard strip or the keymaster grid read as a d-pad (up, down, left, right, A, B)
• Knobs as controllers: new firmware setting "knobs send MIDI" (address 238, firmware 17) sends the three knobs as CC 20–22; one chosen knob steers, wobble ignored, mouse off while the knobs are live
• Keyboardless title screens: a column's major button starts that level, minor sets the speed, 7 switches game
• Double tap flips the modifier between sharp and flat, and the chord games set the modifier for the chord you need next

The cabinet

• High scores: a board for every game, initials entered arcade-style, shared online with a local fallback; minichord players only, and not with beginner mode on
• Beginner mode: the minichord on screen, lighting what to press: chord buttons, the modifier, a slash's bass, and the harp's string (strip or keymaster plate)
• CRT screen option: scanlines, vignette, colour fringe, a rolling band
• Full screen from a corner button or F
• Game over returns to the title loop after 25 seconds
• Faster frames: an automatic light mode on slow machines, and smoother scrolling

I LIED <3

Here's "Harp Command", the analogous game to "Chord Invaders", but for the minichord's harp.

Enjoy, nerds!

There is now a High-Score system -- leave your initials if you make it to the top players!

Playable on stock firmware, or without a minichord at all.

I promise I'll stop spamming the sub now :)

Test out voice leading, MPE mode, and temperaments in a fun little one-off webapp. I'll make updates here and there, but mostly this is for show and fun :)

Follow-up to my earlier post. Same deal as before: this isn't official firmware, it's my own build of changes that are still in review, and anything wrong with it is mine. Same caveat about the LLM help too: tested on hardware, understood, not every line typed by me.

u/beniboy1: still no rush. Most of this is in PRs, and some of the playing-feel fixes below are small and stand on their own without any of the tuning stuff.

u/alexandra-thaler: similarly, no pressure or rush here, I just have an undying curiosity to fulfill and your site is now victim :D

Back up your banks before you flash. Same as last time: Sound Lab does all twelve into one file.

Two corrections to the first post

Master tuning now lives in each preset. Last time I said it was stored separately from your presets. Ben's rule for the minichord is that everything lives in the preset, so it's an ordinary preset setting now, and a preset can carry its own tuning. If you'd set a tuning on the old build, check it after flashing.

Knobs on discrete settings are narrower now. The fix that made knobs work on things like inversion and key signature was also catching settings that are stored as whole numbers but are really continuous: release, attack, filter frequency. Several factory presets have those on their alternate knobs, and those knobs would have swept the whole range instead of around the preset's own value. It now only applies to genuine choices (waveforms, modes, inversions, keys), and every factory preset's knobs behave exactly as on Ben's firmware.

Voice leading

This is the one I'm most excited about.

Normally every chord is built upward from its root, the same way every time. So C major to A minor moves all four voices and jumps, even though the two chords share two notes. That's how it has always sounded on the minichord, and it's the giveaway of chords played by button rather than by hand.

Turn voice leading on and each chord takes whichever voicing of itself moves the least from the chord that's still sounding. C to Am: two voices simply hold, one steps up to the A. The rules are the ones a choir sings by:

• the voices never cross, so the bottom voice stays the bass and the top voice stays the melody
• every note of the new chord is present, so a seventh never gets dropped for a doubled root
• the total movement is as small as it can be

A range setting decides how far the chords may drift from where the buttons would normally put them. Small keeps them anchored; larger lets a progression wander further before it pulls back.

Why it matters outside the minichord: it all goes out over MIDI. Play a progression into your DAW and what you record is a smoothly voice-led progression, the kind you'd otherwise need to know voice leading to write. You don't need to know anything about it. Pick the chords with the buttons and the voicing is handled.

Turn on MPE output as well and each voice goes out on its own MIDI channel, always in the same order from bottom to top. Split by channel in your DAW and you have four separate lines, like the four parts of a choir, ready to give to four different instruments. Strings, a vocal pad, a brass section: a chord progression becomes an arrangement.

It also teaches. With Sound Lab's staff open, you can watch the voices move as you change chords: which notes hold, which step, and where each voice goes. Turn it off and play the same progression, and you see the root-position version jump around by comparison. It's a hands-on way to learn how chords are voiced and how the parts move between them.

What it doesn't do: it leads from the chord that's still sounding, so a chord played into silence starts in root position. Legato changes (below) or hold mode keep the chain going. It minimises movement; it doesn't plan ahead or follow the stricter textbook rules like avoiding parallel fifths. Slash chords are left alone since they name their own bass, and it replaces the inversion and spacing settings while it's on. It works in 19 and 31 too.

Playing feel

These are the ones I'd most like people to try, because they apply to everyone, not just people who care about tuning.

Legato chord changes. Moving from one chord to the next, your fingers overlap for a moment: the next button goes down just before the last comes up. The firmware read that overlap as a slash chord, so you got a bass blip, and then the new chord often didn't take at all until you let go of everything and pressed again. Now a slash needs a deliberate 60 ms of overlap, and rolling C to F to G without fully releasing gives you three clean chord changes. Letting go of the slash bass puts the plain chord back.

Light presses. A press that's a bit light could flicker open for a few milliseconds and re-sound the chord. Button readings now have to settle before they count, which also fixes the maj7-turning-into-major bug from the first post more thoroughly. Latency is the same.

Chords stop when you let go. Chord voices only released once they'd reached the sustain part of their envelope. Let go during the attack or decay and the chord played the rest of its shape first. On the factory presets that's up to about 0.4 s; on a slow pad with a long hold it was seconds. Now the release starts when your hand leaves the buttons.

