Purpose

Progression is the harmony engine for a generative set. From a scale and the timeline it builds a voice-led chord progression, shaped by tension, motion, and borrowing, and emits it as chord state for other Voro nodes plus a set of playable voices. You can let it wander, seed and lock a loop, follow a played root, or type a lead-sheet progression directly.

Use

Wire a timeline clock into Input 0 and a scale into Input 1. Choose a Mode, set the Rate at which chords change, and route chord_state into harmony followers such as Bassline, Comp, and Chord while voices drives a pad or keys instrument. For a fixed progression, set Mode to defined and type the chords into the Progression field.

Inputs and outputs

• Input 0: timeline timeline clock. Required.
• Input 1: scale scale context. Optional, sets the key.
• Input 2: steer a control used to follow or steer the harmony. Optional.
• Output 0: chord_state the primary harmonic decision for downstream nodes.
• Output 1: voices playable polyphonic voices for an instrument.

Controls

• Mode: functional for purposeful changes, wander for free movement, follow to reharmonize around a played root, defined to play a typed progression.
• Rate: how often the chord changes, from beat to four_bars.
• Rootnote: key center.
• Tension, Motion, Borrow: how spicy, how active, and how often chords are borrowed from outside the key.
• Dejavu and Looplen: how strongly the progression locks into a repeating loop and its length.
• Voicing, Voices, Useseventh, Octave: how the chords are voiced.
• Velocity and Retrigger: level and whether voices retrigger on each chord.
• Progression: the typed chord string used in defined mode, for example C Am F G.
• Stepbeats, Steerchannel, Seed: timing of the typed progression, the steer input channel, and repeatable randomness.

Notes

• Send chord_state to every node that should follow the harmony so the whole patch stays in key.
• Raise Dejavu to settle a wandering progression into a memorable loop.
• defined mode reads a lead-sheet string, while follow reharmonizes around the steered root.

Ports

Inputs

• timeline row
  timeline_state_f32_v1
• scale row
  scale_v1
• steer row
  control_f32_v1

Outputs

• chord_state row
  chord_state_v1
• voices row
  note_voices_f32_v1

Parameters

Mode (Mode) Menu op('progression').par.Mode

Default:

functional

Options:

functional, wander, follow, defined

Rate (Rate) Menu op('progression').par.Rate

Default:

bar

Options:

beat, bar, two_bars, four_bars

Rootnote (Rootnote) Float op('progression').par.Rootnote

Default:

55

Range:

0 to 127

Tension (Tension) Float op('progression').par.Tension

Default:

0.4

Range:

0 to 1

Motion (Motion) Float op('progression').par.Motion

Default:

0.5

Range:

0 to 1

Borrow (Borrow) Float op('progression').par.Borrow

Default:

0.15

Range:

0 to 1

Dejavu (Dejavu) Float op('progression').par.Dejavu

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 1

Looplen (Looplen) Int op('progression').par.Looplen

Default:

4

Range:

1 to 8

Voicing (Voicing) Menu op('progression').par.Voicing

Default:

root

Options:

root, first_inv, second_inv, spread, drop2

Voices (Voices) Int op('progression').par.Voices

Default:

4

Range:

1 to 8

Useseventh (Useseventh) Toggle op('progression').par.Useseventh

Default:

Off

Options:

Off, On

Octave (Octave) Int op('progression').par.Octave

Default:

0

Range:

-4 to 4

Velocity (Velocity) Float op('progression').par.Velocity

Default:

0.8

Range:

0 to 1

Retrigger (Retrigger) Toggle op('progression').par.Retrigger

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On

Seed (Seed) Int op('progression').par.Seed

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 100000

Steerchannel (Steerchannel) Int op('progression').par.Steerchannel

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 63

Stepbeats (Stepbeats) Float op('progression').par.Stepbeats

Default:

4

Range:

0.125 to 64

Progression (Progression) Str op('progression').par.Progression

Default:

C Am F G