Chord v2’s very annoying low tone

Our Modules Chord v2
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I’ve been starting to use my Chord v2 rather more of late, having previously not appreciated just how useful a polyphonic wavetable oscillator could be. However- and assuming that there are eight banks of eight wavetables (yes, I know they morph smoothly, but bear with me)- I find that maybe sixty of those sixty-four voices have a constant, unvarying low tone underlying the chord. Whatever the pitch, whatever the ‘quality’, whatever the voicing, there is this low tone that does not necessarily bear any relation to the chord being played. For example, a four-chord sequence- Cm, Bbm, Ebm, Gm say- may have a low C underlying the first of those chords, but it will also be an unvarying presence under the other three too, and that is frankly inharmonious.

Is this a fault? Can it be fixed with a firmware ‘refresh’ or similar? I’d hate not to have the polyphony option to hand, but I’m finding it unusable as it is…

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I think you might be hearing the 7th output mixed in with the chord. Make sure the lowest button is Blue and that should fix it.

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Sorry- I’ve only today re-racked the module and tried your suggestion. And yeah, that worked- thanks!

I’ve tended to keep those three lights on the r/h side off as far as possible- despite rtfm I still have little or no idea what they actually do. But I’ve got polyphony back in the case- woo hoo!

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Glad @Theotteryears was able to help resolve your issue! I’d be happy to clarify the Chord buttons as well, they are super helpful in taking full advantage of the polyphony Chord provides:

Mode

The Mode button changes between Chord’s 4 different tuning/sequencing modes. Each let’s you control the voices available on Chord in different ways.

Default Mode

LED Color Indication: Off
In the default mode, Chord tunes and sequences all 4 voices together, using the Course and Fine Tuning knobs to tune the voices, and the V/Oct input to sequence.

Melody Mode

LED Color Indication: Blue
In melody mode, the Lead CV input is enabled, allowing you to independently sequence the 4th voice (sent through the 7th output). The remaining three voices (root, 3rd, and 5th) are sequenced as a triad via the V/Oct input. Note that the 7th output will match the root output pitch when no CV is present.

This mode is great for creating a lead voice with Chord while still being able to create pads with the remaining voices.

Fun Fact!
You can change which octave the 4th voice starts at using the options.txt file on Chord’s SD card. you can set it to either 1 octave below the root pitch (great for bass lines), at the same pitch as the root (great for pitch complexity in pads), or one octave above the root pitch (great for leads).

Free Poly Mode

LED Color Indication: Green
In Free Poly Mode, each voice is independently tuned and sequenced. This let’s you use each voice to their fullest potential, letting you create complex polyphonic sequences from a single sound source.
Here are the voices and their tuning knobs/CV inputs:

Root

Tuning knob: Course knob
V/Oct input: V/Oct

Third

Tuning knob: Fine knob
V/Oct input: Lead

Fifth

Tuning knob: Voicing
V/Oct input: Voicing

Seventh

Tuning knob: Quality
V/Oct input: Quality

Unison Poly Mode

LED Color Indication: Cyan
In unison poly mode, Chord’s voices are all independently sequenced using the same V/Oct inputs as explained in the Free Poly Mode section, but they all share the same root tuning. This makes it super easy to independently sequence each voice while staying in tune, but you do lose the freedom to independently set the root of each voice like in Free Poly Mode.

Another neat thing is that the mix output essentially becomes a unison output, and if you mult your pitch sequence to each of the voices Chord becomes a huge, stacked unison voice.

Harm

Harm is an internal quantizer and auto-harmonizer for Chord, which can be helpful if you want to use random CV to sequence your pitch, but want it to still sound tonal, or if you want your Chord quality to change appropriately within the scale you are sequencing.

Normal/Unquantized Mode

LED Color Indication: Off
The default mode leaves Chord unquantized, letting you smoothly change frequency and preventing any chord quality changes, which have to be changed using the Quality knob/CV input.

Major Scale Mode

LED Color Indication: Blue
In Major scale mode, Chord is (obviously) quantized to the major scale. This also includes Major scale auto-harmonization, meaning that each chord in the scale will reflect the appropriate chord quality change needed to stay in key. For example, in a C major scale, sending a v/oct input to take Chord to D would also change the quality to minor, since D minor is in the C major scale.

Also, since Chord is internally quantized, any CV data prior to the quantizer is effectively nullified (Slew, pitch drift, etc.)

Minor Scale Mode

LED Color Indication: Green
In Minor scale mode, Chord is quantized and auto-harmed to the minor scale, and behaves just like the major scale otherwise!

Chromatic Scale Mode (Only available in Free Poly or Unison Poly Modes)

LED Color Indication: Cyan
In Chromatic scale mode, Chord quantizes each voice to semitones, giving you a larger array of pitches to sequence while staying in tune.

Triad

The Triad button includes or removes the 7th output from the Mix output jack.

LED Off

The 7th output is included in the Mix output when the Triad LED is off.

LED On

The 7th output is removed from the Mix output when the Triad LED is on. This is helpful when using Melody Mode and you want the lead voice fully separated from the rest of the voices.

Let me know if you have any additional Chord questions!

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Wow. Rather more of an answer than I was expecting- and it’s certainly a novel way of getting someone to rtfm…

That’s the beauty of modular, is it not? Ask a question and you don’t get a customer service bot, you get the dev, or the builder. Try calling Behringer and getting that!

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Hahaha I always jump at the opportunity to get this info out, whether people are looking for it or not :wink: Regardless, I think it’s great to have this stuff in your back pocket when coming up with a new patch, especially when your goal involves more complex polyphonic control. Hope it wasn’t too much, and I’m always happy to answer any other questions you have!

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No, you’re fine. I quickly realised that Chord v2 was the most complex module in my rack, but I’ve always persevered with it. Mind you, i’ve since come to the conclusion that Intellijel’s Steppy runs it very close, and may in fact be even harder to understand!

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Totally get it, Chord can be a bit daunting. Plus, when you can get some great results by just patching v/oct and patching out the Chord mix, it’s easy to go back to that for immediate results (I know I tend to do that a lot).

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…or a gate sequencer in an odd pattern with a short choppy envelope. In fact, I’ve got a dual low pass gate coming that will really help with that.

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