Knobula Chord Pilot is a new MIDI controller module that outputs MIDI chords, progressions, and arpeggios for your modular system.
Update: Knobula has started shipping the Chord Pilot module
Scales, chords, and chord progressions are an essential part of electronic music production. They make the music we all love to hear. It’s not a secret that many electronic musicians don’t have any classical music training. This includes teaching harmony, playing piano and chords, etc. Many later learn it themselves or get help via modern technologies.
The music tech industry has recognized this and offered clever MIDI chord software for a long time, giving every musician access to the right scales, chords, and progressions. A music teacher for the DAW. Knobula developed this only for the Eurorack system with his new Chord Pilot module.
Like all Knobula products we have designed Chord Pilot primarily with performance in mind, to inpsire by experimentation, to lose yourself in the moment, and to occassionaly generate impossibly hard to play super chords.
Knobula Chord Pilot
With modular synthesis, you associate CV and gate signals. Less MIDI. However, Knobula shows with its latest modules that MIDI is an option for modular systems. Their newest module is even a MIDI controller module for Eurorack. More precisely, it can generate chords, progressions, and arpeggios, all in a single 12HP module.
According to Knobula, Chord Pilot can store up to 192 chords selectable from banks of 8. You can also create new chords directly on the module using a series of controls that modify the width and spread of fingers over a virtual keyboard. So you get the chords you like, which can be harmonious or super wild.
Chord professions are also available. They are delivered in an orbit that rotates like a sequencer through 8 loaded groups of notes. Knobula describes it as circular chord progressions. These can also be fully customized using the different controls of the module.
Three Modes
You can trigger chords by pressing on the 8 buttons or latching them and stepping through them via the CV input. More interesting are the three play modes of the Chord Pilot engine. Besides the obvious chord mode, there is a ratchet mode that gives you the feeling of strumming notes on a guitar. Lastly, there is an arpeggiator mode.
There are also knobs for scale, interval, and note count with which you can create your own notes. But there are also knobs with less known parameters like Modal, Circle, or Conform. No information yet about this set of controls. You have to see that in the first demos and reviews.
Like the first Knobula modules, a very special release that brings new creative possibilities to the Eurorack world.
Knobula Chord Pilot is available soon for $399,99 USD.
More information here: Knobula
Available for pre-order at my partner
Love that strumming feature around 3 min into the video!