Pentacom has released ChordBloom, a free plugin for macOS and Windows that makes chord exploration intuitive and fun for producers, songwriters, and live performers.
There are plenty of MIDI plugins to help with chords, but I love that ChordBloom has a very straightforward approach to triggering chords. The lower octave of your MIDI keyboard (C2–B2) selects the chord type, while pressing any note from C3 upward instantly plays that chord using the selected root.
It’s a simple and intuitive two-hand system that allows you to experiment with harmony in real-time. You can also stack chord extensions like major 7ths, 9ths, and 11ths using the black keys in the same range, enabling rich voicings with minimal effort.
I also love the GUI. It’s sleek, minimal, and uses a dark pastel color scheme that feels clean and modern. There aren’t unnecessary buttons to draw your attention away from the most essential controls.
The layout is intuitive, and plugins with a clean look like this often inspire my creativity by removing distractions from my music-making process. Big kudos to whoever designed the interface.
You’re not just limited to one chord at a time. ChordBloom features chord memory slots (C1–B1), letting you save your favorite chords for quick access.
That’s super helpful for trying out progressions on the fly or recalling voicings during a live jam. You can register chords to memory by holding a chord shape and pressing a memory key.
If you want to change the key, the Transpose function shifts entire chord sets up or down in semitone steps without altering the shapes. You can also tweak the voicing range and the bass octave. All of this is super handy when sketching ideas or breaking through a creative block.
ChordBloom can generate sound on its own or be used as a MIDI generator. If you want to use custom instruments, just route ChordBloom’s MIDI output to another plugin in your DAW, and it will send out the full voicings.
I think it’s a great tool if you don’t play keys fluently but still want access to expressive and well-voiced chords.
ChordBloom is now available as a free download for Windows 10+ (VST3) and macOS 10.9+ (VST3/AU, compatible with both Intel and Apple Silicon). The AU version includes both Instrument and MIDI FX formats.
And I’m sure many BPB readers will appreciate that this is a direct free download from the developer’s website. Just click the download button and you’ll get the installer.
Download: ChordBloom
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Last Updated on July 28, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.
