I’ve read the manual, and I’ve read this closed thread. I’m still a bit baffled by the relationship between the Session Key and the chord progressions. There really doesn’t seem to be a relationship between session key and the preset chord patterns accessed via the browser.
If I load the Magic Moog preset with the Cold Hearted progression, it defaults to a session key of Em. The “1” chord is Em, but the rest seemingly have no relationship with the key of Em at all. If I switch to Cmaj, the “1” chord becomes a Cm9.
What is the intent of the session key control? Is it only for user created content? The UI here is extremely unclear.
Hey! Totally fair question, it is a bit confusing. For the chord progression presets, each progression will default to its original key unless you’ve set and locked in your own session key. So for the Cold Hearted progression it is centered on E minor, but it’s not purely diatonic natural minor all the way through.
Each progression was written and performed by a real musician, with the goal of creating progressions that feel musical, expressive, and unique - so most of the progressions have borrowed chords and modal color.
As for changing the session key this is how it works; if you select a progression that’s originally in A minor and set your session key to C, the progression transposes up 3 semitones—but it retains its original harmonic structure. We designed it this way because the chord progressions contain borrowed chords, extended voicings, and modal interchange that can’t be neatly converted algorithmically between major and minor without fundamentally changing the character of the original progressions.
If you’re looking for progressions that are strictly diatonic, we have the Building Blocks chords presets:
Right now, Building Blocks covers the diatonic chords in major and minor scales as well as popular modes like Mixolydian and Dorian. And each chord (1-7) moves step-by-step up the keyboard. We’re planning to expand on these in our next updates so if you have any feedback or suggestions please let us know!
This is very helpful, Julia! Very much in the spirit of the idea machine vision. I wonder if a more traditional “transpose” label would be more appropriate in the UI? The current menu makes me think that the progression and its notes will snap to the selected key (similar to how Ableton scale locks work).
Yeah I get what you mean 100%. We chose the label Session Key because it’s probably the most immediately familiar term for most people. That said, I can see how it might suggest more of a scale-lock or reharmonization behavior. It’s definitely something that we could clarify better in the tooltip, user manual, or both.
