Sternenherz Harmony Tool

Sternenherz Harmony Tool User Guide

This guide explains Sternenherz Harmony Tool 0.9.5.2 from a musician’s point of view: what each part of the interface does, how the harmony systems are connected, and how to use the tool standalone or together with Bitwig.

Activation and Licenses

Sternenherz Harmony Tool uses a license system to determine whether the full feature set is available.

No license

Without a valid license, the tool runs in Unlicensed Mode. The main functionality is disabled, and the license screen offers options to request a trial license or buy the full version.

Trial license

A Sternenherz Trial License unlocks the tool for a limited evaluation period. Trial licenses are signed Sternenherz license keys and contain an expiration date. While the trial is valid, the tool runs in Trial Mode.

Expired trial license

When a trial license has expired, the tool enters Trial Expired Mode. The main functionality is disabled again, and the license screen informs the user that the trial period has ended. The user can then buy a full license.

Full license

If you purchase Sternenherz Harmony Tool, you receive a license key through Lemon Squeezy after checkout. This license key unlocks the full version of the software. During activation, the key is validated online. After successful activation, all licensed features are available.

Technical Requirements

Sternenherz Harmony Tool is available as a standalone application and as plugin formats such as VST3 and CLAP.

Supported operating systems:

Windows.
macOS.
Linux.

Recommended host setup:

Bitwig Studio 6 for the Sternenherz Extension workflow.
Sternenherz Extension installed in Bitwig’s extension folder.
A MIDI keyboard, DAW MIDI track, or the built-in mouse/touch interface.

Sternenherz Extension setup for Bitwig:

Install or obtain the Sternenherz Extension from the Sternenherz Extension project.
Copy the extension file into Bitwig’s user extension folder.
Typical extension folders are:

Windows: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Bitwig Studio\Extensions
macOS: ~/Documents/Bitwig Studio/Extensions
Linux: ~/Bitwig Studio/Extensions

Start or restart Bitwig Studio 6.
Open Bitwig’s controller settings.
Add or activate the Sternenherz controller script/extension.
In Sternenherz Harmony Tool, open Settings and check the OSC Connection IP. For a local Bitwig setup, keep 127.0.0.1.

The Harmony Tool sends and receives OSC-style /midi/cc messages through the Sternenherz Extension. Keynote changes use MIDI channel 5, CC 1. Mode changes use MIDI channel 5, CC 2.

Depending on platform and release package, Sternenherz Harmony Tool may be delivered as an installer, standalone app/package, DMG/EXE, VST3 plugin, or CLAP plugin.

Current builds include offline signed license activation. Until a valid license text is activated, the app opens locked to the About & License page. Paste the full license text into that page and press Activate License. After activation, the transport bar shows a privacy-masked Licensed to email, while About & License shows the full license owner text.

Interface Map

The main interface is organized as a playable harmony workspace.

The piano keyboard is the main input and visual feedback surface. See Keyboard And Chord Display.
The chord display names what you play. See Chord Detection.
The keynote and mode choosers define the musical reference. See Keynote Chooser and Mode Chooser.
The note display shows active notes on a grand staff. See Music Sheet And Note Display.
The Circle of Fifths, Tonnetz, Tableview, Progression Chooser, and Color Pyramid are playable theory panels. See Circle Of Fifths, Tonnetz, Tableview, Progression System, and Color Pyramid.
The Extension Panel changes the generated chords played by Circle and Progression. See Extension Panel And Voicing.
The unified Settings window defines language, MIDI, sound, display, notation, keyboard style, Circle options, Tonnetz options, and colours. See Settings.
Keyboard and mouse shortcuts are listed by region in Shortcuts.

Several settings that are used frequently also have quick-access icon buttons directly in the main workspace. Circle quick access sits around the Circle settings icon, Tonnetz look and zoom quick access sit inside the Tonnetz frame, and Sound/Chord-Notes/Keyboard quick access sits beside the piano area.

The most important cross-reference is this: the selected Keynote Chooser and Mode Chooser affect keyboard scale highlighting, note spelling, Circle roman numerals, Tonnetz labels, Tableview columns, progression chord translation, Color Pyramid rotation, and Bitwig synchronization.

Keyboard And Chord Display

The 88-key keyboard covers A0 to C8. It can be played with a mouse, touch, incoming MIDI from a DAW, or an external MIDI keyboard.

Keyboard features:

Incoming notes light up on the keyboard.
Mouse or touch notes send generated MIDI output.
The keyboard can use the Balanced Piano, Big Piano, or Digital Piano look preset from General Settings.
The selected key/mode can be highlighted on the keys when Show key is enabled. The same button also adds a subtle orange scale background to the medium and big Piano Roll.
Light-Guide-MIDI-behavior in Keyboard Settings controls how the scale guide affects playing: Lightguide only keeps the scale visual-only, Deactivating out-of-scale Notes mutes out-of-scale keys and incoming MIDI notes, and Re-Mapping of out-of-scale Notes maps out-of-scale input upward to the next in-scale MIDI note.
Note labels can appear above the keyboard or directly on keys.
Labels can show only active notes or always show notes.
Octave numbers can be hidden or displayed with C3 or C4 as middle C.
Pressed notes can use full colour, lower-third colour, 50/50 colour, or gradient feedback.
Out-of-scale notes can optionally use a warning colour.
Quick-access Sound, Chord/Notes, and Keyboard buttons open the matching Settings pages. On photo-piano looks they are placed on the left piano shelf; on the vector look they appear as a simple vertical stack.

The chord display above the keyboard shows the detected chord or interval. It follows the current language, note spelling, chord naming style, slash-chord setting, and alternative-chord setting.

Related controls:

Keynote Chooser determines the root reference and spelling context.
Mode Chooser determines the scale notes used by Show key on the keyboard and Piano Roll.
Settings control keyboard style, labels, chord naming, display persistence, and notation.

Chord Detection

The Harmony Tool listens to active MIDI notes and names the result.

It currently recognizes common triads, suspended chords, augmented/diminished chords, sevenths, major sevenths, half-diminished and diminished sevenths, minor-major colours, added tones, and inversions. If exactly two notes are active, the display shows an interval name such as major third, tritone, perfect fifth, or octave.

Chord display options:

Explicit naming, such as C Maj or A Min.
Compact naming, such as C or Am.
Chord Naming Mode: Common prefers familiar harmonic names, Balanced is the default middle ground, and Bass prefers names rooted in the played bass note.
Slash chords on/off.
Alternative chord names on/off.
Show single notes on/off.
Display-time modes: only while pressed, 1 second persistence, infinite persistence, and variants that also keep keyboard feedback visible.

Chord Naming Mode only changes ranking. The engine still generates valid alternative interpretations, so a voicing such as A C E F can be shown as F Maj7 in Common/Balanced mode while Bass mode can prefer the more literal A-root reading.

Keynote Chooser

The keynote row selects the root pitch class used by the tool.

Keynote display modes:

Auto-optimized: chooses practical sharp/flat spelling for the current mode.
Show Sharps: forces sharp names.
Show Flats: forces flat names.
Advanced Mode (21 Tones): exposes enharmonic names such as Cb, B#, E#, and Fb.

Auto-optimization modes:

Mode-aware default: the default. It follows the current mode and uses practical DAW-style spelling when there is a tie.
Prefer sharps: chooses sharp spellings when possible.
Prefer flats: chooses flat spellings when possible.

The keynote row can be ordered chromatically or by the Circle of Fifths. The toolbar Link button can make Circle visibility and Circle-keynote sorting move together.

Cross-references:

Keynote changes can sync to Bitwig through Bitwig Synchronization.
Keynote changes rotate the Color Pyramid mini circles.
Keynote and mode define Progression System chord translation.

Mode Chooser

The mode chooser selects the scale/mode used by the Harmony Tool.

The popup is scrollable and grouped into:

Diatonic.
Altered / Jazz.
Blues & Pentatonic.
Symmetrical & Exotic.
Utility.

Modes can include aliases, Bitwig synchronization metadata, and Ableton Live compatibility metadata. Bitwig-compatible rows show a small BW marker. Ableton-compatible rows show a compact Abl marker. Messiaen modes include their common numbered names as aliases, and Whole Tone is also shown as Messiaen 1. The selected mode affects keyboard scale highlighting, Circle roman numerals, Tonnetz in-scale notes, progression chord translation, and Bitwig CC output.