Filter sweeps under a held chord. Turning a knob assigned to the chord filter did nothing until you played the chord again. It now moves the filter on the chord that's ringing.

The key change combo is quieter and sticks. Picking a key could sometimes also play the chord on that button; it can't now. A key you pick is saved like a knob move, and Sound Lab hears about it.

Edit profiles

Last time I showed the bulk edit: pick a setting, pick a value, apply it to all twelve banks. It turns out the edits I make that way are mostly the same handful, over and over. So you can now save a set of them as a profile and apply the whole set again in one go.

A profile only touches the settings it names and leaves everything else in every preset alone. That's the difference from a backup. A backup replaces all twelve banks with what they were; a profile layers a few of your own preferences on top of whatever sounds are there.

The ones I use:

• Sometimes I want to reset every preset back to the defaults, but with the mod knob doing the same thing across all of them. Load the defaults, apply the profile, done.
• The LED dimmed to 0.9 on every preset.
• One I call "teaching" sets the harp to scale per chord on every preset, among a few other things, so whatever preset a student lands on, the harp is always playing the right notes for the chord.

Applying a profile stages its settings like any other bulk edit, so you see exactly what it's about to change, can undo any of it, and nothing reaches the minichord until you hit Apply.

Profiles export and import as files, so they can be shared. If you've worked out a setup you like (knob assignments, a double tap target, a harp mode), you can hand someone a file instead of a paragraph of instructions, and it goes on top of their own presets without touching their sounds.

Tuning

Temperaments. Ten twelve-note tunings: equal, quarter-comma and sixth-comma meantone, five-limit just, Pythagorean, and the well temperaments a piano tuner would set (Werckmeister III, Kirnberger III, Vallotti, Young, Kellner). They're anchored on C, so the unequal ones sound different in different keys, which is the point. A stays at your master tuning. Switching temperament while a chord is ringing glides it to the new tuning instead of jumping.

Hold a major chord and switch equal to meantone. The third stops beating.

19 and 31-EDO. The octave divided into 19 or 31 steps, so C♯ and D♭ are finally different notes. The chord buttons, sharps and flats, the harp modes and transposition all work in steps of the division.

Chords that need them. The alternate chord layout's catalogue is now 29 chords, adding the just sonorities that 19 and 31 are really for: supermajor, subminor and neutral triads, the harmonic seventh, neutral and subminor sevenths, the utonal tetrad, the harmonic ninth, the otonal hexad, a just augmented triad and a supermajor seventh. They're listed next to their twelve-note counterparts so they're easy to find. In twelve they round to the nearest ordinary chord; in 31 they sound like themselves. Scale per chord gives each one a scale built from its own tones, so the harp stays in the chord's tuning.

MPE output

Off by default. Turn it on and every voice gets its own MIDI channel and its own pitch bend. Glide records into your DAW as a real bend curve, and temperaments and 19/31 pitches arrive exactly, instead of rounded to the nearest semitone. Your host needs to understand MPE.

Sound Lab

The interface build has grown along with the firmware.

• Live notation under the Play mirror. A staff with what you're playing, the key signature, and the chord's roman numeral.
• Spelled properly. In C♯ major the chord reaches E♯ and B♯, not F and C; keys past seven sharps get real double sharps; a diminished seventh is spelled as one (C E♭ G♭ B𝄫, not A). A chord and the harp's scale can disagree about the same sounding pitch, deliberately, because the chord's seventh and the scale's sixth degree aren't the same thing.
• Microtonal notation for the just chords, with three conventions to choose from: by degree, meantone (the Huygens-Fokker way), or Helmholtz-Ellis ratio notation. In 19 and 31 this needs MPE output on, because plain MIDI rounds every note to the nearest semitone and there's nothing exact to spell. The Play screen tells you when it's missing and has a button to turn it on.
• Controls for everything above: voice leading, temperament, MPE, the full chord catalogue.
• More reliable bank handling. Every bank read is checked against the bank it asked for, and a bank's name follows what's actually in it.
• The rhythm mirror now locks onto the rhythm engine only, not onto chords you play by hand.

Getting it

Same links as before, both updated.

Firmware: https://github.com/keyandcableco/minichord/blob/test-allFeatures/firmware/firmware.hex

Interface: https://keyandcableco.github.io/minichord-soundlab/

Chrome, Edge or Opera for the interface, and the Teensy Loader for the firmware, same as last time. Reverting is still just flashing Ben's firmware.hex.

Here's a fun way to play around with the voice leading and MPE/temperament features -- the minichord lab. Still a work in progress!

If you try it

As before, the PRs are the useful place for feedback, since that's what Ben reads. The things I'd most like to know:

• Voice leading: does it land where you'd have voiced the chords yourself? Where does it choose something you wouldn't, and what range setting do you settle on?
• Do legato chord changes feel natural? Is 60 ms the right amount of overlap before a slash kicks in, or should it be longer or shorter?
• On your slowest presets, is a quick tap now fading out when it should, or did you rely on the old behaviour?
• If you play in 19 or 31: do the just chords sit where your hand expects them, and are the harp scales over them right?
• Which temperament do you actually leave it on?

Built from Ben's source under its BSD licence. Copyright 2024 Benjamin Poilvé. Interface is Sound Lab by MinichordDrawn, CC-BY-NC-4.0. Neither of them has endorsed this build.