loopop

TheoryBoard Review: Can it help you write chord progressions and melodies?

Added 2020-08-02 16:57:57 +0000 UTC

Hi!

Music theory can be intimidating and daunting. TheoryBoard from Irijule is an attempt at bypassing the complexities of theory and manifesting in hardware form a controller to help you explore multiple different scales, and create chord progressions, melodies and bass lines within their boundaries.

It's not a generative tool: it doesn't have an arpeggiator, sequencer or even an internal clock. Rather, its focus is on being a palette - you choose a scale, it presents the colors of the scale to you, and it's your job to start painting and bringing these colors to life. Chord by chord, note by note.

There are plenty of software and hardware solutions that come close: on the software side, various "chord suggestors" and scalers - and on the hardware side - we're increasingly seeing more scale and chord options in controllers like the Launchpad Pro MK3, KeyStep Pro and more.

TheoryBoard takes these concepts even further by including a ridiculous number of scales (I feel like I know the byzantine scale quite intimately now), as well as a few innovative chord and note layouts that give you the most advanced music theory palette I've ever seen.

Is it perfect? Nope... mainly, the velocity sensitivity of the pads isn't on par with other pad based products. Hopefully that's fixed in the final production units. If that and a few other flaws I mention in the video are addressed, TheoryBoard could be a fresh and fun way to explore scales without the hassle of actually having to learn them...

All my best,

Ziv (always looking for new ways to explore scales without actually learning them on youtube as "Loopop"...)