At the bottom of the mode chooser, Add/Edit Custom Modes... opens the Custom Modes popup. Custom modes are defined as interval positions relative to the root, with a C-keynote preview, an automatic step-pattern readout, detected-mode feedback, and fixed enharmonic naming choices for black-key spellings. Saved custom modes appear in the mode chooser below the factory categories. They are stored outside the plugin state in Sternenherz/Harmony Tool/CustomModes.json inside the user’s application-data directory, for example %APPDATA%\Sternenherz\Harmony Tool\CustomModes.json on Windows.

Keyboard behavior:

Arrow Up/Down selects modes while the popup stays open.
Shift+Arrow Up/Down scrolls without changing the selected mode.

Music Sheet And Note Display

The note display shows active notes on treble and bass staves. It supports key/mode signatures, inline accidentals, always-sharps, and always-flats notation.

Options:

Note Display toolbar on/off.
Dark notation mode.
Dark Piano Sheet paper for photo-piano darkmode.
Hide when idle.
Piano Sheet Notation mode.
Keynote/root colour.
Mode-note colour.
Pressed-note colour.
Pressed-key visual mode.
Optional out-of-scale note colour.

The sheet display is linked to the same active notes as the keyboard, Circle, Tonnetz, Color Pyramid, and Progression Chord Picker.

MIDI Recorder

The compact recorder above the lower-left keyboard area captures the same active-note stream used by the rest of the Harmony Tool. Notes played from MIDI input, the keyboard, Circle, Tonnetz, Tableview, Progression, and Color Pyramid can all be captured into one free-time take.

Recorder controls:

Play/Pause starts playback from the blue start marker by default. In General Settings, Playbackmode for MIDI-Recorder: Continue Play changes Play into pause/resume behavior from the current playhead.
Stop has three actions: click once to stop playback/recording, double-click to reset the start marker and playhead to position 1, or hold Stop to open a YES/NO delete popup for clearing all recorded MIDI notes and controller data.
Record captures new notes with their note velocity. If an A/B bracket exists and Repeat is enabled, Record starts at A and overdubs inside the continuous A/B loop. If Repeat is disabled, the grey bracket is only a visible prepared range and recording starts from the normal recorder start/playhead position. Outside active A/B Repeat recording, Record overwrites existing notes in the recorded time range. Completed recording passes are undoable Piano Roll edits, so Ctrl/Cmd+Z can remove the last recorded take or overdub.
Sustain pedal is recorded as CC64 and is included in playback and exported MIDI. Other MIDI CC automation and Pitch Bend are also captured, imported, played back, and exported for the big Piano Roll automation lane.
Repeat loops playback; when enabled, the button lights in Sternenherz blue. Creating an A/B loop bracket enables Repeat automatically, and deleting the bracket disables Repeat again. If an A/B bracket exists and Repeat is on, A is the blue start marker and the bracket is blue. If Repeat is off, the bracket stays visible in grey but does not define the start marker. Hold Repeat to open a Delete A-B Loopbracket? YES/NO popup.
The mini piano-roll shows recorded MIDI notes, CC64 sustain-pedal markers, the blue start marker, the white playback playhead, and the A/B loop bracket.
Click the mini piano-roll to move the marker/playhead silently. Drag to scrub audibly while MIDI drag/export is locked.
Create an A/B loop with Ctrl+mouse drag from left to right. Drag from right to left to delete the bracket.
On touch screens, hold one finger for A, place/drag a second finger for B, then release B. Holding from right to left deletes the bracket.
When an A/B bracket is active and Repeat is on, scrubbing is disabled inside the mini piano-roll. Drag the bracket center to move the full loop, or drag near A or B to move one edge.
Zoom horizontally by dragging out of the mini piano-roll vertically: up zooms out, down zooms in. The zoom is centered around the cursor or finger. Mouse wheel also zooms: wheel up zooms in, wheel down zooms out.
The MIDI Editor button opens the medium Piano Roll below the note sheet. The lower-left expand arrow switches to the big Piano Roll, and the collapse arrow returns to the medium view or closes the panel.
For chord drag-and-drop, hold Ctrl/Cmd and drag Circle buttons, Tableview cells, Color Pyramid cells, Chord Picker buttons, or Progression Chooser drag handles. Dragging outside the Harmony Tool exports MIDI to a DAW; dragging over the medium or big Piano Roll switches to internal Piano Roll insertion with note preview. The General Settings drag target chooses the legacy no-modifier Unlock behavior, while Ctrl/Cmd drag works without enabling Unlock.
The legacy Unlock button now lives in General Settings next to Unlock Button Default State. Enable it only when you want the old no-modifier drag behavior. Keep it off during normal playing or live interaction whenever you do not need drag-and-drop, because the unlocked state enables drag detection for many controls and can make the interface feel slower and less immediate while playing.
In Drag & Drop to Piano Roll mode, the Piano Roll previews the chord notes before release; horizontal position chooses time, vertical position chooses octave, and the chord is translated into the current keynote/mode context. Hold Shift while dropping to bypass Snap. Hold Alt after choosing the drop start and keep dragging horizontally to extend the inserted gesture. In Direct mode this grows the chord length; in Strum/Arp/Chord Pulse modes it grows the generated performance pattern. Play & Perform settings also shape exported MIDI files, so a Strum or Arp drag can become a performed MIDI clip instead of a plain block chord.
Drag a .mid, .midi, or .sternharmony file onto the mini, medium, or big piano-roll to import it into the recorder. MIDI imports keep note velocity/channel data and normal controller/pitch-bend data. Sternharmony imports can additionally restore per-note MPE Pitch, Pressure, Timbre, Pan, and editable Shape Objects. If the recorder already contains notes, controller data, pitch bends, pressure, or Shape Objects, a YES/NO popup asks whether to replace the existing Piano Roll content.
Piano Roll Settings can enable Spacebar playback for the MIDI Recorder. It is on by default.
While recording or playing at a horizontal zoom level, the mini piano-roll follows the playhead so the current recording/playback position stays visible.
Playback uses note chase: if playback or an A/B loop starts in the middle of held Piano Roll notes, the tool retriggers those notes at the playhead and keeps them alive until their real note end. This applies to the internal sound engine and the loaded hosted plugin.
The MIDI Panic button beside the Progression Chooser sends a broad MIDI reset: held notes are released, sustain is set to 0, and All Sound Off / Reset All Controllers / All Notes Off are sent across MIDI channels.

Medium And Big Piano Roll

The medium Piano Roll replaces the lower keyboard area, while the big Piano Roll expands upward below the transport toolbar. Both views edit the same recorded MIDI notes as the mini recorder. The big view can show a real Automation lane, a compact Sustain/CC64 lane, and a Velocity lane; the lane visibility follows the A/S/V buttons and the defaults in Piano Roll Settings. When a fresh recording or MIDI import is opened for the first time, the Piano Roll focuses the densest note octave region; if there are no notes, it falls back to a C4-centered view. After the user manually scrolls or zooms, that manual viewport is preserved.

Tools and transport:

