orph has released MONOCHORD, a “harmony workstation, dream machine and chord instrument” for macOS and Windows.
A single mouse click or key press plays a complete, correctly voiced chord from the instrument’s own sampled sounds. MONOCHORD is a sampled instrument, not a generative AI MIDI chord generator.
The sound library contains 425 sounds recorded from iconic studio hardware rooted in 1980s to 2000s, together with more than 600 chord voicings that were voiced by human ear rather than generative AI. The library is around 11.8 GB and is loaded from within the plugin after installation.
Chord position is set with one control that runs from -12 to +16. Upward, the control switches to separate, higher voicings rather than transposing the same shape; downward, each step is audibly darker, ending on bare root and fifth positions. A second control sets the spread in three stages: close position, open position and orchestral spacing.
MONOCHORD is built for immediacy: there are no plugin chains to wire and no theory to look up. Sounds, chords, arpeggios, effects and export sit in one instrument window, and musical ideas take shape within seconds. The keyboard is drawn large across the screen and a single key plays a complete voicing, so piano parts can be performed by mouse or by one finger without having trained as a pianist. In Scale Mode the keyboard shows the chosen scale and mutes the notes that do not belong, so every key is right, which also makes MONOCHORD a way to hear and study harmony while playing.
MONOCHORD holds no stock or default preset sounds. Instead it has a mode called FACTORY. One click designs a complete new sound: instrument, effects, space and motion are combined under musical rules rather than pure chance, so no two clicks sound the same. Every result is a starting point to be shaped further, not a finished preset picked from a list.
Main Features
- 425 sounds including synthesizer engines, sampled from analog/digital synthesizers and real instruments.
- More than 600 chord voicings, laid out by hand.
- Sound library of around 11.8 GB, loaded from within the plugin after installation.
- Voicing control from -12 to +16, with separate higher voicings upward and progressively darker positions downward.
- Spread in three stages: close position, open position, orchestral spacing.
- Arpeggiator, sequencer and beats.
- Effects: reverb, delay, chorus, phaser, flanger, tape, crystallizer, crunch, orbit spatial engine, filter, brilliance and inflate.
- Bass mode, strum and glide.
- Voicing preset browser.
- FACTORY mode: one click designs a complete new sound, no stock or default presets.
- No plugin chain to set up: sounds, chords, arpeggios, effects and export in one window.
- Audio stems and MIDI export by drag and drop: dry, effect and full mix.
- MIDI output for external plugins and hardware instruments.
- Manual as a web version and as a PDF.
- Updates itself since version 1.0.4.
Pricing & Availability
MONOCHORD is available now for macOS and Windows as VST3, AU and Standalone. The price is $139 / €139 including tax. A rent to own option is also available. A demo with the full feature set runs for 14 days and is available at orph.audio/monochord. An AAX version for Pro Tools is in development and not yet available.
The manual is available at orph.audio/manual
MONOCHORD was released on August 2nd, 2026. The current version, 1.0.4, updates itself: a notice appears in the oscilloscope display, and one click downloads the update and starts the installer. It also revises the behavior of the voicing control.
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