We’ve seen plenty of ‘smart’ MIDI keyboards recently that are designed to make it easier for you to play, but what about a controller that allows you to trigger chords just by pressing buttons? That’s what you get from the appropriately-named Chordmonger - the brainchild of Cantrell Hepner and Russell Strand - which is currently on Kickstarter.
Plug it in (via 3.5mm or USB MIDI), turn it on and the chords are immediately there in front of you. A speed slider enables you to break chords apart - so that you can trigger arpeggios, for example - and there’s also a latch mode so that the selected chord plays until you fire off another one.
As well as standard majors and minors, you can also trigger more complex chords (7ths, 9ths, augmented, diminished, etc) and play different inversions. The octave can be adjusted, too, and you can change the arpeggio direction. Chords can also be sequenced, or you can simply play notes.
Chordmonger syncs to an external MIDI clock so that the arpeggios can sync to tempo. In this mode, adjusting the speed slider will create subdivisions that fit the current tempo.
The 41 buttons on the Chordmonger are made of silicone, and it comes in an acrylic case.
A pledge of $89 should get you a Chordmonger in April 2021, assuming it meets its fairly modest £7,490 funding target. Find out more on Kickstarter.