Pointer tool (1) is the default editor tool. It selects, box-selects, moves, resizes, duplicates, creates notes by double-click, and sets the playhead with empty timeline clicks when Playhead follows Cursor-Clicks is enabled.
Time Range tool (2) creates timeline ranges. A range can be moved, edge-dragged, Alt-edge-stretched/compressed, Ctrl-drag duplicated, copied, cut, pasted, looped, and ripple-edited. The selection switch button converts note selections to time ranges and time ranges back to normal note selections.
Pen tool (3) creates notes with one click or drag. New note length can follow the grid, the last selected note, or the user-defined setting. Shift bypasses Snap temporarily, Alt-drag paints grid notes, and vertical movement while the mouse is held edits the new note velocity. In the big Piano Roll velocity lane, the Pen paints velocity bars; selected notes limit the paint target.
Scrubbing tool (4) keeps the recorder-style behavior: click/drag scrubs through the notes audibly, and Ctrl+drag in the header sets A/B. A simple click in the note area also auditions the chord at that position while the mouse is held.
Scissors tool (5) slices notes. It respects Snap for single cuts; with Snap off it cuts freely. Alt-drag slices at timeline grid lines even when Snap is off, using the current Grid value rather than measuring slices from each note’s own start. In MPE mode it can also split connected MPE joints, line segments, and Shape Objects at the clicked time, creating new start/end handles around the cut point. Empty drags can still make a normal selection box.
Glue tool (6) joins notes on the same pitch. Clicking the earlier note joins it with the next matching note and keeps the earlier velocity. Alt-click glues all following notes on that pitch. Multi-selections are merged per pitch. In MPE mode, close/overlapping compatible endpoints can be glued into a connected joint.
Eraser tool (7) deletes clicked notes or the current note selection. Alt-drag previews orange striped delete targets and commits the deletion on mouse-up; Escape cancels the preview.
Trim tool (8) trims note starts touched by a drawn line. Hold Alt during the drag to trim note ends instead. To make a parabolic trim curve, first draw the base line, keep the mouse held, then press Ctrl and drag the curve belly; Ctrl trims note starts, Ctrl+Alt trims note ends. The tool also works in the velocity lane with the same line/curve behavior. In MPE mode it can trim line/Shape Object starts or ends together with the owning note edge where the active layer supports that edit.
Multi tool (9) draws Line, Parabola, Sine, Triangle, Square, and Stair shapes. Press 9 repeatedly to cycle shape type, or click the Multi button to open the custom shape chooser with icons and names. The same shape tools work in MPE overlay mode and in the normal Automation lane.
Step Input tool (0) enters notes from an external MIDI keyboard or other MIDI input at the step cursor. When the tool is selected, it waits for the user’s first click instead of jumping the viewport to the start marker. Arrow Left/Right moves the step cursor by the current Grid value; holding notes while stepping can extend the inserted notes before release.
Play, Stop, Record, Repeat, Undo, Redo, Snap, Keysnap, Apply, Quant, Quantize dialog, MPE, Y-Snap, Note Audition, the tool buttons, the selection switch, Grid, BPM, time signature, metronome, preroll, host-sync, and realtime ruler controls are available in the Piano Roll UI. Undo/Redo, Quant, Quant…, and the transport/time controls live in the right-side control column. Stop and Repeat long-press actions open delete confirmations. Repeat long-press deletes only the A/B loop bracket.
The chord strip above the notes can show detected chord slices when Turn on Chord Labels in Piano Roll Header is enabled. It is on by default. The CRD button beside A-B toggles this chord-label strip directly. Clicking a chord or header position seeks there; in Pointer mode, Note Audition decides whether the chord is sounded.
Sheet switches the Piano Roll timeline into Piano Sheet View. The two square buttons above it toggle coloured noteheads and dark/paper background. The sheet view follows the Piano Sheet Notation setting from Chord/Notes settings; Key/Mode signature (default) uses the current keynote and mode for staff signatures.
The ruler shows musical bars and zoom-aware subdivisions. When the realtime ruler is enabled, time labels are shown above the bar labels. Timeline grid density is reduced automatically when zoomed far out, while the Grid button still defines editing and Snap resolution.
The Grid menu is a three-column musical value picker: straight values include 1/128, 1/64, 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 1 bar; dotted and triplet columns cover 1/64 through 1/2. The bottom row chooses which columns are included when , and . step through grid values. By default only Straight is enabled, so the shortcuts move through regular values without dotted/triplet detours.
The vertical Piano Roll keyboard shows pressed-note feedback using the current blue or pitch-coloured feedback style.
In the big Piano Roll, the Automation lane can display Pitch Bend or any MIDI CC. The target button opens common CC choices plus the full CC list, and Last follows the most recently touched incoming CC or Pitch Bend signal. Pitch Bend is drawn as a bipolar lane with a center line. Pointer mode can select single points, box-select multiple points, drag selections, select line segments, and use Delete/copy/cut/paste/duplicate. Dragged points show their current value at the cursor. When a dragged automation point reaches an existing neighbour on the X axis it cannot pass through it; if the release point is close enough in value, the points merge on mouse-up. Pen mode paints/overwrites automation strokes rather than grabbing old points; strokes are simplified according to Point Reduction on mouse-up. Time selections can be made directly in the Automation and Sustain lanes. The Lock button decides whether time-selection note edits also carry automation underneath. Drag the small lane boundary next to the vertical piano keyboard to resize it up to twice its default height.
In the big Piano Roll, the Sustain lane displays CC64 as value-based automation height from 0 to 127. Drag in empty lane space to create a full-on Sustain region, drag the middle of an existing region to move it without changing its length, or drag the left/right handle pair to resize that boundary. Shared boundaries between adjacent Sustain regions can be dragged left or right to create a gap. The lane’s Clean button rebuilds imported CC64 point clouds into clear on/off Sustain regions. Snap follows the current Snap/Grid setting, and Shift bypasses Snap temporarily.
The A/S/V icon buttons in the lower-left Piano Roll footer show or hide the Automation, Sustain, and Velocity lanes. When a lane is hidden, its left label area and right reset/delete button disappear too. The right-side X Auto., X Sust., and X Velo. buttons clear Automation, clear Sustain, or reset velocities to 100 for the visible lanes.
In the big Piano Roll, the selected-velocity value field under the Velocity label can be dragged vertically or double-clicked for typing. Multiple selected notes show their average; entering a value applies it to all selected notes.
Quant quantizes selected notes to the current Grid setting. Quant... opens the in-style Quantize dialog, where you can choose a grid, choose whether note starts and/or ends are affected, and set Humanize/Swing. Quantization also affects selected MPE Pitch endpoints and Shape Object start/end points where those belong to selected notes.

MPE overlay:

Toggle MPE overlay with the MPE button or the M key. When the button is off, the Piano Roll does not spend interaction work on MPE editing. When it is on, the Pointer prioritizes MPE points, line segments, and Shape Objects over the note underneath.
MPE has four expression sub-layers beside the MPE button: P for Pitch, Pr for Pressure, T for Timbre/CC74, and Pan for CC10 Pan. Pitch is selected by default. A blue letter means that layer has data somewhere in the clip; the active layer has a blue outline.
Pointer can select, box-select, drag, delete, copy, cut, paste, and duplicate per-note MPE points in the active layer. Clicking a line segment selects that segment; selected segments glow white and can be moved as a unit.
Double-click empty piano-roll space in MPE mode creates an MPE note with the active layer’s default line. If you hold the second click, you can immediately drag the note length. Double-click an existing note that has no data in the active layer to add that layer’s default line.
Pressure and Timbre default to a centered value of 64. Pan defaults to centered 64, with lower values left and higher values right. Cursor readouts show 0..127 values, and Pan also shows L/C/R orientation.
MPE point drags follow the same neighbour rule as normal automation: a dragged point cannot pass an existing point on the same note/layer, and compatible points can merge on mouse-up.
MPE Pitch endpoints can form smart connections between neighbouring notes. Drag a line or Shape Object endpoint onto a compatible endpoint of another note to create a larger connected joint. The joint behaves like a shared musical hinge: moving it left/right resizes the previous or following note as needed, and moving it vertically keeps the connected bend continuous instead of letting the two endpoints drift apart. Connected joints are drawn larger than normal points. The Scissors tool can cut the joint apart again, and the Glue tool can create a joint from close-enough endpoints.
Dragging the first or last MPE point horizontally changes the actual note start/end. The dragged endpoint has a center/zero snap so a slight vertical hand drift does not accidentally create a bend.
Alt+dragging an MPE start or end point grows the expression from that endpoint instead of replacing the existing line. This lets you attach a new line segment to an existing MPE line and extends the real source note when the new endpoint moves beyond the old note edge.
Alt+dragging with a Shape tool over an existing MPE endpoint attaches that new shape to the endpoint instead of creating a separate base note. This works for Parabola, Sine, Triangle, Square, and Stair and keeps the previous line or Shape Object intact.
Pen draws in the active MPE layer. Multi draws shape curves on the active note. Pitch point and Pitch Shape Object drags show a pitch readout with the target note and semitone deviation; Pressure, Timbre, and Pan show their current values.
Y-Snap snaps MPE point heights to exact semitone positions. If Show Scale and Keysnap are enabled, MPE point creation and movement snap to the allowed scale notes. The Apply button next to Keysnap quantizes existing notes and MPE data to the nearest allowed scale pitches.
Right-click a note and choose Delete all MPE Points to remove that note’s per-note MPE data across Pitch, Pressure, Timbre, and Pan.
The internal synth engines play per-note bends independently, with a 48-semitone pitch-bend range. In Non-Destructive Editing mode, overlapping notes on the same pitch can keep separate noteIds and separate pitch-spread curves.

