AudioTheory Guitars News

A new update to AudioTheory Guitars is here. This update includes a whole load of miscellaneous changes and bug fixes. Let's take a look at what's new...

[h2]Relative note names[/h2]

Numerous changes have been made to improve how the application handles relative note name formats (Degrees, Roman numerals and movable do). These now display relative to the last selected scale, rather than the current scale. This has the effect of allowing you to subtract notes from the scale and still see the relative intervals for what's left. So for example, if you started out with C major and removed D, F, A and B then you'd be left with C, E and G, which would be labelled as 1, 3 and 5 respectively (which is useful if you're learning arpeggios!).

Further to the above, auto scale matching now only checks the current scale set group, as well as and the regular major and minor scales. This prevents accidentally swapping to the pentatonic scale of another key (e.g. G A B D E can be viewed as a subsection of C major, and won't automatically swap to G major pentatonic in this situation).


[h2]Chord Updates[/h2]

Some chord display and playback issues have now been corrected. There's also some new barre chords available – an alternate set of 6th chord shapes and D minor shaped barre chords (found as an alternative option once the minor chord type has been selected – the default is still the A minor shape).




Also included in this update:

• It's now possible to view and set the note display colours by hex value in the options
  
• Two alternate note colour sets can now be loaded directly from the options popup
  
• The note selector (bottom left) now has a highlight effect when you add in notes
  
• Custom sharp and flat states now save between sessions (where as previously it was only the scale as a whole that would save)
  
• A message has been added to the options popup to clarify that the buttons 1–4 can be used to swap the note display language from the main application view
  
• A message also appears on the main display when swapping note language via hotkey, just to clarify what change has been made
  
• Hotkeys now also respond to the keyboard number pad
  
• Clicking on a sharp/ flat chord name in the main application view now adjusts the sharp/ flat display for that note globally
  

And the bug bug fixes:

• Fixed an issue with the audio latency value not displaying correctly on MacOS
  
• Fixed an issue with certain pentatonic scales not highlighting correctly
  
• The chord offset label in the settings now correctly saves between sessions
  
• Since the last update chord circle outlines have been missing from the light theme. They are now back.
  
• Barre chords label is replaced with Sus2 label in dropdown when in a Drop 6th tuning
  
• Dracula's Cave Software logo now only displays in options and not also in the 'Welcome to AudioTheory Guitars' popup
  
• A few corrections have been made to how notes display when using Solfege
  
• Quick select chords popup now always displays on top of the scale select popup
  

A small update to AudioTheory Guitars arrives today. It includes the following changes:

• Engine upgrade
  
• Removal of the splash screen
  
• Mode labels now correctly update to major or minor
  
• Removal of the legacy binary (this helps keep the filesize down!)
  

Please note that the removal of the legacy binary means that there's no longer the option to automatically launch the legacy version of AudioTheory Guitars (version 2.4.0 and below) through Steam. If you really, really wanted to, it's still possible to override the launch path in the game properties, but there are no benefits to doing this. If you have automatic updates turned off, and you've eluded the 3.0.0 update for the few months since its release, now is the time to upgrade!

AudioTheory Guitars 3.0.0 is here. This is the largest update for the application yet, and it adds in many new features, including support for 7 string guitars and beyond.



[h2]Introducing the Fretboard Builder[/h2]

The fretboard component of AudioTheory Guitars has been rebuilt from the ground up, finally allowing for many requested customisations that were not previously possibly within the app. It's now possible to set the number of strings, the number of notes and the start fret, as well as the per-string start note and octave. So if you have a seven string guitar tuned to open C, you can easily configure the diagram to match. But even if you're sticking to E standard, the options to configure the size and display of the fretboard still provide a significant boost to the amount customisations you can now make.



[h2]Locked & Unlocked mode[/h2]

Supporting these new customisations has required a large rethink of how the user interface works, and the goal has been to make it less cluttered whilst also adding in more options. The solution is a new padlock icon found in the top right hand corner of the screen. This toggles the application between an unlocked 'edit' mode and a locked 'view' mode where the display configuration options are hidden.

