HiChord

Roll it to set how loud HiChord is. But it's secretly the main 'more/less' knob for the whole device — while you're in a menu it adjusts an effect's intensity, and combined with a colored button it becomes a brightness, fade-in, or fade-out control.

tip: Hold the gray button + wheel for attack (how fast notes fade in, 1–2000ms); hold yellow + wheel for release (how long notes ring out, 1–5000ms); hold red + wheel to sweep the filter cutoff (brightness, 20Hz–20kHz) — the filter shortcut works even outside the menu.

The heart of the instrument. Each button plays a whole chord that's guaranteed to fit with the others. Hold one and push the joystick to reshape it; hold one and tap a colored button to shift its octave or flip its inversion. In other modes these same buttons become drums, single melody notes, arp triggers, or sequencer steps.

tip: Quick-select shortcuts: hold yellow + a chord button jumps to a sound; hold red + a chord button jumps to a mode; hold gray + a chord button shifts that one button's octave down (hold red + that button shifts it up, range -2 to +1). Hold a chord + tap yellow to cycle Root/1st/2nd inversions for smoother transitions.

The 'key' button — press it to move all seven chords to a different musical family, or to shift everything higher or lower. It also handles housekeeping combos like checking the battery.

tip: Combos: gray + red shows battery status; gray + yellow does a factory reset (your presets and loops are kept); hold gray + yellow + red for 5 seconds to enter firmware-update (DFU) mode. Hold gray + turn the wheel to fine-tune how quickly notes fade in.

The 'sound' button — press it to change your instrument, and push the joystick up from there to reach all the effects (reverb, delay, chorus, filter, etc.) and deeper settings like scale, USB mode, and MIDI. Press it repeatedly to step through sounds.

tip: Everything meaningful lives one push-up from this menu: effects, ADSR presets, voice count, bass mode, voice leading, vocoder, scale choice, and USB/MIDI switching. Hold yellow + wheel to control how long notes ring out after you release them.

The 'mode' button — press it to change what the seven buttons do: full chords (Play), guitar-style Strum, single-note Lead, Arpeggio, Drums, Sequencer, Drone, and more. Push up from here to set your tempo, or tap it three times in rhythm to set the speed by feel.

tip: Push the joystick down inside a mode to reach its hidden settings (strum speed, arp rate and pattern, game difficulty). Hold red + a chord button (1–7) to jump straight to the seven most-used modes without opening the menu.

Your window into what HiChord is doing — it names the chord you're playing, shows which menu you've opened, and displays the six looper tracks (filled = playing, outline = empty, 'R' = recording).

tip: The looper shows only 2 tracks at a time across 3 pages — the shape tells you the page: circles = tracks 1–2, squares = tracks 3–4, triangles = tracks 5–6. Push the joystick left/right to flip pages.

On newer units this tiny mic lets your voice shape the synth (vocoder), tune an instrument, or record a real-world sound you can then play as an instrument across the chord buttons.

tip: For the vocoder, pick a harmonically rich sound like Saw, Square, or FM as the carrier and say vowel shapes ('ahhh', 'oooh') — pure Sine gives the vocoder almost nothing to work with. Mic samples are temporary and vanish at power-off unless you save them to a preset.

This is the expressive core. Hold a chord and push it to add or alter notes — up flips major/minor, right adds a smooth 7th, up-right adds a bluesy dominant 7th, down opens things up with a sus4, and so on. Release and the chord snaps back. Push it in like a button to open and drive the looper. In menus it's how you scroll and choose.

tip: Clicking the joystick in a menu randomizes things (in the sounds menu it picks a random waveform; in the key menu it randomizes everything). Change the joystick's whole vocabulary in effects → 'Joystick' (Default → Extended → Chromatic) — in Chromatic mode, pushing left/right with no chord held shifts the entire key up or down a semitone so you can modulate mid-song.

Slide it one way to turn HiChord on (the screen lights up and shows your key), slide it back to turn it off. That's it — no hold-to-power sequence.

tip: If HiChord won't power on, plug in USB-C and wait a few minutes before flipping the switch — at very low battery it goes into a deep sleep to protect the cell. To power-cycle a frozen unit, slide off, wait 3 seconds, slide back on.

Plug in headphones here to hear the full stereo sound (much richer than the mono speaker). It also feeds external speakers, a mixer, or pro gear with the right adapter. Plugging anything in automatically mutes the built-in speaker.

tip: When you run USB MIDI to a computer, no audio travels over USB — use this jack to actually hear HiChord's own sound. Use a 3.5mm-to-1/4 inch adapter to connect to guitar amps or studio mixers.

This one port does three jobs: it charges HiChord (about 2 hours for a full charge, and you can play while charging), it sends your sound into recording software as audio, and it sends your notes to software instruments as MIDI. No drivers needed — it shows up as 'HiChord'.

tip: You choose between audio and MIDI in the effects menu under 'USB Mode' — the device briefly disconnects and reconnects when you switch. For iPhone/iPad use a Camera Adapter (Lightning) or a direct cable (USB-C models); Android needs USB OTG support.

The little speaker that lets you play HiChord with nothing plugged in — great for practice and quick ideas. It's mono, so for the full wide stereo sound use headphones.

tip: You can manually turn the speaker off in the effects menu ('Speaker') to save battery or avoid feedback near a mic, but it resets to ON every time you power up.