Update your HiChord

Your latest recording survives power-off. The mic take and the uploaded sample come back at start-up — the HiChord copies them to its memory once it has been silent for a few seconds, so give it a moment before switching off. And a factory reset now asks ERASE ALL? before it wipes: joystick UP confirms, DOWN cancels.

Play a whole multitimbral synth. Every looper track owns its own MIDI channel (track 1 → ch 1 … track 6 → ch 6) and your live playing follows the layer you're building — record a loop and your hands move to the next part automatically. Pause, mute and clear all send clean note-offs; the arpeggiator and sequencer record into loops note-for-note.

External synths over USB fixed. Set MIDI OUT → SYNTH, then power-cycle (a replug isn't enough). On battery-powered hosts like the OP-XY keep the HiChord well charged or use a powered hub — or skip USB and run the TRS minijack (Type-A cable) into the synth's MIDI IN, which needs none of that.

Vocoder rebuilt. Full-rate processing, real headroom and the consonant path on by default — clear and crisp instead of boomy and distorted.

Mic sampler pitches true. Sung notes no longer come back an octave (or more) off; quiet recordings now play at full level, and your mic-gain setting stays where you put it.

The tuner grew up. Steady readout, no note-flapping, and a lock-in moment when you're in tune — and it no longer falls asleep mid-tuning.

Also: reverb no longer distorts on dense material at high volume; hold the transport click to clear all tracks; a visual metronome pulses while recording with TRS MIDI on; TOUCH envelope now gates exactly with your finger; the device sleeps when loops are paused.

Lead always in tune, and a new Saw Bass. Held Lead notes no longer drift in and out of tune (the two oscillators behind a lead note beat against each other); Saw Bass sits next to Saw in the sound list — the root an octave down under the chord, with glide built in. Piano, guitars and e-pianos ring out when you let go (new KEYS envelope) instead of cutting off; octave-layered sounds keep their octave when glide is on.

Steadier under load. The audio engine's hot path now runs from the fastest memory on the chip, so dense loops + effects have more headroom. When HiChord still has to protect the audio it tells you: CPU PROTECT / FX BYPASSED means an effect is paused until the load drops (it comes back by itself, FX RESTORED); CPU LIMIT / <effect> OFF means it was switched off — and the menu and the app now show it off, including the vocoder. Drum Loops shows IN LOOP n once a beat lives in a track; a settings save that could not be verified says SAVE FAILED instead of pretending; incoming MIDI is queued so fast chords from a DAW don't drop notes; the vocoder's note release is smoother; and the boot screen now says 3.0 BETA so you can tell which firmware a unit runs.

Share sounds — recordings included. The beta Companion App can now turn any sound into a file (or a short code) you can send to a friend, and load sounds others made from a Community list. This firmware lets the app read a recording back off the HiChord — so a sound built on a mic recording travels with it, in tune.

GrandPno · Tine EP · Organ · Horns · E Guitar · Buzz Org

The sound list now opens with the pianos, so the tour starts somewhere familiar. Every factory sound was also re-checked for tuning — a few older ones were audibly off and are now correct.

Beyond the recordings: Ocean is a new ambient pad built on a rebuilt noise engine, and the square wave is now properly band-limited — the harsh edge on high chords is gone.

A new entry in the effects menu. Switch it on and the chord name is replaced by a live trace of your actual output — filter sweeps, tremolo and envelopes all become visible.

It stays out of the way where it would interfere: not in Chord Hiro, Ear Training or mic mode, and in Sequencer only while it's playing.

Build a sound on the device or in the app, then save it with a name, reorder your collection and back it up to the cloud. Saved sounds also appear on the device itself, spliced into the sound menu.

Because updates wipe the device, the cloud is what carries your sounds across firmware versions.