Shape Objects and Sternharmony:

Drawn Shapes become Objects in Piano Roll Advanced Settings keeps Parabola, Sine, Triangle, Square, and Stair as editable Shape Objects instead of immediately baking them into normal automation points. Line still becomes normal point automation.
Shape Objects have thick path hit zones plus start/end handles. Drag the path to move the object; drag a handle to change time/value. For note-bound MPE shapes, start/end handle movement can resize the real note where supported. Moving or resizing note-bound MPE Shape Objects also updates the owning note edge when that object becomes the earliest or latest MPE content.
Right-click a Shape Object for Turn to normal Automation, Delete Shape Object, or Export Sternharmony Clip.... Right-click a note also offers Export Sternharmony Clip..., Export Midi (all notes), Export Midi (selected notes), Quantize, Quantize..., Legato-Notelengths, Timeselection-Notelengths, Split Notes (based on grid), Resize Notes: Half, Resize Notes: Double, and Resize Notes: Custom. Split Notes (based on grid) splits where the current timeline grid lines cross the note, not into equal chunks counted from the note’s own start.
Parabola defaults to exponential growth. Ctrl switches to the bowed parabola profile, and Alt increases curve strength/exponent. Sine, Triangle, and Square use cycles; Stair uses steps.
.sternharmony clips preserve notes, normal automation, pressure, per-note MPE Pitch/Pressure/Timbre/Pan data, and Shape Objects. The JSON rules are documented in Sternharmony Clip Format.
Import: Ignore MPE from MIDI 1.0 is on by default in Piano Roll Advanced Settings. With it on, MIDI 1.0 pitch bend imports as normal/global pitch-bend lane data. Turn it off only if you want the Harmony Tool to try heuristic per-note interpretation for MIDI 1.0 files.

Pointer editing:

Click a note to select it. Ctrl+click toggles individual notes in or out of the selection.
Drag selected notes to move them. Snap follows the Snap button and the current Grid value. During vertical moves, the original left edge of the grabbed note is also a snap target, so off-grid timing can be preserved unless you intentionally drag toward a gridline or event. Keysnap constrains vertical movement to the current key/mode scale slots, including multi-selections. When Snap to Events is enabled, neighbouring note starts/ends can also act as snap targets for moving and resizing.
Ctrl+drag already-selected notes duplicates them, then moves the duplicate selection to the release position. Ctrl+Shift+drag does the same with Snap temporarily bypassed.
Drag a note edge to resize it. Shift while resizing temporarily disables Snap. Multi-selection resizing changes selected note lengths together.
Double-click empty timeline space to create a note. Holding the second click lets you drag out the length.
Right-click empty Piano Roll space opens a Tableview-style chord chooser for the pitch under the cursor. A small blue crosshair marks the clicked pitch/time. The chooser shows the matching scale-degree column near the click, previews coloured notes on hover, and auditions a chord while the left mouse button is held. Right-click inserts immediately; right-click-hold/drag inserts and lets you set the length before release. Ctrl/Cmd+left-click can also insert, and Ctrl/Cmd+left-click-hold/drag can insert while dragging the length. Shift bypasses Snap while placing. Active Play & Perform modes can turn the inserted chord into Strum, Arp, or Chord Pulse notes. The compact control column on the right offers root octave buttons (+0, -12, -24) and an Inv slider; these affect preview, audition, and inserted notes. In MPE mode, inserted chord notes receive the standard MPE starter line.
Ctrl+Alt+drag selected notes vertically changes their velocity; during held double-click creation it also adjusts the new note velocity and shows the current value near the cursor.
Delete or Backspace removes the selected notes, selected automation/MPE points, or active time selection. Shift+Delete/Backspace performs a ripple delete and closes the gap by moving later notes left. Ctrl/Cmd+Z and Ctrl/Cmd+Y undo/redo recording passes, note edits, velocity edits, Sustain/CC64, Automation, MPE point, and Shape Object edits.
Ctrl/Cmd+A selects all notes. Ctrl/Cmd+C, Ctrl/Cmd+V, Ctrl/Cmd+X, and Ctrl/Cmd+D copy, paste, cut, and duplicate notes or the active time selection. Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+V, Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+X, and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+D use ripple editing: pasted/duplicated material makes room by pushing later notes right, and ripple cut closes the removed range.
Move and resize drags show a compact cursor readout. Moving shows semitone offset for the grabbed note and horizontal musical offset, for example +3 / -0.1.0.0. Resizing shows a human-readable length such as 1/16, 1/8 dotted, 1/4 triplet, 1 Bar, or a beat-format fallback when needed.
Selected notes keep their fill colour and show a thin black/white outline.
Dense normal-note selections use an adaptive performance path: from 160 selected notes upward, move and resize-start/end drags show a visual preview while dragging and commit the actual note data on mouse-up. Smaller selections keep the original live-edit behavior. MPE points and Shape Objects stay on their dedicated live-edit paths.

Navigation and zoom:

Arrow keys move selected notes. Shift+Up/Down moves by octaves. Shift+Left/Right nudges horizontally with Snap temporarily disabled.
Alt+Arrow jumps selection from note to note and scrolls the view to the selected note if needed.
Mouse wheel scrolls vertically. Ctrl+wheel zooms horizontally around the cursor. Medium and big Piano Roll timelines can scroll far to the right for long arrangements while the mini recorder keeps its compact recorder limits.
Shift+wheel scrolls horizontally.
Alt+wheel zooms note height vertically around the cursor. Ctrl+Alt+wheel zooms horizontal time and vertical note height together.
Middle mouse drag pans freely.
Dragging in the black area left of the vertical keyboard left/right changes note-height zoom.
Header drag zoom: start in the chord/header strip, then drag above it to zoom out or below it to zoom in.

Touch behavior:

Two-finger drag pans the Piano Roll.
Pinch gestures zoom by direction: mostly vertical pinch changes note height, mostly horizontal pinch changes time zoom, diagonal pinch changes both.
In Scrubbing mode, A/B touch setup is limited to the header to avoid conflicts with note editing.
A/B loop bracket edits respect Snap when Snap is enabled. Hold Shift during mouse edits to bypass Snap temporarily.

Piano Roll Settings:

Use Spacebar for MIDI-Recorder Playback, default on.
Playbackmode for MIDI-Recorder: Continue Play.
Playhead follows Cursor-Clicks.
View Follows Playbackbar and Playbackbar stays centered choose whether playback scrolls the view by pages, keeps the playhead centered, or does not follow playback.
Turn on Chord Labels in Piano Roll Header, default on.
Show Note Labels in Piano Roll.
Show Note Numbers with none, c3, and c4.
Note colorization: follow the global Color setting, force all-white/dark-blue style, force pitch colours, or use a custom note colour.
Note & Velocity Visualization: fixed, subtle, linear, boosted-mids, high-contrast, or legacy velocity curves, each available as opaque brightness mode or transparent mode.
Playback of overlapped Notes, default on.
Non-Destructive Editing (Note Overlap), default on. When disabled, moves, resizes, pastes, duplicates, and time-range edits overwrite same-pitch overlaps destructively.
Snap to Events, default on.
Gridline Strength, with a centre/default snap point.
Point Reduction for simplifying automation, MPE point drawings, and drawn shape point output.
Drawn Shapes become Objects, default off. When enabled, Parabola, Sine, Triangle, Square, and Stair remain editable Shape Objects; Line remains normal automation.
Import: Ignore MPE from MIDI 1.0, default on. When enabled, MIDI 1.0 pitch bend is imported as normal/global pitch bend rather than guessed into per-note MPE.
Default State of Automationlanes: A/S/V toggles for whether Automation, Sustain, and Velocity lanes are visible when the Piano Roll is first opened. The factory default shows Velocity only; Automation and Sustain can auto-open later when recorded/imported controller data is present.
Automatic showing of automation lanes: when enabled, recording or importing Sustain/CC data can reveal the matching lanes automatically.
New Note length based on: grid setting, last selected note, or user-defined length. Userdefined New Note-Length defaults to 1/8.

Known Issues

Very dense Piano Roll clips still need more UI and audio work than normal musical clips. Pen paint drags are batched and Note Audition is throttled during painting, but intentionally drawing thousands of tiny notes can still feel heavier than ordinary editing.
From 160 selected normal notes upward, move and resize-start/end gestures use mass-selection preview mode and write the final note data on mouse-up. This keeps large selections responsive while preserving the usual live workflow for smaller selections.
If you intentionally paint dense note fields, turn off Note Audition while drawing for the lightest possible interaction. Fast audition playback adds extra work on top of chord, MIDI, and visual feedback systems.
Chord labeling in the timeline header can still be expensive on very dense clips. If the editor slows down with many notes, disable Turn on Chord Labels in Piano Roll Header or use the CRD button to hide the chord strip.

Shortcuts

Shortcuts are scoped to the panel or region that currently has focus. Text fields and settings panels keep normal text input behavior.

Platform modifier note: when this guide says Ctrl/Cmd, use Ctrl on Windows/Linux and Cmd on macOS. Plain Ctrl entries are editor/tool gestures and stay physical Control on macOS. Alt means Alt on Windows/Linux and Option on macOS.

