A chord progression generator that starts from your melody
Most chord progression generators hand you four chord names and leave the song to you. Hook works the other way round. You give it the part only you can write, the melody, and it writes the rest: chords that fit every note you sang, a bassline, a counter-melody and drums, in the genre you choose.
It's a songwriting plugin for producers who have ideas in their head and want them on the grid fast, and for anyone stuck on a loop that won't turn into a song.
Your idea
Hook wrote this hook. Lock what you love, roll the rest.
Draw the emotion
The song
The real plugin engine, running in your browser: same DSP code and presets as the VST3/AU/AAX.
Hum it, play it or let Hook write it
- Hum it: tap the button and hum or whistle two to four bars. Hook tracks your pitch, finds the key, snaps the notes to the scale and the 16th-note grid, and treats your first note as the downbeat.
- Play it: record a melody on the on-screen keys, your computer keyboard or a MIDI keyboard. Timing snaps to 16ths.
- Write it: no idea yet? Hook writes a singable hook over chords in your genre, with the shape most hit hooks share: a one-bar motif, repeated, a third bar that climbs and a fourth that lands home.
How Hook picks the chords
For every bar Hook considers the chords that belong to your key, plus the borrowed chords your genre likes (the ♭VI and ♭VII of rock and cinematic music, the ♭II of drill). It scores each one on four things and keeps the best path through the whole loop:
- Fit: notes you sing on the downbeat and on the beat should be chord tones. Long notes count more than passing notes.
- Genre habits: progressions each genre actually uses, such as I–V–vi–IV in pop, i–VI–III–VII in trap and ii–V–I–vi in neo-soul, shape which chord tends to follow which.
- Emotion: your emotion curve sets a target tension for each bar. Calm bars lean on home chords, peaks reach for the dominant and borrowed colours.
- The loop: the last chord has to lead back into the first, so the progression loops cleanly.
Voicings are then voice-led, with each chord moving as little as possible from the last, so it sounds like a player, not a chord chart. Neo-soul and R&B open up into drop-2 voicings with 9ths.
Twelve genres, each in its own language
Pop
- Progressions it leans on
- I–V–vi–IV, vi–IV–I–V
- Chords, bass and drums
- Plucked triads, eighth-note bass, a tight pop backbeat
Hip-hop / trap
- Progressions it leans on
- i–VI–III–VII, i–iv–VI–V
- Chords, bass and drums
- Dark 7th pads, gliding 808 that follows the kick, rolling hats
R&B / neo-soul
- Progressions it leans on
- ii–V–I–vi, IV–iii–ii–I
- Chords, bass and drums
- Drop-2 9th chords rolled on keys, walking bass, swung drums
EDM / house
- Progressions it leans on
- vi–IV–I–V, i–VI–III–VII
- Chords, bass and drums
- Offbeat stabs, octave bass, four on the floor
Lo-fi
- Progressions it leans on
- ii–V–I–IV
- Chords, bass and drums
- Rolled 7ths, long bass notes, lazy swing
Drill
- Progressions it leans on
- i–VI–VII–i, i–♭II–VI–V
- Chords, bass and drums
- Pads, sliding 808, skippy hats
Afrobeats
- Progressions it leans on
- I–IV–vi–V, ii–V–I
- Chords, bass and drums
- Syncopated 7ths, bouncing bass, log-drum style groove
Cinematic
- Progressions it leans on
- i–VI–III–VII, I–♭VI–♭VII–I
- Chords, bass and drums
- Sus pads, sub bass, toms
Rock / indie
- Progressions it leans on
- I–♭VII–IV–I, I–V–vi–IV
- Chords, bass and drums
- Strummed power chords, eighth-note bass
Dubstep
- Progressions it leans on
- i–VI–VII–i, i–♭II–i–VII
- Chords, bass and drums
- Stabs, sub, half-time drums
Draw the emotion, lock what you love
The emotion curve has four points from calm to peak. Drag them and the harmony and the arrangement follow: calm bars thin the drums and play fewer chord hits, peaks bring every hit, harder velocities and tenser chords. Every part has its own dice and lock, so you can keep the chords, roll a new bassline, then roll a new hook over the same chords.
From idea to DAW in one drag
Drag a single part or the whole song out of Hook and drop it on a track as MIDI. It works in Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, Bitwig and Pro Tools. Inside the DAW, Hook follows your project tempo, and Trigger mode lets you play the song's chords one key at a time, voice-led, for performing or re-recording them by hand.
