Play chord inversions with Chord Zones
Split every key into three stacked zones — root position at the top, first inversion in the middle, second at the bottom.
By default the Root Keyboard selector will play the root position chord. With Chord Zones, the keyboard is split into multiple zones that change the voicing of the chord.
Turn it on in the keyboard’s settings sheet, under Split Keyboard into zones.
The zones
| Where you strike the key | What you get |
|---|---|
| Top | Root position |
| Middle | First inversion |
| Bottom | Second inversion |
Dashed lines across the keys mark the breaks, and they sit exactly where the voicing changes.
You can run one, two, or three zones. Two splits the key in half; one fills it. Any zone can be turned off, including root position — but the last one on stays on, so a key always has somewhere for your finger to land.
Position is read at the first touch
The zone is decided when your finger lands, and held for that note. Sliding up and down inside a key neither retriggers it nor re-voices it — so you can move your finger around while a chord rings without the voicing shifting under you.
Sliding sideways onto another key is a new first touch, so the zone is re-read at whatever height your finger is at when it crosses.
Black keys
Black keys carry the same zones. The white key behind them is not reachable through them: a touch just left of C’s top band sounds B♭, not C.
With fewer notes armed
- A bare root with no triad does not transpose when you strike it low — there is nothing to invert.
- A dyad — a root plus a single extension — only lifts its lower note.
- A sub is never lifted. Zones invert the chord above the bass and leave the bass where it is.
Velocity still works per zone
Each zone is its own full soft-to-loud sweep, so the top of every zone is the loudest part of that zone rather than only the top of the whole key. See velocity and modulation.
With VoiceOver
Aiming inside a key is not possible by swipe, so with more than one zone enabled a Chord position control appears. Adjust it and the key buttons play that position.