Global and transport:

Escape: closes open popups/settings panels where possible; otherwise releases held UI notes and clears held Circle/Tonnetz/Color Pyramid interactions.
Tab: cycles the MIDI editor view through medium Piano Roll, big Piano Roll, and the normal workspace.
Shift+Tab: opens the big Piano Roll if it is closed, or closes it back to the normal workspace if it is already open.
Space: starts or pauses MIDI recorder playback only when Use Spacebar for MIDI-Recorder Playback is enabled and no text field/settings panel is consuming keyboard focus.
Ctrl/Cmd+Space: starts playback in temporary Continue Play mode. When stopped, the start marker moves to the stop position.

Keynote chooser:

Arrow Left / Arrow Right: after the keynote row has keyboard focus, select the previous or next visible keynote. The order follows chromatic or Circle-of-Fifths sorting.

Mode chooser popup:

Arrow Up / Arrow Down: move through mode results and select the highlighted mode while the popup stays open.
Shift+Arrow Up / Shift+Arrow Down: scroll the mode list without changing the selected mode.
Escape: close the mode chooser popup.

Mini MIDI recorder:

Ctrl+mouse drag left-to-right: create an A/B loop bracket.
Ctrl+mouse drag right-to-left: clear the A/B loop bracket.
Mouse wheel over the mini piano-roll: horizontal zoom around the cursor.
Vertical drag out of the mini piano-roll: zoom out upward, zoom in downward.
Touch A/B: hold the first finger for A, place/drag a second finger for B, then release B.

Medium and big Piano Roll tools:

1: switch to Pointer tool.
2: switch to Time Range tool.
3: switch to Pen tool.
4: switch to Scrubbing tool.
5: switch to Scissors tool.
6: switch to Glue tool.
7: switch to Eraser tool.
8: switch to Trim tool.
9: switch to Multi tool; press repeatedly to cycle Line, Parabola, Sine, Triangle, Square, and Stair.
0: switch to Step Input tool.
M: toggle MPE overlay mode.
S: toggle Snap.
Y: toggle Y-Snap for MPE pitch heights.
F: toggle View Follows Playbackbar.
Ctrl/Cmd+Tab: toggle Piano Sheet View.
N: toggle Note Audition.
Q: quantize selected notes, selected MPE endpoints, and selected Shape Object start/end points to the current Grid.
Alt+Q: open the Quantize dialog.
,: choose the next finer grid value.
.: choose the next longer grid value.
Delete / Backspace: delete selected notes or the active time selection.
Shift+Delete / Shift+Backspace: ripple delete selected notes or the active time selection and close the gap.
Escape: clear the current note selection, active time selection, or pending Eraser preview.
Ctrl/Cmd+Z: undo Piano Roll recording passes, note, velocity, Sustain/CC64, Automation, MPE point, and Shape Object edits.
Ctrl/Cmd+Y: redo Piano Roll recording passes, note, velocity, Sustain/CC64, Automation, MPE point, and Shape Object edits.

Medium and big Piano Roll note editing:

Arrow Up / Arrow Down: move selected notes by semitone.
Arrow Left / Arrow Right: move selected notes by the current grid step.
Shift+Arrow Up / Shift+Arrow Down: move selected notes by octave.
Shift+Arrow Left / Shift+Arrow Right: nudge horizontally with Snap temporarily bypassed.
Alt+Arrow: jump the selection note-to-note; Left/Right follows time order, Up/Down follows pitch order.
Ctrl/Cmd+A: select all Piano Roll notes.
Ctrl/Cmd+C: copy selected notes or the active time selection.
Ctrl/Cmd+V: paste at the start marker.
Ctrl/Cmd+X: cut selected notes or the active time selection.
Ctrl/Cmd+D: duplicate selected notes or the active time selection.
Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+V: ripple paste at the start marker, pushing later notes right by the clipboard length.
Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+X: ripple cut and close the removed note/time range.
Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+D: ripple duplicate and push later notes right by the duplicated length.
Ctrl/Cmd+E: split selected notes at the current marker/playhead position using the Scissors behavior.
Ctrl/Cmd+J: glue/consolidate selected notes of the same pitch, similar to using the Glue tool per pitch.
Ctrl/Cmd+L: toggle an A/B loop bracket around the current note selection or time selection.
Ctrl+click: add/remove individual notes from the selection.
Shift+click or Ctrl+click on MPE points/segments: add to or toggle the MPE selection where the active layer supports multi-selection.
Ctrl+drag on selected notes: duplicate the selection and move the copy.
Ctrl+Shift+drag on selected notes: duplicate and move with Snap temporarily bypassed.
Shift while resizing notes or A/B loop brackets: temporarily bypass Snap.
Shift while dragging MPE points, MPE segments, Shape Objects, automation points, or lane shapes: temporarily bypass Snap/Y-Snap where applicable.
Alt+drag from an existing MPE start/end point: grow a new MPE line segment from that endpoint and extend the owning note.
Alt+drag with a Shape tool from an existing MPE endpoint: attach the new shape to the existing endpoint and extend the owning note.
Drag compatible MPE endpoints close together: create or maintain a connected joint between two notes. Use Scissors on the joint to separate it again.
Ctrl+Alt+drag selected notes vertically: change velocity for selected notes.

Medium and big Piano Roll navigation:

Mouse wheel: vertical scroll.
Ctrl+mouse wheel: horizontal time zoom around the cursor.
Shift+mouse wheel: horizontal scroll.
Alt+mouse wheel: vertical note-height zoom around the cursor.
Ctrl+Alt+mouse wheel: combined time and note-height zoom around the cursor.
Middle mouse drag: free pan.
Drag left/right in the black strip left of the vertical keyboard: change note-height zoom.
Header drag above/below the header: smooth time zoom out/in.

Medium and big Piano Roll touch:

Two-finger drag: pan the visible time/pitch area.
Pinch mostly vertical: note-height zoom.
Pinch mostly horizontal: time zoom.
Diagonal pinch: combined time and note-height zoom.
In Scrubbing tool, touch A/B setup works in the header area only.

Tonnetz:

Ctrl+click: add or toggle Tonnetz note/shape selections.
Shift+click: retrigger selected or held Tonnetz notes.
Right-click or Escape: clear held Tonnetz interaction.

Circle Of Fifths

The Circle of Fifths is a playable chord map. It has major, minor, and diminished layers. Pressing a node plays the node’s chord and updates keyboard feedback.

Circle toolbar controls:

Circle visibility.
Link between Circle visibility and Circle-keynote order.
Circle-of-Fifths keynote ordering.
MIDI drag-and-drop export toggle for Circle, chord-picker, and Tableview chord cells.

When the Circle is visible, quick-access buttons appear around the Circle settings icon:

Show/hide keygroup, placed to the right of the Circle settings icon.
Switch between normal and chromatic Circle orientation, placed next to the keygroup button.
Toggle active-chord gradient analysis lines, placed below the Circle settings row.
Toggle active-chord interval analysis lines, placed next to the gradient button.

Gradient analysis and interval analysis are mutually exclusive.

Circle settings live in the Circle tab of the unified Settings window:

Circle spelling: follow selected key, practical 12-tone, or advanced enharmonic.
Circle of Fifths Colorization:

Default Look (Dark/Blue).
Colored Buttons (all).
Colored Buttons (Major only).
Legacy Look (Blue).

Circle compactness slider: wide, medium, compact. Compact is the default.
Show Roman Numerals.
Show key group.
Show scale overlap ring.
Show classical key signatures.
Major layer on/off.
Minor layer on/off.
Diminished layer on/off.
Active chord analysis: gradient lines.
Active chord analysis: interval lines, with an Intervals button for the shared interval-colour popup.
Circle feedback for single notes.
Show borrowed chords.
Show related keys.
Show secondary dominants.

The Circle uses the Extension Panel And Voicing for generated chord voicing. Its outer ring can also be coloured by held Color Pyramid cells when the pyramid’s show-on-circle icon is enabled.

When the Progression System is enabled and the Progression Chooser footer has Circle checked, the Circle draws the selected progression as numbered step bubbles with roman-numeral labels and curved yellow connections. The labels use the same major/minor/diminished roman colour logic as the Circle itself. Clicking a chord-picker slot also highlights the matching numbered progression bubble.