This also replaces 'minimalist' mode, bass mode and the fullscreen fretboard, effectively by consolidating these options into a set of configuration settings that can be used to achieve these old view modes, as well as many more. Further to this, the piano settings have been moved into the new format and a couple of components from the options popup (fretboard size, left handed mode) have been moved onto the main display. The overall result is that 'unlocked' mode provides the full set of display settings overlaid directly onto the main view, and locked mode allows for them to be hidden at the press of a button.

[h2]New menu bar[/h2]

There's a new menu bar in the top left of the window. The chord and scales libraries have been moved here and the dropdowns also provide quick access to save/ load presets and toggle fullscreen mode, amongst other features.



[h2]Light theme[/h2]

A brand new look is here in the form of the light theme. AudioTheory Guitars already has a couple of selectable backgrounds, but this is the first true alternative theme, as almost every colour within the application is changed. This mode is perfect if you want to print out a physical copy of your diagrams.



[h2]Colour wheel[/h2]

The options screen has been rebuilt as a larger popup. It now includes a colour wheel so you can quickly change the per-note colours. This builds upon the custom colour functionality introduced in AudioTheory Guitars 2.4.0, and the colours can still be modified directly in the .ini file if you'd prefer, but now you can easily update the colours at runtime using the new selector.

[h2]And the rest...[/h2]

The following changes and bug fixes have also made their way into this update:

• Chords are now evenly spaced across the screen regardless of the application window width
  
• The loaded preset name is now an input field that can be edited directly
  
• Fixed Do: Option to set Si or Ti as the 7th note in the scale
  
• Movable Do: bugs fixed and new option to set minor scale as 'La-based' or 'Do-based'
  
• The 'clear highlighting' delay time for the 'high' setting has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds
  
• Fixed some issues with the sustain feature and some issues specific to using the mouse to play notes and chords. You can now play notes on the keyboard by dragging the mouse, as was previously possible on the fretboard.
  
• You can now click on the scale name in the bottom left to swap between the major and relative minor scales
  
• Pentatonic scales now just load the major scale chords. Chords no longer auto load when swapping between the major scale and pentatonic with the same root.
  
• 'Interval' label corrected to 'Degrees'
  
• The 'Set from chords' button now correctly distinguishes between major and relative minor scales
  

One final thing, the binary name has now changed. Originally just titled 'Guitars.exe' it makes more sense to now present it as 'AudioTheory Guitars.exe' for consistency with the other AudioTheory applications. This is why you'll now get a prompt when launching the app in Steam, the selector is essentially just in place to ensure the old version can still be launched through the client.

A new update is here for AudioTheory Guitars. This adds in a requested feature for the ability to change the note colours, and the application can now be customised to use any combination of colours you desire.



[h3]The new .ini file[/h3]

Once you've updated to AudioTheory Guitars 2.4.0 then the first time you run the application it will create a new 'Data' folder inside the application's directory folder. The easiest way to get to this is to then right click on the app in your Steam library and select 'Manage --> Browse Local Files'. If you're on a Mac the location of the folder is a little different and it can be found in the Application Support folder. So just to clarify where this file lives:

Windows and Linux

 {path to steam app}/AudioTheory Guitars/Data/

Mac

 ~Library/Application Support/com.DraculasCave.AudioTheoryGuitars/Data/

Open up the Colour.ini file in the text or code editor of your choice and you can then override the default note colours by changing the hex codes to specify the colour for each note. Changes will then take place the next time the application is loaded.



If you want to revert back to the original colours then the easiest way is just to delete the Colours.ini file and then the application will make a new one automatically with the default values.



A few other bug fixes have also made it into this update, but nothing too wild.

Just another small patch. AudioTheory Guitars version 2.3.8 contains the following fixes:

• Fixed an issue where chords would not correctly save and load between sessions
  
• The user guide button now exits fullscreen mode, meaning the application now always swaps over to the internet browser when pressed