User's Manual

1.4.3. The Chord / CC unit
At the right of the transport button, you'll find a Chord / CC unit with a status screen, a full
colour backlit LED button and four 270° knobs.
The Chord button on the Chord / CC unit enables you to create a chord that will play when
pressing a single key. Chord mode on the KeyStep 37 is more flexible than on the KeyStep;
you can use the four knobs to create various chord types and strum patterns.
First of the mighty four is the Type knob. Turn it to cycle through a list of 11 predefined chords.
The twelfth entry is yours to define, you can store your own magic chord there.
The Notes knob allows you to control how many notes of the chord will sound. You can stack
a huge eight note chord and then use the note knob to control how many of them will sound!
The Vel>Notes knob lets you control how many notes of the chord will sound dynamically!
It works in tandem with the Notes knob: the number of notes that will sound is dependent
on the velocity you have programmed or recorded in a step or played on the keyboard.
When playing with low velocity only the root and the lowest notes in the chord will play.
With increased velocity more notes will sound.
With the Strum knob, you spread the notes of the generated chord in time. In the central
position, all notes of a chord will sound simultaneously. When turning the knob clockwise,
the lowest notes of the chord will sound first and the higher notes in the chord will be
delayed. Turning the knob counter-clockwise will have the reverse effect: the highest notes in
the Chord will sound first. The knob has four zones: in the upper two zones the strum speed
is defined in absolute time in miliseconds . In the lower two zones the strum is quantized to
the current tempo. For more details please refer to Chapter 3: selecting strum type [p.29].
The Chord button takes on a completely different role when you press it while holding
down the Shift button. It will turn the four knobs into CC controllers you can use to control
parameters on external devices. Four banks can hold a total of 16 CC codes.
1.4.4. The Back Panel
The back panel KeyStep 37 is nearly identical to that of the Keystep with one exception: the
Micro-USB input has been replaced by a standard USB type B connector.
7 Arturia - User Manual KeyStep 37 - Introduction and Overview