Daisy in the Wild: HiChord

HiChord is a Daisy-powered chord synthesizer that fits in your pocket. With the right hand, a chord can be triggered by pressing one of the keyboard buttons, each pre-mapped to diatonic chords in the selected key. The chord qualities can be changed by moving the joystick with the left hand. By using only a thumb from each hand, musicians can play with chords while holding this device similar to a handheld game console. It is battery-powered and features both an onboard speaker and a headphone out, so you can take this instrument on the go and play anywhere.

For musicians just starting out, HiChord offers an opportunity to begin making music without prior knowledge of music theory. In addition to making it easier to play chords, HiChord provides a tactile, handheld interface for seasoned musicians to produce tracks using a host of features, including a multi-track looper, drum machine, sound engines, effects, arpeggiator, and more.

Interview

We spoke with Andrew Oliver to talk about his musical background, development journey of HiChord, and community!

ES - We would like to start things off by getting to know more about your musical background and synth development experience.

AO - Hi Takumi!!

I first got into music production making hip hop beats when I was around 14 years old. I would sample my dad’s old soul records into Logic, chop them up, add a beat, and have my friends make goofy raps over them. I then started playing guitar later that year, and entered a lifelong rabbit hole of fascination with songwriting, being in bands, and needing out on pedals, synths, mics and amps.

In my early 20s, I wanted to do something entrepreneurial in music. I discovered the T560 vinyl lathe, saved up for a year, and started a small batch vinyl cutting business in Toronto. It got busy quickly and was super exciting. There was one downside, the lathe cut in realtime, meaning if a band wanted 50 copies you would have to listen to the same album 50 times. This began driving me a bit crazy, and I missed being the one making the music! Through the vinyl company, I had met a duo called Devan and Khalid. I joined them for some shows and we became Wild Rivers. 10 years later we are still making records and playing shows around the world together :)

ES - Could you tell us what motivated you to start designing HiChord?

AO - After playing with Wild Rivers for about 7 years, I began to get an itch for a new entrepreneurial endeavour. 

We had done a bunch of writing trips to Nashville, and I noticed everyone there referred to chords as numbers. For examples, they would say a 2-5-4-6 chord progression. I learned about the Diatonic chord system, a shorthand for writing chord progressions using scale degrees instead of chord names, so they automatically adapt to any key. I started looking around, and realized no instruments used this system as an interface, even though it is incredibly useful and prominent among songwriters. 

Around the same time, my band mate purchased an Omnichord. I loved the idea of it, and we had some very fun jams. It broke quickly, and was extremely limited in it synth and sound capabilities.

The idea of a modern, portable, chord synth that utilized the Diatonic chord system began to form in my head. I started drawing pictures and renders and thinking through the feature set and design.

First drawing

First Render

ES - How did you discover the Daisy platform, and what drew you to it for developing HiChord?

AO - A few months into dreaming up the HiChord, I saw Chompi on Kickstarter. They had an incredible campaign and a very cool device. At the bottom of the page, it described how they planned on manufacturing Chompi, and had a link to Electrosmith and the DaisySeed.

The Daisy had everything I could possibly need for HiChord and more. I ordered one and began hacking away.

I was drawn to the Daisy as it seemed like the perfect bridge between an Arduino, and manufacturing ready chips. I could see that it came with a vast amount of example projects, resources, and a great community forum. I could also see that, unlike the Arduino, it was used in professionally manufactured synths. It has been a fantastic brain for HiChord.

ES - We’re sure that fellow developers and HiChord players alike are curious about what goes into making a product! What was your experience prototyping HiChord like?

AO - Prototyping the HiChord was one of the most joyful experiences I have ever had. I had zero experience in circuitry, PCB design, electrical engineering, and basically any of the skills needed to bring HiChord to life.

My first step was purchasing an Arduino and breadboard. The Arduino came with a bunch of useful tutorials/ example projects, including Tone, which gave you instructions of how to make a one button synth that plays 1 frequency on an Oscillator.

This took me weeks of YouTubing to learn the basics, but I eventually got it working.

Around the same time, ChatGPT was launched. I asked ChatGPT how to make my Tone example play 3 tones at once (to build a chord), and it gave me the step by step instructions. To my amazement, this worked, and I now had a breadboard synth that could play 1 chord. That gave me enough confidence to believe I could actually, potentially, develop this product.