Some modes contain in-scale degrees that are not Major, Minor, or Diminished triads. The Circle shows these as small playable special-degree badges near the matching root area. For example, C Harmonic Major contains C D E F G Ab B; the sixth degree is Ab Aug, so the Circle shows VI+. This label is relative to the selected mode’s own scale degrees. In a comparison against plain C Major one might say bVI+, but inside C Harmonic Major it is simply degree VI+. Badges marked with * are special non-standard shapes, common in hexatonic or exotic modes such as Raga Desh. They play their displayed degree, while the asterisk keeps the label honest instead of forcing a misleading normal triad name.

Extension Panel And Voicing

The Extension Panel is shared by the Circle, the Progression Chord Picker, and Tableview.

Extension buttons:

Basic and seventh colours: 6, 7, Maj7, Maj9, Maj11.
Added and extended colours: 9, 11, 13, add9, add11, add13.
Suspensions: sus2, sus4.
Alterations: b5, #5, b9, #9, #11, b13.
Chord-quality overrides: Aug, Dim, Dim7, Half-Dim.
Omission controls: no3, no5.
Utility: Reset, Multi.

Multi allows multiple extension buttons to stay active. Without Multi, choosing a new extension replaces the previous extension selection.

Smart Maj7+ makes Maj7, Maj9, and Maj11 more practical for generated Circle/progression chords. It avoids forcing every minor or diminished chord into a literal major-seventh colour unless the setting is disabled.

The active feedback colour for Extension Panel buttons, the Smart Maj7+ checkmark, and the Root position / octave value labels is controlled by Extension Panel Feedback Color in General Settings > Advanced. The default is the same Sternenherz blue used for the active transport-button outlines.

Voicing controls:

Root +0: reinforces the root in the current octave.
Root -12: adds the root one octave lower.
Root -24: adds the root two octaves lower.
Inversion slider.
Octave transpose slider.

Outgoing MIDI velocity and MIDI channel are now controlled from Play & Perform Settings so they apply consistently to Circle, Tonnetz, Tableview, Progression, Color Pyramid, drag/export, and Piano Roll insertion workflows.

When Tableview is open, the Extension Panel becomes compact. Extension buttons, Reset, Multi, and Smart Maj7+ are hidden because Tableview cells define their own chord qualities. Root reinforcement, inversion, and transpose remain visible and affect Tableview playback and MIDI drag export.

Tonnetz

Tonnetz is a playable geometric note grid. Notes, dyads, and triangle fields can trigger MIDI.

Interaction:

Click/touch a note node to play a note.
Click/touch an edge to play a dyad.
Click/touch a triangle field to play a triad.
Ctrl-click accumulates selections.
Shift-click retriggers selected/held notes.
Right-click or Escape clears selected/held notes.
Multitouch can hold more than one region.

Tonnetz settings live in the Tonnetz tab of the unified Settings window:

Tonnetz Orientation: vertical perfect fifths or horizontal perfect fifths.
Tonnetz Look: Default Tonnetz Look, Flower of Life with normal Lines, Flower of Life with filled Petals, Flower of Life with Petal-Outlines, or Torus.
Show Info: jumps to maximum zoom and shows interval-direction arrows.
Pitch Spread: Compact, 2 octaves, 3 octaves, 4 octaves, 5 octaves, 6 octaves, or Full.
Colorize all notes.
Colorize active Notes.
Active Note Glow with Gradient Lines.
Active Note Glow with Interval Lines, with an Interval Colors button.
Show scale notes, with a style dropdown such as gold outlines.
Tonnetz Zoom.
Show Zoomslider in Tonnetz.
Tonnetz background Color.
Tonnetz Netz/Grid Color.
Tonnetz active link color.
Tonnetz Netz/Grid Thickness, up to 14 px.
Tonnetz note outline color for off notes.
Tonnetz note outline color for on notes.
Tonnetz note color for on notes.
Tonnetz sharps/flats note color.
Tonnetz white-key note color.

The Tonnetz frame also has a quick-access look chooser next to the Tonnetz settings icon. It shows the currently active Tonnetz look as an image button. Opening it displays large opaque image rows in this order: Default Tonnetz Look, Flower of Life with filled Petals, Flower of Life with Petal-Outlines, and Torus. In Torus mode, the play/pause button appears to the right of this look chooser.

When Show Zoomslider in Tonnetz is enabled, a compact semi-transparent zoom slider appears in the Tonnetz frame. It becomes clearer while being used and shows the exact zoom value only during adjustment.

Pitch Spread controls how the Tonnetz maps visible vertical regions to pitch height. Compact keeps the older normalized behavior. The octave modes spread the visible Tonnetz across a fixed pitch range, with 4 octaves as the default. Full uses the 88-key keyboard range as fully as possible while still choosing usable repeated Tonnetz nodes.

The custom colour dropdowns define the neutral look when colorization is off. Colorize all notes applies fixed pitch colours to all notes. Colorize active Notes keeps inactive notes neutral and applies pitch colours only to active notes.

The Flower of Life looks keep the black Tonnetz background but replace the straight grid presentation with circular petal geometry. Filled Petals fills active petal spaces with the Tonnetz connection colour; Petal-Outlines colours the petal outline itself. The Torus look maps the Tonnetz onto an animated torus-style surface and adds a play/pause button inside the Tonnetz frame. It animates by default and only needs that animation work while the Torus look is selected.

Tonnetz can stay visible behind Color Pyramid. In Color Pyramid Show Info mode, Tonnetz is temporarily hidden for readability.

When the Progression System is enabled and the Progression Chooser footer has Tonnetz checked, the Tonnetz draws the selected progression directly on the grid. Each chord is shown as a yellow shape following actual Tonnetz neighbour connections, with numbered step markers and arrows between steps. While this overlay is active, Tonnetz temporarily switches to Compact pitch spread and 0.90 zoom so the progression remains readable. When the overlay is disabled or Progression is turned off, the previous Tonnetz pitch spread and zoom are restored.

Tableview

Tableview is a playable keygroup view for the selected keynote and mode. It replaces the Circle of Fifths visually while it is open, because it zooms into one keygroup instead of showing the whole fifths map.

How to use it:

Enable the Tableview toolbar button.
Choose a keynote and mode.
Play chord cells in the seven scale-degree columns.
Use the compact Extension Panel And Voicing to add root reinforcement, inversion, or octave transpose.

Tableview columns show the seven degrees of the current keygroup. The header combines roman numeral, note name, and quality, for example I C Maj, ii D Min, or viio B Dim. Cell labels show the chord’s roman function and playable chord name.

If the Circle of Fifths was visible before opening Tableview, closing Tableview restores the Circle automatically.

Tableview Settings:

Show all chords: shows every generated chord shape, including outside-scale colours.
Chord naming: chooses Explicit or Compact naming for Tableview labels.
Compact view: packs the filtered in-scale cells upward so empty hidden slots are reused.

Filtering rules:

With Show all chords off, a cell is shown only when all of its generated pitch classes fit the selected keynote+mode.
With Show all chords on, outside-scale cells are shown as possible borrowed, chromatic, or tension colours.
Duplicate cells are removed per scale degree when they contain the same pitch classes. For example, if a mode already makes the diatonic chord G Dim, a later explicit G Dim cell is not shown again.

Interaction:

Click or touch a cell to play it.
Drag empty black background space to scroll vertically.
Use the scrollbar or mouse wheel for normal scrolling.
Hold Ctrl/Cmd and drag a cell into a DAW to export it as a one-bar MIDI file. The legacy Unlock button in General Settings can still enable the older no-modifier drag behavior.

Progression System

The Progression System contains factory progressions and an eight-slot chord picker. Factory content covers Pop, Cadences, Jazz, Soul/RnB, Cinematic, Minor/Modal, House/EDM, Funk, and Classical/Legacy material, including additional RnB, soul, jazz, house, Bach-style, Mozart-style, Beethoven-style, Vivaldi-style, and cinematic starting points for Auto Fill.

Workflow:

Enable the progression toolbar button.
Choose a progression from the progression chooser.
Play the chord slots above the Tonnetz.
Use the Extension Panel And Voicing to alter generated chords.

The progression chooser is a two-column popup with categories, a scrollable progression list, favourite stars, info buttons, and a dedicated drag handle for each progression. Selecting a progression does not close the chooser, so it is easy to audition multiple entries. Favorites are persistent and appear in their own category.

The slots show roman numerals and chord names for the selected key/mode. In German language mode, General Settings can show German functional harmony labels as an extra line.

The progression engine parses roman numerals as harmonic steps. That means Imaj7, iii7, suspensions, additions, altered degrees, and slash basses are translated into actual chord tones instead of being reduced to plain triads.

