Download the full pack with this link:
drive.google.com/file/d/1i0c-Rdoi2X8_PuIiZajuSCkWZOIgYVzV/view?usp=sharing

This pack is a collection of jazz-inspired chord samples from the Yamaha Reface CP set to Rhodes I mode. It is designed to provide a flexible timbre for electronic/sample-based music makers that want to explore the jazz harmonic universe. Within are a collection of sampled “rootless” chord voicings with different combinations of upper extension notes that are common in jazz and jazz-inspired music. Rootless simply means that the root note of the chord is omitted. So even though all the chords in this pack are named C-something or other, no chord contains the note C.

Rootless chord voicings are very flexible, which helps to integrate them into electronic music. For example, the same rootless chord voicing can be several different chords depending on what a separate bass part is playing. If we consider the simple Cmaj7 rootless chord (E, G, and B), playing a C in the bass will evoke the typical Cmaj7 sound, but playing an A in the bass will make the more interesting Asus2 (or Amaj7 add9 no-3rd) chord. As every bass note can be played with every chord, experimenting with bass notes/bass lines and rootless chord voicings can produce some very interesting results.

Another cool feature of rootless voicings is that you (generally) don’t need to worry about a frequency clash between the chords and a separate bass part, which helps produce a cleaner sound. In fact, one of the reasons why rootless chords are used in jazz is because it allows the bassist and piano player to occupy their own chunks of the frequency spectrum. It also eliminates the out of tune sound when the bassist doesn’t exactly match the frequency of a root note in a piano chord. When we translate these ideas to electronic music, it means that rootless voicings are already pre-mixed to avoid clashing with a bass line, and if the bass line tuning is off a little, it’s not as big of a deal (looking at you old analog monosynths).

Aside from those practical benefits, rootless voicings with upper extensions can infuse new harmonic ideas and dissonances into your music. This allows you to evoke more specific emotions than what’s possible using triads or 7th chords. Extended rootless voicings are common in the old-school jazz framework (i.e. 2-5-1 and related chord progressions), but there is a lot of unexplored territory for using these chords in samplers and picking two random voicings to make a vamp, transposing extended voicings, etc.

All the above thoughts helped me decide how to put together this sample pack. To save memory in hardware samplers, all the chord samples are 6 seconds long, which includes enough of a tail to loop if you want the chord to sound longer. The chords are voiced in the range of C2 to C5, and there are two inversions of each chord – one a lower pitched voicing and the other higher – that you can choose depending on your use case. And finally, if you want to use these chord voicings on other MIDI-equipped instruments, I included MIDI files for all the chord voicings in this pack.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or comments about the pack – and have fun!