At the same time, I was working on the physical design. I downloaded Blender, and a bunch of premade assets (Joystick, buttons, Speakers, OLED, etc). I hacked together a render that felt very close to what I want.

I recognized the PCB design would be beyond my limits. I found Hiro Akihabara on Youtube who was sharing his progress of building SnapBeat, a 3d printed drum machine with sampling features. I reached out to Hiro, and he agreed to help design the PCB, and turn my Blender file into a 3d printable enclosure. Hiro is incredibly talented and is still very involved in the project.

It took about a year of learning, YouTubing, Googling, ChatGPT asking, and slow coding to get the first playable prototype.

ES - What key design considerations did you have to take into account when developing the product version?

AO - Designing the unit for manufacturing took about the same amount of work and time as designing the first prototype. To my very grateful surprise, we sold 1000 units in the first 2 months of our pre-order launch. With that amount of units, I wanted to get an experienced professional involved for sourcing manufacturing and ensuring the design was ready for assembly. I found Metric Designworks, who had done some notable projects for products I had held and used throughout my lifetime. They did a fantastic job of finding suppliers, and overhauled the design to work for injection molding and CNC.

One of their main focus, which I had not considered, was ease of assembly. A ton of work and consideration went into designing how the unit would be put together at the production facility. We have honed this in with each batch. Electrosmith (who is also doing the assembly), would give us great feedback on how we can make it even easier to put together.

The details that took the most trial and error, were the keys and the joystick. We wanted them to be easy to place, hot swappable, but also fixed enough that they would not fall out accidentally. This took many tries to get the perfect tolerance.

ES - What was the experience of putting together the HiChord Kickstarter campaign?

AO - I had been aware of and occasionally browsed Kickstarter since it launched. I always had it in the back of my head that I would one day launch a kickstarter.

Since the first render, I have been sharing the process of bringing HiChord to life on our instagram page. I would post each prototype iteration and encourage feedback and criticism from our audience. This gave us about a year of growing the page before the Kickstarter. I was also actively growing our email list with the future Kickstarter launch in mind. This excited community gave us a great springboard to launch the Kickstarter campaign.

ES - Now that HiChord is out into the world, what has your relationship with the growing community been like?

AO - It has been fantastic and scary and amazing! It has been a great joy to see people share videos playing their HiChords. We have had some heartwarming emails about HiChords making their ways to classrooms, hospital beds, mountain tops, and festival stages. That has been the most fulfilling part of the journey so far!

We have had some moments where it feels like the community is turning against us. When I first announced the price of HiChord ($320 USD), there was a big backlash in the comments. It seemed like many people were upset about the price, and I began to believe it may not sell. The price point was where it needed to be to cover all components, labour, tariffs, breakage, returns, etc. I also felt like it was competitively priced in the market, with the new Omnichord retailing at over $700. This was a scary time, but as soon as we launched I was relieved! I think it has hard for people to understand all the costs behind a product, and I don’t blame them! I did not know before I started the project either :)

ES - A few months ago, we were listening to a playlist and the synth in one of the songs caught us off guard. It was HiChord! We would love to hear about your experience with the track "PULL UP" by Internet Girl.

AO - This was so cool! Internet Girl sent me a video of them rapping over a HiChord demonstration video I had posted. They were on a rooftop in South Africa with a bunch of their friends. The song ended up so good! It got placed in a South African Adidas commercial and blew up on TikTok. Since then we have some legendary artists express their interest in HiChord, including Deadmau5, Kaskade, Steve Aoki, Mike Dean, Ty Dolla Sign, Jay Electronica, Frank Dukes, Kenny Beats and many more!

ES - Could you share your plans for HiChord’s future with us?

AO - I plan to keep adding more features through firmware updates. Since launch we have added Drum Machines, sequencers, FM synth, sample playback, mini games, and a ton more. The extra power on the Daisy Seed gives me lots of room to keep adding and improving. Every update I ask our community what updates they want next and I make sure to get them done.

I have also started the prototyping phase of a couple other hardware devices I am very excited about! I will be very excited to share these ideas soon :)

Conclusion

The idea for HiChord was born from Andrew’s experience as a professional musician. Through continuous learning, hands-on prototyping, and a willingness to seek help, he brought the device to life. It is exciting to learn about the journey Andrew took to create an instrument that now inspires musicians around the world.