OmniHarp

A chord harp you strum inside your DAW

The OmniHarp plugin: a cream control deck with knobs and 27 chord buttons, joined to a harp with 12 strings.

Press C, F, G or Am, then drag across the strings. Your keyboard plays it too: R, E, T and J for the chords, 1 to = for the strings. Swipe the panel sideways to reach the strings.

This demo has four chords and one rhythm. The download has all 54 chords and 6 rhythms.

Hold a chord with one hand. Strum with the other.

OmniHarp plays the way an Omnichord does: pick a chord from the grid and the strings retune to it, so every strum is in key. It runs as a VST3 or AU plugin, or on its own as an app, and anything you play can be dragged into your session as MIDI or audio.

Get it on Gumroad See the MIDI map

macOS 12 or later (Intel or Apple silicon) or 64-bit Windows.

54 chords from 27 buttons

Nine roots, three rows: major, minor and 7th. Hold two buttons ore more buttons

Major + 7thmaj7
Minor + 7thm7
Major + minordim

Hold chords in different columns to layer up to four, like B major over C major. The strings then play all their notes, lowest first.

The chord grid, with nine columns from E flat to B and rows for major, minor and 7th.
The harp section with its 12 numbered strings. String 5 is lit.

Twelve strings, always in key

Click one string or drag across them all. In a DAW, play them with MIDI notes 60 to 71. They follow the chord you're holding, or the last one you played.

Memory is on by default, so a chord keeps sounding after you let go. Turn the Sustain knob down and the strings ring for less time.

Six rhythms that can follow your song

Sync holds a rhythm back until your next chord, or until the DAW starts playing.

Turn on BPM and the rhythm follows your song's tempo, with each bar of drums starting on the DAW's bar. Speeding up a loop also raises its pitch.

The rhythm panel, with six rhythm buttons, Start, Sync and BPM buttons, and Tempo and Volume knobs.

From clean to wobbly tape

Chorus bends the pitch of the chords and strings while the drums stay dry. With Mix at 100% you get pure vibrato. Lower settings blend in the dry sound, and Width spreads the wobble across the stereo field.

Transpose shifts the chords and strings by up to 12 semitones either way. Your DAW can automate every knob, and your project saves them.

The top row of controls: Power, Memory and Stop, then the Sound knobs, a transpose readout and the four Chorus knobs.

Drag what you just played into your DAW

OmniHarp records everything you play, including mouse strums and clicked chords. Drag the MIDI Take tile onto a track for a MIDI clip, or the Drum Take tile onto an audio track for a .wav. If the DAW was playing, the take lines up from the bar where you began.

Takes are also saved to Music/OmniHarp Takes. To plan a progression ahead, record it into the Chord Computer, then step through it with Step, the space bar or MIDI note 72.

The Chord Computer showing step 3 of 8, next to the MIDI Take tile with 24 notes and the Drum Take tile at 12 seconds.

Other ways to play it

Akai MPK mini mk2

OmniHarp understands an MPK mini layout out of the box, once the controller is set up to send it.

KeysThe current chord's harp note closest to each key, so sliding across them strums
Pads16 chords across banks A and B
Knob 8Makes every pad play its root as major, minor, 7th, maj7, m7, then dim
Knobs 1 to 7Harp, chord and rhythm volume, tempo, sustain, transpose, rhythm
JoystickStrums up from string 1 or down from string 12 as you push, and back as it returns

Any controller set up to send the same notes and CCs works too.

AI assistants, over MCP

Each running copy of OmniHarp opens a control port on your own machine, on 127.0.0.1. Its MCP server lets an assistant such as Claude read the plugin's state, including the MIDI it's receiving, the output level and the active chord. It can also play chords, strings and strums.

To set it up, click the OH crown on the harp. The How to play panel copies the command for you.

Specs

Formats

macOS 12 or laterVST3, AU, standalone app (Intel and Apple silicon)
Windows, 64-bitVST3, standalone app
WindowResizable, on a new pastel page each time it opens. This website does the same.

Computer keyboard

Major chordsq w e r t y u i o
Minor chordsa s d f g h j k l
7th chordsz x c v b n m , .
Strings1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =

MIDI map

Notes 24–357th chords, by root
Notes 36–47Minor chords, by root
Notes 48–59Major chords, by root
Notes 60–71The 12 strings
Note 72Chord Computer step
Notes 73–111Harp keys, two octaves lower
Notes 112–127Pads, bank A then bank B
CC 70–77Knobs
Pitch bend, CC 1 and 2Joystick strums

Download OmniHarp

Name your price on Gumroad. Entering 0 gets it for free.

Get it on Gumroad

Install on macOS

  1. Unzip the download.
  2. Copy OmniHarp.vst3 to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/.
  3. For Logic and GarageBand, copy OmniHarp.component to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/.
  4. Rescan plugins in your DAW. OmniHarp is under Personal > OmniHarp.

To use it without a DAW, drag OmniHarp.app to Applications.

Install on Windows

  1. Unzip the download.
  2. Copy the OmniHarp.vst3 folder to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\.
  3. Rescan plugins in your DAW. OmniHarp is under Personal > OmniHarp.

OmniHarp.exe runs without a DAW. The build isn't code-signed, so SmartScreen may warn you. Choose More info, then Run anyway.