Some progressions include a recommended mode. When a recommendation is musically important, the transport dropdown shows a smaller Recommended Mode line below the progression name. The row info button opens a short popup with the recommendation and compact context about how the progression is normally used. Flexible progressions only show a short note that no global mode is required.

The footer of the Progression Chooser contains Show progressions in Circle and Tonnetz with two checkboxes. Both are enabled by default. Turning these off hides the visual progression overlays without changing the selected progression or the chord-picker playback.

MIDI drag-and-drop:

Hold Ctrl/Cmd and drag Chord-picker slots to export/import them according to the General Settings drag target.
Full progressions can be dragged from the progression chooser’s drag handle; Ctrl/Cmd is the normal gesture for MIDI/Piano-Roll drag, while the legacy Unlock button in General Settings can still allow no-modifier dragging.

Progression and Color Pyramid are mutually exclusive panels: enabling one hides the other. Tonnetz can remain visible with either.

Color Pyramid

The Color Pyramid is a playable fifth-motion map. The top block is -0 +0. Moving down adds more notes. Left values are counterclockwise Circle movement; right values are clockwise Circle movement.

Panel buttons:

i: Show Info. Displays row labels and a short explanation.
Show-on-Circle icon: held pyramid cells colour the outer Circle ring.
Octave-spread icon: plays the same pitch classes with a wider two-octave distribution.

How to read it:

-0 +0 is the root.
A clockwise value adds fifths in the clockwise direction.
A counterclockwise value adds notes in the opposite direction.
The center rows expose familiar modal and sus/pentatonic colours.
The bottom rows approach full-circle chromatic harmony.

The mini circles inside each block use the same pitch-colour logic as the Circle/Tonnetz colour systems. Changing the keynote rotates the colour position of the whole pyramid.

Settings

The unified Settings window has category tabs for General, Sound, Chord/Notes, Keyboard, Piano Roll, Circle, Tonnetz, Play & Perform, and About/License. The existing settings icons still open the same window, but jump directly to the relevant category. The left category sidebar is collapsed by default and can be expanded to show text labels.

General settings:

Look presets: Balanced Piano, Big Piano, and Digital Piano.
Color presets: Dark Blue and Colored, separated under the Color mini heading. Colored is the first-run and factory-reset default.
Language: English or German.
Show German functional harmony: visible only in German language mode.
Internal sound engine on/off.
Loaded VST plugin sound on/off. The internal engine and hosted plugin can both be off for pure MIDI-tool use, or both be on to layer sounds.
Internal sound engine selection.
Sound Settings: metronome volume, internal-sound controls, external plugin hosting, input volume, output, velocity compensation, Reverb, Compressor, Limiter, diagnostics, and instrument-specific sampler or synth controls.
Standalone always on top.
OSC Connection IP.
Unlock Button Default State and the legacy no-modifier Unlock button.
Extension Panel Feedback Color, in Advanced mode.
Reset to Factory Settings.

Display and note settings:

Note label accidental mode.
Keyboard note label placement.
Keyboard visual style.
Chord display-time mode.
Show single Notes.
Octave numbering.
Chord naming style.
Slash chords.
Alternative chord names.
Note Display darkmode.
Dark Piano Sheet.
Hide note display when idle.
Piano Sheet Notation mode.
Keyboard colours and pressed-key feedback.
Light-Guide MIDI behavior for visual-only scale guides, out-of-scale note deactivation, or upward remapping into the selected scale.
Out-of-scale note colour.

Key/Circle settings:

Keynote display mode.
Auto-optimization setting.
Circle visibility.
Circle/keynote-sort link.
Circle-of-Fifths keynote sorting.
Circle colorization.
Color Pyramid Colorize Circle, default on.
Circle single-note feedback.

Detailed Circle and Tonnetz options are in their own tabs inside the unified Settings window. Tableview keeps its compact local settings popup. See Circle Of Fifths, Tonnetz, and Tableview.

The standalone app stores its standalone settings in a local settings file. These settings include the standalone window state and app-level UI choices saved by the standalone wrapper. The settings file is stored here:

Windows: %APPDATA%\Sternenherz Harmony Tool\Sternenherz Harmony Tool.settings
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Sternenherz Harmony Tool.settings
Linux: ~/.Sternenherz Harmony Tool/Sternenherz Harmony Tool.settings

Use Reset to Factory Settings in General Settings to restore the app’s factory defaults from inside the tool.

Logs And Diagnostics

The Harmony Tool writes daily diagnostic logs named HarmonyTool-YYYYMMDD.log. A new session header records app version, operating system, CPU, and RAM. The logger also records important startup, plugin restore, plugin scan, hosted-plugin, and shutdown events. Old logs are pruned automatically after 21 days or when more than 28 log files exist.

Log files are stored under the user’s application-data directory:

Windows: %APPDATA%\Sternenherz\HarmonyTool\Logs\HarmonyTool-YYYYMMDD.log
macOS: ~/Library/Sternenherz/HarmonyTool/Logs/HarmonyTool-YYYYMMDD.log
Linux: ~/.config/Sternenherz/HarmonyTool/Logs/HarmonyTool-YYYYMMDD.log

When reporting startup crashes, plugin restore problems, or hosted-plugin scan issues, include the newest log file from that folder. If a hosted plugin was restored on startup and the app detects an unsafe previous shutdown, the restore is deferred so the UI can open first; the user can then load the plugin manually from the in-style restore prompt instead of being trapped in a crash loop.

The About page includes links to Sternenherz on YouTube and patreon.com/Sternenherz.

License Activation

Sternenherz Harmony Tool 0.9.5.2 uses offline signed license text. The app validates the license locally and does not need an internet connection for activation.

Activation workflow:

Open About & License.
Paste the complete license text into the license field.
Press Activate License.
After activation, use the rest of the tool normally.

To deactivate the local installation, clear the license text field in About & License. The app removes the locally stored license and returns to the locked activation state.

Internal Sound, Plugin Hosting, And MIDI

The internal sound engine lets the tool be used without a separate instrument. External plugin hosting lets the Harmony Tool load a VST3 instrument directly, so the Piano Roll, Circle, Tonnetz, Tableview, Progression, Color Pyramid, incoming MIDI, and recorder playback can trigger the hosted plugin without routing through a DAW instrument track.

Available engines:

Sternenherz Piano (Sample-Based).
Sternenherz Harpsichord (Sample-Based).
Sternenherz Piano + Harpsichord (Sample-Based).
80s Saw-Pad.
Saw-Strings-Pad.
Soft Organ-String-Mix Pad.
Soft Sine Pluck.

The Sound Settings page behaves like a compact device panel. It has an Internal Sound Engine section and an External Plugin Hosting section. Use internal sound engine and Use loaded VST plugin are independent switches: turn both off for a pure MIDI workflow, turn one on for one sound source, or turn both on to layer the internal engine and the hosted plugin. Each internal instrument keeps its own settings, so changing from Piano to Harpsichord, Hybrid, or a synth restores that instrument’s own input/output, Reverb, Compressor, Limiter, and instrument controls.

Common controls:

Metronome Volume: global Piano Roll metronome gain. The default is 7 dB quieter than the earlier fixed metronome level.
Input volume: gain before the instrument/device chain. Sternenherz Piano defaults to -2.5 dB for headroom.
Output: gain after the instrument section, smoothed to avoid zipper/click noise while moving the slider.
Velocity comp: gentle compensation for dense high-velocity chords.
Reverb: per-instrument on/off, Mix, and Size, with visible value readouts.
Compressor: available in Advanced; off by default for sample-based instruments and on by default for the synth engines.
Limiter: available in Advanced and enabled by default as a final safety device.
Diagnostics: end-of-chain Peak in dB, Clip status, active voices, steals, and Reset Peak. Clip YES is shown in red.

Sample-based instruments show:

Max voices: fixed choices 48, 96, or 128. The default is 128.
Start fade: short fade-in after sample trimming.
Key release: note-off release fade. The default is 290 ms.
Steal tail: fade used when an old voice must be stolen.

The Harpsichord uses the available Sternenherz Harpsichord samples and maps them across the 88-key keyboard. Missing sample ranges are filled from the nearest available source sample. The Piano + Harpsichord hybrid renders both sample instruments together; its Blend slider is centered at the default 50/50 mix, with Piano to the left and Harpsichord to the right.

Synth instruments show:

Cutoff.
Reso.
A, D, S, and R.
Max voices.

Useful current synth defaults:

80s Saw-Pad: Release 0.190 s.
Soft Organ-String-Mix Pad: Cutoff 2.0x and Release 0.572 s.
Soft Sine Pluck: Release 0.128 s.

