@Patheros and I are happy to announce the official library release of ChordVault - our first collaboration based on a module idea I pitched to the community earlier this year.
What is ChordVault?
It’s a poly gate/CV sequencer that’s primarily designed for recording (think “storing”) of chords via MIDI Devices or poly CV input (up to 16 steps). There are quite a few presets too, if anyone wants to get started even quicker. What makes it fun are things like direct CV control over step number and sequence length as well as 8 play modes (including random) and clock based rhythms.
I can highly recommend checking out the manual on Github . It has detailed instructions, a quick start and couple of example patches.
We’re hungry for feedback and have a couple of ideas for the future of this module (like an expander for CV control of additional parameters).
Cool. I’m playing with this, with Meander of course. It is a bit tricky to get it to work since Meander harmony gate output is monophonic and Chord Vault expects polyphonic gate. So, I used a SPLIT and MERGE to copy the channel 1 gate from Meander to channel 1, 2 and 3 MERGE and on to Chord Vault, that works okay as long as Meander is playing triads, which is always unless 7th chords are enabled. It would be nice if Chord Vault would copy the channel 1 gate to as many channels as V/Oct channels. Am I interpreting this correctly?
Also, what should be done to prepare for recording? Currently I am clicking the Chord Vault RESET button but it is tricky then to sync with Meander. Maybe I should have master RUN off and then do a master RESET and then enable master RUN? That seems to work but misses the 1st chord for some reason so I watch for the end of the progression and wait for the first chord to play and then switch Chord Vault to play to end recording. Am I doing this correctly?
I think this is going to be a fun module, once I get the workflow down pat.
Currently ChordVault indeed expects the same channel count for CV and GATE input with a max polyphony set in the right click menu. The main reason is that you’re likely to get audible clicks and pops or cut off notes when changing the channel count dynamically for each chord/step, depending on the voice and envelopes you’re using. But you can try activating exactly that behavior in the right click menu.
As for your RESET question, I’d suggest turning on the right click option „Skip Partial clock“ and see if this helps syncing up resets. Also check for any signal delay that maybe occurring due to a different amount of cables going to the modules.
To find out what the best strategy for recording would be in your case, it would be great to see your patch.
With the module set in REC mode, the GATE IN controls the auto advancing of the step (it’s designed to quickly play in chords with a midi device).
You don’t have to reset anything, just select the step you want to „start with“ manually with the knob.
For that to work, you need to stop the clock that causes the CV Gate output of meander. Then run that Clock for a many steps as you want recorded and stop it again, or switch to PLAY mode right away.
I also use a manual trigger a lot. that way you’re in control to prevent steps to be overwritten, because the module starts back around at step 1 after all 16 steps are filled.
I hope this helps and thank you for trying out the module!
Amazing tool, thanks! Pairs well with Impromptu Chord-KEY. One suggestions in Transpose context menu section - could you make such reset option for original input or zero transpose? Can’t went back after trying different transpose modes at this moment
Thanks for your reply. I switched to the BGA POLYMULT for my Meander mono chord gate output to Chord Vault poly chord gate input. That seems to be cleaner than Split and Merge kludge.
I turned on the right click menu skip partial clock option. Right now it seems to be working well to turn off Meander RUN, switch Chord Vault to REC… Do a global reset to Meander and Chord Vault, turn on Meander RUN and manually switch to PLAY after last chord in the progression is played.
Just for clarification, could you tell me:
When in REC mode, does the CLOCK input signal do anything?
When in PLAY mode, does the GATE input signal do anything?
The answer to both appears to be “No”, but just checking.
Also, does the note and channel ordering get preserved during recording and playback? I.E., Meander always puts the chord root note in the first channel, regardless of chord inversions. Will Chord Vault preserve this ordering?
Thanks for a great module. I’m all for you adding more CV control so I can automate more.
Re-reading the manual seems to answer most if not all of my questions I find that I have to read any manual multiple times as I understand more about the module and thus have more context for understanding meaning.
Great to hear you’re making quick progress in getting to know ChordVault. Notes are ordered low to high so if you’re root note from meander will be the lowest in pitch it will continue to be in the first channel.
I use this quite often to „extract“ a Bass note from the chord using a split module and taking just the first channel.
In general, Meander’s use of chord inversions means that although the root note will be in the 1st channel, it may not be the lowest pitch. So, Chord Vault will reorder inversions to lowest to highest. That is what I thought I was seeing with Chord Vault fed Meander chords and I just verified. This isn’t bad, but the chord root will not always be on the first channel after Chord Vault. The notes are correct, although their octaves may be changed by Chord Vault.
I use the 1st channel note from Meander for bass extraction also. That will not work after going through Chord Vault.
I could be totally wrong about this as it it tedious trying to watch playback versus original played chords. It’s probably not worth getting hung up on at this point.
I am not able to sync Chord Vault playback with Meander play. I will attach the patch file below if you want to take a look at it. I recorded a simple Meander chord progression and am trying to play it back in sync with the same Meander progression. More often I get a several milliseconds mismatch of the chords leading edge sound. It is extremely noticeable by listening and visible on the scopes although harder to distinguish.
Could this be related to the very low 30 BPM tempo and thus the long gates? I’ve tried the “Skip Partial Clock” option both on and off but can’t really determine a difference.
Note, when I press the Master Reset button, this goes to Clocked and which distributes it to Meander and Chord Vault. Could resetting the clock be causing sync errors?
This audible sync errors seem to be much more than 1 or a few sample delays.
There is as much the possibility that the sync problem arises in Meander after reset as in Chord Vault. I can get a similar sync error with just Clocked and Meander and FM-OPs in the patch where I am triggering one FM-OP ENV via x8 clocked Meander 1/bar chord and the other FM-OP with the Clocked /4 clock. These ENV gates should match but sometimes they do and sometimes they do not after a Clocked reset distributed to the Meander Reset input. The error is about what I am hearing with Chord Vault and Meander. This would seem to indicate that the timing error originates with Clocked and Meander rather than Chord Vault.
I have no idea whether this is helpful, or even relevant, but just in case: the timing standards mention having to ignore clocks, etc., for up to 1ms after a reset.
Good point. I need to better understand that and how resets should be handled. Thanks. It could be that resets cannot be handled seamlessly while playing.
The story is a bit more complicated than just reset handling, but also RUN handling. Different modules handle RUN signals differently. Thanks for pointing out the CLOCKED options. I’ve never played with those. I should probably start another topic on this so as not to clutter up the ChordVault announcement thread as this is more than just a ChordVault issue.
But, your suggestion looks spot on. If I set CLOCKED to not have outputs high on reset, I can do a master RUN fan-out from Meander to Clocked and while not RUNning, send master RESET to CLOCKED and have CLOCKED fan it out to Meander and ChordVault, and any other sequencers I have in the patch. Then when I re-enable RUN on Meander, Meander, ChordVault and CLOCKED seem to be in perfect sync.
Glad you got it to work for you and thx everyone for helping out.
Would you be able to list your final settings for CLOCKED and ChordVault again? We might add a paragraph in the manual about syncing to clarify the different options.
Sure, here are screen captures of both. Even so, doing an effective sync will be patch dependent. It is a several step process for me to get it to work with Meander, CLOCKED and ChordVault.
I find that I have to read any manual multiple times as I understand more about the module and thus have more context for understanding meaning.
