Using Chord Mode - Korg Kronos Operation Manual

Playing and editing Programs
Assigning notes and chords to pads
You can assign single notes and chords to the pads in
three different ways.
Play the notes, and then press Chord Assign
1. Play a single note, or a chord of up to 8 notes.
2. Press the Chord Assign button.
3. Press the pad to which you'd like to assign the
notes.
That's it! The notes are now assigned to the pad.
Press Chord Assign, and then play notes
This method lets you create a chord out of widely‐
spaced notes, even if you can't play all of the notes
simultaneously.
1. Press the Chord Assign button.
2. Play a single note, or a chord of up to 8 notes.
You can play a single note, or a simple chord.
If you like, you can also play up to 8 notes as a legato
phrase. As long as you take care that the notes overlap
each other, the entire phrase will be recorded as a
single chord. You can take as long as you like to play
the phrase.
3. Press the pad to which you'd like to assign the
notes.
After pressing the pad, you're done!
Editing notes and velocities
Once assigned, you can edit the recorded notes and
velocities. If you like, you can also enter new notes this
way, by manually entering them as parameter values.
For more information, please see "1–9: Pads" on
page 54 of the Parameter Guide.
Copying pads
Copying one pad to another is just like assigning notes
from the keyboard.
As with assigning notes to the keyboard, you can
either play the pads first, or press Chord Assign first.
In the interest of saving space and time, only the first
method is described below.

Using Chord mode

Overview
Chord mode lets you choose one of the chords
assigned to the pads, and then play it from the
keyboard. The chord is transposed according to the
note that you play; the played note specifies the lowest
note of the chord, and the higher notes are transposed
to match. As when playing chords from the Pads
themselves, each note in the chord can have a different
stored velocity, scaled by the played note.
In addition to using the on‐screen parameters, you can
turn Chord mode on and off via SW1/2 or the Foot
Switch, and change chords simply by pressing the
pads. In Combination and Sequencer modes, you can
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Copying notes from one pad to another
To copy the note assignments from one pad to another:
1. Press and release the pad whose notes you want to
copy.
2. Press the Chord Assign button.
3. Press the pad to which you'd like to copy the
notes.
The new pad will now play the same notes as the
original pad.
Merging two or more pads together
Using the on‐screen pads, only one pad can be played
at a time. When using MIDI, the keyboard, or a Korg
USB MIDI pad controller, however, multiple pads can
be played at once. You can use this to merge together
the assignments from two or more pads, as long as the
total number of notes is 8 or fewer. To do so:
1. Play and hold all of the pads that you'd like to
merge , so that they're all sounding at the same
time, and then release them.
All of the pads must be held down at the same time.
2. Press the Chord Assign button.
3. Press the pad to which you'd like to copy the
notes.
You can even use one of the pads that was being
merged, if you like. After pressing the destination pad,
you're done.
Fixed Velocity
Each pad stores a velocity level for each of its 8 notes.
The Fixed Velocity button, on the display above the
pads, controls whether or not the pads respond to the
touch location.
When Fixed Velocity is on, the pads always use their
stored velocity settings, regardless of where you touch
the pad.
When Fixed Velocity is off, touching the top of the pad
produces the preset velocities. When you play lower
on the pad, the preset velocities are scaled down
accordingly, maintaining the balance between the notes
in the chord.
make these settings for each Timbre or Track, as
desired. Naturally, you can control all of this via MIDI
as well.
Chord mode can duplicate the way that similar
features worked on classic analog synths (such as the
original Polysix), but it can also use all of the Voice
Assign options to create different effects–such as mono
legato chords with fingered portamento, or poly
chords that overlap one another.
Finally, note that you don't have to use Chord mode to
play full chords; you can also use it to create more
subtle effects, such as stacked octaves or fifths. You can
even adjust the relative levels of these additional
pitches via the stored velocities of the individual chord
notes.