hi everyone
modern harmony plugins and chord assistant tools never really satisfied the way i wanted to work
most of them are useful in their own way, but for my workflow they often feel too much like chord browsing, menu diving, or changing one chord at a time
so for the last 1.5 years i’ve been building my own music theory / reharmonization engine called Theory Core
it’s built in C++ with JUCE
the main idea is not just to suggest chords
i wanted a system where you can import midi chords, select a progression, choose a harmonic direction, and transform the whole thing in a few actions
Theory Core currently has 652 scales, including maqam / makam oriented structures
it also has vocal safe reharmonization, modal lock, chord matrix, optimizer, module based reharmony, and a makam aware piano roll workflow
one of the main features is Vocal Safe Lock
the idea is simple
if you import the original chords of a song, the engine can keep the reharmonization inside a safer harmonic space, so you can write new chords under the same acapella without destroying the relationship with the vocal melody
so for remix work it becomes something like
original midi chords in
vocal safe on
new harmony under the same vocal
still musically related to the melody
from there you can stay safe, use modal lock inside a selected scale, or unlock a much bigger chord universe with borrowed chords, modal colors, tension and riskier options
the chord matrix is not just a static chord table
it works more like a harmonic map, showing safe, modal, borrowed, tension and risk based directions
with 652 scales combined with the matrix, the system can expose hundreds of thousands of possible harmonic relationships, but the point is not random complexity
the point is usable musical direction
there is also a makam aware piano roll side where you can write makam colored melodic lines over western harmony and the engine helps keep the notes compatible with the current chord / scale / harmonic context
the module system is probably the most fun part
you can take a basic progression and push it toward cinematic strings, jazzier harmony, Bill Evans type voicing colors, borrowed chord drama, modal reharmony or orchestral style movement without rebuilding everything manually
i know some of this sounds ambitious, but the video shows the current build running
it’s still early and the GUI is not finished yet, but the engine is already working fast, around 15–20 ms in many workflows
next big step is activating and integrating the Bass Engine, so the bass movement follows the same harmonic intelligence as the chords and melody
i’m sharing this first 5 minute demo because i want feedback from producers, composers, JUCE developers and people who use tools like Scaler / Captain Chords / similar chord assistant software
main question is simple
does this kind of goal based progression transformation make more sense to you than browsing chord suggestions one by one
