Sundog Song Studio Chords Tutorial

Sundog Chords View Tutorials

The following videos will show you a lot of tips and tricks about the Chords View.
Please note that the videos were created using Sundog 2. But except minor differences, Sundog 3 works the same way.

The most important Chords View features

If you already know the basics of Sundog, you can skip to 04:40. This video will show you how to...

.. find standard chords for Major and Minor scales (00:35)
.. create chord progressions easily (02:00)
.. export progressions to your DAW (02:45)
.. quickly create arpeggios and basslines (03:35)
.. play chords with one finger + other keyboard shortcuts (04:52)
.. invert chords (06:00)
.. quickly find out the tension of a chord (06:24)
.. create own chords and chord collections (07:35)
.. experiment with voicings / chord variations (10:00)

Please note: The chord tension option has moved from the Chords View to "Settings -> Chords View: Show chord tension" in Sundog 3.

The Chord Progression Search

Sundog contains over 500 chord progressions and an own chord progression search engine. The following video will show you how to use this engine quickly (and how to preview chords directly in your song):

Smooth chord progressions within seconds

Did you create a chord progression that you kinda like - but that is too jumpy? Sundog contains three algorithms for automatic chord progression optimizations.

Bits and pieces

There are several other features that can help you to work with chords and chord progressions.

Right-click on a chord button to play it one octave lower.
Do you want to work with a finer resolution than quarter notes for your chord progression? Deactivate "Settings -> Chords View: Show reduced (quarter notes) timeline when possible".
Want to change the length of your progression? Check out "Chords -> Loop chord progression to different length" and "Chords -> Stretch chord progression to different length". Loop will loop or cut your existing chords, stretch will stretch them to the new length.
Here is a nice way to collect interesting chords before you start to build a progression: Use different steps of the timeline to collect chords that sound good. Then click on "Chords -> Copy chord progression to own chords". You can clear the timeline now and start to work with the chords in your Own Chords collection.
Activate "Settings -> Chords View: Realtime preview" to hear the changes that different chords make to your song directly. The song part will sound the same as in the Main View, so if you change a chord you will hear that change at once.

You can find the complete online manual here. If you need an offline PDF, you can get it there, too.