Chorder lets you play full chords with a single trigger note and, via the Record button on the MIDI insert slot, you can choose to record either just the trigger notes or the full chords.
Want lo‑fi style chord progressions? You need look no further than Cubase’s Chorder MIDI plug‑in.
There are various ways in which the lo‑fi genre embraces simplicity, but it also tends to favour more sophisticated, jazz‑influenced chord voicings. A quick web search will cough up a multitude of lo‑fi style chord sequences that you could use as an inspiration for your own musical experiments, but if the piano keyboard isn’t your main instrument, all these seventh, ninth, 11th... and beyond chords might be a bit of a stretch (sometimes literally!). Fortunately, though, Cubase can help you create progressions using these harmonically rich chords, even if your piano‑playing skills are extremely limited.
Trigger Finger
In fact, Cubase offers a number of options for triggering complete chords from single MIDI notes. The Chord Pad system, the Trigger Pads in HALion Sonic 7 and the Chorder plug‑in are all prime candidates. Each has its pros and cons, but in this workshop we’ll be exploring Chorder. The MIDI plug‑in is conceptually simple and it’s very easy to use too. You simply place it into one of the MIDI insert slots of the desired MIDI or instrument track, configure the required chords (a one‑time task for a particular chord set, which can then be saved as a preset) and get playing. Do note, though, that once Chorder is in place its MIDI insert slot acquires a ‘record’ button; more on that below.
Chorder offers three options for arranging chords across potential MIDI trigger notes. Lo‑fi progressions are generally built from just a few chords, with additional interest added via different voicings or different inversions of the underlying core chords, so the One Octave mode, in which you can configure a single‑octave range as chord triggers, makes a sensible starting point. I’ve also set the Playstyle control to ‘simultaneous’, meaning that all the notes in the chord are triggered simultaneously, but this control also allows you to randomise the playback timing in different ways.
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