Applies to Launchpad Pro Mk3
The Launchpad Pro MK3 features a standalone Chord mode that allows you to quickly build and play interesting chords.
The notes presented here will depend on the scale selected (press Shift and Note to select a scale). The orange pads will have triads from the scale in ascending order. This means you can play through progressions easily (such as ii-V-I or I-V-vi-IV in a Major scale).
The two white columns are slots for you to save your own chords in, hold down a pad and then play some notes to save a chord into one of the slots. These can be cleared by holding the clear button and pressing the pad.
The red pad in the bottom right enables the "chord lock" which will mean these chord slots are no longer accessible. The pink pad to the left of this can be held to sustain notes as they are played.
The 5 columns from the left form the note area - these are notes organised in intervals of the scale. Starting from the bottom left is the root of the scale and going up this goes through the steps of the scale, for example, if set to C Major, this will be C, D, E, F, G, A, B and back to C an octave higher.
Going to the right goes through intervals which change with the scale, moving once to the right makes a fifth (so in the example C Major, a Major fifth to G), moving right once again is a compound 3rd or 11th (for our example this would be E in the octave above), once more to the right is a 7th (B in our example), the final step to the right is a compound 5th or 13th (G in the octave above).
This means you can play 3 pads in any row and achieve a good-sounding chord. The colours help indicate what sound the chord will have. Blue pads are Major and Dominant chords, Purple are minor chords and green pads are Diminished chords. The top and bottom rows will be a brighter tone of the colour to indicate they are the root.
If using Ableton at the same time you will access to playback, record, fixed length and the bottom row of controls on the Launchpad Pro.
Chord mode is best used for exploring new ideas and finding chords you wouldn't have used otherwise.