• Clearing a loop needs a hold. A short click on a playing loop now shows HOLD=CLEAR; keep the stick pressed about a second to actually clear it. No more loops lost to a stray tap.
• Recording has its own screen, and the armed screen spells out the controls: CLICK=REC, KEY=EXIT.
• Arp settings are silent. Hold F1 in ARP mode and press 1–5 for the pattern or 7 for the layer — your chord keeps arpeggiating and nothing extra sounds.
• Chord + F1 shifts octave inside ARP. Hold a chord, tap F1, and the running arp jumps immediately.
• Filter wheel at the top = filter off, silently.
• Menus behave consistently whether you hold or release the menu button, and tap tempo only changes BPM when your taps actually look like a tempo.

• USB-C carries audio and MIDI at once — USB audio is ON out of the box, so you can record both into your DAW in a single take.
• Every looper track has its own MIDI channel. Track 1 plays on channel 1, track 2 on channel 2, up to track 6 on channel 6. Your live playing follows the layer you’re building, so one HiChord can drive six instruments.
• Drums on MIDI channel 10. Pads, beats and bounced beats send standard GM drum notes (kick 36, snare 38, hat 42), so a drum machine or a DAW drum track follows your beat.
• Tempo sync — HiChord sends MIDI clock plus Start and Stop with the looper, and follows incoming clock over USB.
• Play HiChord from a keyboard. With MIDI IN on it behaves like a standard sound module — notes from any controller play the current sound.
• USB audio is cleaner: 24-bit, lower latency, and the ticks and dropouts during arps and randomizing are gone.

• Random sounds are far more varied — voices layer across octaves — while staying consistent in loudness, and they never repeat back-to-back.
• Sampled instruments hold smooth sustains; electric pianos ring for as long as you hold them, and the release wheel now shapes samples too.
• Beat kits and your own drum kits survive power-off.

Chord Hiro is now a curriculum rather than a test: a ladder of levels built on real song progressions, with a proper count-in, an approaching-chord lane so you can see what's coming, per-song scales, and a level select you can move around freely.

Ear Training starts easier and goes further. Two new single-note interval levels come before the chord levels, the display mirrors the physical button layout so you answer with the button that's actually under your finger, and results stay on screen long enough to read. Higher levels loop for endless practice.

• Rebuilt drum engine — six lanes with real per-kit voices, and the cymbal lane is a genuine cymbal rather than a recycled hi-hat.
• Beats follow the tempo. Change BPM and the drums move with everything else; swing survives a tempo change.
• Bouncing a beat into the looper lines up with the master loop's length and phase, so overdubs stay in time.
• Your own kits are uploadable from the companion app and survive power-off.

• Transport control: click the joystick to pause and resume; the metronome freezes and re-syncs rather than drifting.
• Loops restart from the top when you retrigger them, and stopping releases the held chord instead of leaving it ringing.
• Loops no longer mute when you change sound while they're playing.
• Sequencer navigation is a deliberate hold with a building arrow, so you don't skip steps, and the loop point is exact.

DRIVE — TUBE, DRIVE, DIST and FUZZ, from gentle warmth to full break-up.

TAPE — VINYL, TAPE and LOFI: wow and flutter, crackle while you play, and saturation that thickens the low end.

Both sit in the effects menu alongside the others, and both are picked up by the randomizer.

• BORROW — a fourth joystick mode where each direction grabs a dramatic out-of-key chord.
• OUT LVL — in the effects menu. The default HOT is exactly the classic Rev 2.8 output level; switch to LINE for −10 dB that won't clip a mixer input.
• New boot animation — the logo paints on over a starfield, and any button skips straight past it.
• Honest battery meter — five clear segments instead of a vague fill, compensated for the dip under load, and it hides itself while you're on USB power.
• Every list feels the same: a tap moves one step, a hold auto-repeats — sounds, menus, levels, everywhere.
• Quick sound select responds immediately, and the effects menu scrolls in two clear groups (effects one way, system settings the other).
• Wheels and menus keep up under heavy effects — the sluggish filter and attack wheels are fixed.