External Plugin Hosting:

Plugin Browser opens the in-style plugin browser. It has search, All Plugins, Favorites, sorting by name or vendor, favourite stars, Scan Plugins, and Load Plugin manually.
Plugin Browser and Preset Browser use the Harmony Tool window style. They can be dragged by their header and closed with Escape or their custom close button.
Scan Plugins scans VST3 candidates and shows candidate count, current plugin/file, current path, progress, and failed-count status. Scanning uses the standalone Harmony Tool executable as a temporary child scanner when available, so a bad plugin scan should not crash the main running tool. For protected scanning from a plugin format, install or run the standalone app at least once so the plugin can find it.
Load Plugin manually opens the OS file chooser at the standard VST3 location where possible, for example the common VST3 folder on Windows.
Select a plugin row, then press Load. Loading from the Plugin Browser closes the browser and opens the plugin editor window automatically.
Preset Browser opens the separate plugin preset browser with All Presets and Favorites. Type a name into Save current Plugin State as Preset and press Enter to store the current hosted plugin state. Loading a preset restores its plugin and state but does not automatically open the plugin editor window.
Preset rows can be favourited with stars. Right-click a preset row for Rename or Delete; delete asks for confirmation first.
Plugin Window opens the hosted plugin editor for the currently loaded plugin.
Unload Plugin removes the hosted plugin and disables its sound.
Plugin Volume controls the hosted plugin output level.
The plugin scan list, plugin favourites, plugin presets, preset names, preset favourites, and preset state data are saved to Sternenherz/HarmonyTool/PluginBrowser.xml inside the user’s application-data directory. The currently loaded plugin state and plugin volume/on-off setting are also included in the normal plugin/standalone state.

Generated UI notes, incoming MIDI, Circle chords, Tonnetz notes, Tableview chords, Progression chords, and Color Pyramid cells all share the same active-note feedback path. Generated notes use the selected outgoing MIDI channel and outgoing MIDI velocity.

Play & Perform Settings

Play & Perform controls how generated harmony material is played and written. Open it from the Settings sidebar, the piano-shelf quick button, or the Play & Perform transport icon. Right-click the transport icon for a quick mode menu with Direct, Strum Up, Strum Down, Arp Up, Arp Down, Arp UpDown, Chord Pulse, Arpeggiator Rate, and Arp Gate.

The settings page is arranged in three columns: global performance style on the left, left-hand slots and right-hand mapping in the middle, and Basisnote on the right.

The page is easiest to understand as a performance chain:

source -> left-hand slot or UI chord -> voicing -> performance style -> right-hand mapping / basisnote -> MIDI output, visual feedback, recording

Performance Style:

Direct plays the generated notes immediately as a block.
Strum Up and Strum Down stagger chord tones from low-to-high or high-to-low. Strum Delay controls the spacing; the default is 44 ms.
Arp Up, Arp Down, Arp UpDown, Arp Random, and Bass + Arp turn the chord into a rhythmic line. Arp Rate sets the grid, including straight, dotted, and triplet values. Arp Gate sets note length inside each step.
Chord Pulse retriggers the whole chord rhythmically instead of arpeggiating individual tones.
Hold keeps generated performance notes alive according to the selected mode.
MIDI Velocity / Channel sets outgoing velocity and channel for generated UI notes.

Left Hand Slots:

Off (Bypass) leaves the slot layer inactive.
Assign lets you build manual chord slots. Drag chords to slot keys or assign from the current right-hand chord context.
Auto Fill fills the selected slot octave from the active progression/key/mode logic. Generate creates a 12-slot generated progression; Default returns to the progression chooser source.
Play makes the selected slot range act as chord-trigger keys.
Slot Range chooses the 12-key trigger octave; C2 - B2 is the default. Slot Voicing shapes generated slot chords: Auto Playable chooses a practical register, Close stacks tones tightly, Open spreads them farther apart, Spread uses a wide register, and Drop 2 moves the second-highest voice down an octave.
Save/Load opens the Assignment Browser for manual assignment banks. Presets are stored outside plugin state in Sternenherz/Harmony Tool/SlotAssignments.json, for example %APPDATA%\Sternenherz\Harmony Tool\SlotAssignments.json on Windows.

Right Hand:

Free leaves right-hand notes unchanged.
Scale Lock keeps right-hand notes inside the current key/mode.
Chord Tones maps right-hand notes to tones of the active left-hand slot chord.
Chord + Ext allows chord tones plus extension colors.
Correction chooses how notes are moved into the target tone space: Up, Nearest, or Down.
Colormap draws colored dots on the keyboard to show which target note a right-hand key will produce.
Look Ahead can use an upcoming left-hand slot chord shortly before it is pressed, so fast changes feel more connected. The scan is clamped to the current audio block and the selected look-ahead window, so impossible out-of-range slot candidates are ignored.

Basisnote:

Enable Basisnote turns the right hand into a relative motion controller instead of direct note entry.
Source chooses the starting reference: first right-hand note, left slot root, or left slot bass.
Motion chooses the movement space: tone pool, scale degrees, chord degrees, or semitones.
Direction chooses how movement behaves. From Played follows the played key interval, Force Up and Force Down lock direction, Alternate flips after each successful step, PingPong bounces between the basis note and the upper 88-key edge, and PingPong (All) bounces across the full 88-key keyboard.
Output chooses how many basis notes define the moving shape. Mono uses one basis note. Learned Interval learns the first two right-hand notes as a custom interval shape. Learned Triad learns the first three right-hand notes as a custom three-note shape. With left-slot sources, the shape is derived from the active slot chord.
Learned shapes are temporary performance gestures. The keyboard range label shows Learn 1/2, Learn 2/3, or Ready while the current shape is being prepared.
Auto Motion makes a held control key continue moving rhythmically. It uses the global Arp Rate for timing and Arp Gate for note length.
Legato smooths Basisnote movement. Manual movement note-offs are released a few milliseconds later, and Auto Motion starts the next moved output briefly before releasing the previous one. This affects live MIDI/audio output and Capture, so recorded playback follows what was heard while playing.

Capture:

Capture is a WYSIWYG policy for both live sound and recording.
Compact merges multiple input keys that map to the same target note. The note sounds and records once until all sources are released.
Retriggered lets every mapped note-on retrigger audibly and records each trigger.

The selected Play & Perform setup affects live playback from Circle, Tonnetz, Tableview, Color Pyramid, Chord Picker, and Progression controls. It also drives visible keyboard/Circle/Color Pyramid feedback where possible, Ctrl/Cmd MIDI exports, and Ctrl/Cmd Piano Roll chord drops. In Piano Roll drops, Alt-drag sets the total performed gesture length rather than only creating a longer static chord. Mini Recorder and Piano Roll recording capture the generated performance stream, including Strum/Arp/Chord Pulse timing and Sustain/CC64 data. The design rule is what you see/hear is what you get: recorded playback should match what was heard while playing.

Bitwig Synchronization

Bitwig synchronization requires the Sternenherz Extension. See Technical Requirements.

Current behavior:

Harmony Tool sends keynote changes to Bitwig through /midi/cc, channel 5, CC 1.
Harmony Tool sends mode changes through /midi/cc, channel 5, CC 2.
Incoming feedback from Bitwig can update the Harmony Tool keynote and mode.
Echo suppression prevents immediate feedback loops after local sends.

Mapping workflow:

Install and activate the Sternenherz Extension in Bitwig.
Enable MIDI mapping in Bitwig.
Select the target keynote or mode control in Bitwig.
Click a keynote or select a mode in Harmony Tool.
Bitwig learns the control through the extension bridge.

Practical Workflows

Chord recognition:

Play a MIDI keyboard or click the piano.
Read the chord display.
Use the note display to inspect the staff notation.
Toggle alternative names or slash chords if needed.

Scale exploration:

Choose a keynote.
Choose a mode.
Enable Show key.
Compare the highlighted keyboard notes with Circle roman numerals and Tonnetz labels.

Progression writing:

Enable Progression.
Select a factory progression.
Audition slots.
Add extensions, roots, inversions, and transposition in the Extension Panel.
Use the displayed roman numerals and chord names as harmonic reference.

Color exploration:

Enable Tonnetz and Color Pyramid together.
Use the Color Pyramid to audition fifth-motion note sets.
Enable the show-on-circle icon on the pyramid to see the same note set on the Circle.
Enable 2x when the one-octave sound becomes too dense.

Trademark Notice

VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. Sternenherz Harmony Tool is not affiliated with Steinberg.