ChordColor Studio is a 5-track browser-based sequencer built for songwriting and music theory exploration. The five tracks are: chord track (place full chords on a timeline), melody track (draw individual notes in a piano roll), bass track (write bass lines that follow the chord progression), pad track (sustained chord voicings for texture), and drum track (pattern-based rhythm sequencer). Each track plays back with sampled instruments, and the chord track drives a tension heatmap that shows harmonic tension across your progression in real time.
The chord stamp tool lets you place chords on the timeline by clicking -- choose a chord type and root, then stamp it into the progression. The piano roll for melody and bass tracks is scale-locked, meaning it highlights notes that belong to the current key and grays out notes that fall outside. This makes it easy to write melodies that fit the harmony without requiring advanced theory knowledge. All interval colors from the main ChordColor app carry over into Studio, so chord tones on the piano roll match the colors you see on any instrument page.
The tension heatmap visualizes harmonic complexity across your chord progression. Stable chords (like major triads) show as cool colors, while dissonant or tension-rich chords (like altered dominants) show as warm colors. This gives you an overview of the emotional arc of your progression before you even listen to it. When your progression is ready, export the entire arrangement as a MIDI file that opens in any DAW -- Ableton, Logic, FL Studio, GarageBand, and others.