AudioTheory Guitars News

Today's update to AudioTheory Guitars is more exiting than it initially sounds. It's a reworking of the application settings, and this is (in fact!) very exciting because it improves the ways you can customise and control the software.

[h3]The new settings popup[/h3]

For the longest time I had been reluctant to swap out the existing settings menu as I liked how it could sit open alongside the main application view. The downside to this was a limit to the available space, and as new features have been updated and adding it, things were starting to get a little cramped in there.

Anyway, swapping over to new, much larger popup, has solved a whole bunch of problems. There is now a lot more space, giving room for the current settings to breath and making it easy to add in some extra stuff there wasn't previously room for.



[h3]So let's have a look at what's changed...[/h3]

• The options for saving and loading a preset now come complete with some cool icons (the same as those used in AudioTheory Grids!)
  
  
• Guitar config. now sits as part of the single popup view (rather than in its own separate tab).
  
  
• The keyboard overlay type (previously indicated by a button next to the keyboard icon) now has its own dedicated settings toggle, with options for the full and partial overlay.
  

[h3]And here's what's new...[/h3]

• There is now an option to turn off the feature where chords are auto loaded with a scale preset (introduced in version 1.15.0).
  
  
• The way that MIDI input is handled has been reworked and there are now new settings in place to support this. The main octave (the one just above the piano keys), was previously sensitive to MIDI input, essentially requiring the MIDI device's own octave range to match whatever was set here. This is now no longer the case and the octave here is purely for playback.
  

What this last point means is that he MIDI input range is now configured separately (in the new settings popup). The big advantage of doing things this way is that you can ensure everything is synced correctly in the settings and then adjust the main piano octave without the need to also change octave on the MIDI device.

There is a new plus/ minus selector you will find in the settings under the name 'MIDI input mod'. If your MIDI device is not registering at the correct octave you can adjust this value (and/ or the octave settings on your device itself) to get the two in sync. Plus, if you are ever experiencing issues with MIDI input, there is also a message here that will log any MIDI input that the application receives.



This displays as both a raw input value as well as the target note to play, and you can use this info to easily debug any issues with MIDI playback. The note on the far left of the piano is C1, so if the note on the far left of your MIDI device is returning C(-1) you won't receive any output as you're playing two octaves too low! This can be fixed by either increasing the MIDI input mod. by +2, or also by increasing the octave on the device itself by +2.

You might be wondering if these more comprehensive MIDI options are in part due to the fact that MIDI input is a key component of the upcoming AudioTheory Piano Keys. The answer is yes, it's been the excuse I needed to add all this in and I'm very please to also bring it back into AudioTheory Guitars!




There's also a couple more miscellaneous features that have made their way into this update too:

• The current scale is now highlighted on the mini selector when it's open.
  
• The scale tab selector now remembers its last used position
  

Thanks for reading and keep practicing.

Fraser

The AudioTheory software library is expanding with the upcoming release of AudioTheory Piano Keys. This new piece of music theory software takes all the cool features you know and love form AudioTheory Guitars but reworks them it into a piano-focused package.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]AudioTheory Guitars... but with a piano?[/h3]

Yes, the idea for AudioTheory Piano Keys started a while back as an obvious expansion of the series – AudioTheory Guitars has an extensive library of interactive chords and providing the same thing for piano chords makes a lot of sense.

However, with AudioTheory Guitars you've also got the fretboard component and other tools optimised for transposition. My goal has been to provide piano-specific tools along these lines, so AudioTheory Piano Keys will be launching with a couple of brand new innovative features designed for visually explaining how the music you're playing works:



[h3]The Scale Wheel[/h3]

The first of these I call the Scale Wheel. This is a circular diagram that visually shows how notes fit into scales. This works by locking the root note of the scale to the 12 o'clock position allowing the focus to be on the relationship between the notes.

It's a really useful way to understand how all scales of the same type follow the same pattern. The root note meanwhile is interchangeable and can be adjusted by spinning the wheel around as desired.



[h3]Real-time scale highlighting[/h3]

The idea here is to show how a note that's played fits into two scales at the same time. And also in real time! This is one of the application's more advanced features, but once you've got your head around the concept, it's an extremely powerful tool for helping write new songs or playing captivating progressions when improvising.

This works by having a second row of notes above the main piano. You can load the song key to the main display and then this second row shows the scale for the note that is currently being pressed. By default this filters against both scales, essentially meaning that the second row is showing you the subsection of notes that are both in the main song key and also in the key of the current note being played.



Of course alongside this you have all the useful features for note highlighting, viewing and playing scales and chords, and customising the application view as with AudioTheory Guitars. The store page for AudioTheory Piano Keys is now live which means now is the perfect time to add it to your wishlist:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1513510/AudioTheory_Piano_Keys

Currently there is no fixed released date as I'm still implementing the finishing touches, however I would anticipate the release date being approx. 3–6 months away.

The newest update to AudioTheory Guitars is here. This update is not so much focused on bug fixes (perhaps I fixed them all... just maybe) but rather an important new feature that has been frequently requested. This is the ability to automatically load chords when selecting a scale preset.



[h3]So how this works[/h3]

The major and minor scales (as well as the modal variants) all contain seven notes. Each of these notes is also the root for a chord that can be played as part of this scale. However, as we go through the scale from positions 1 through to 7 we swap between a pattern of major/ minor and 1x diminished chords at a fixed interval defined by the scale type.

For example a major scale goes...
I – major
ii – minor
iii – minor
IV – major
V – major
vi – dim

The good news is that with this new update to AudioTheory Guitars you don't have to worry too much about how this is constructed or the variations between scale types and modes. All you need to do is choose a desired scale from the selector and the rest will take care of itself!

These chords are of course not the only chords that will be compatible with your scale (and AudioTheory Guitars also includes many alternate shapes that can be swapped in) but it should be a great starting point when learning scales and finding compatible chords.

––

[h3]One more thing![/h3]

Another quick note before I go. As well as making music theory software I'm also here in the world of Steam as a game developer, and today I'm launching Lion Quest Infinity, a title I've spent the last five years working on.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
It's a story driven adventure game where you steal a magic grandfather clock and travel through time and space on an adventure to save the universe. By night that is, by day you're working an office job.

Oh, and there's even a piano-based special game directly inspired by AudioTheory.



If you're looking for an original game full of twists, surprises and wild ideas, this is one to check out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1384530/Lion_Quest_Infinity

One more thing. Trading cards have just been released for AudioTheory Guitars. These are based on open chord shapes, have fun collecting them!

Hello! Today's update is all about chords. Version 1.14.0 extends the chord library and introduces some new features to support this larger selection of chords.



So let's have a look at what's new:

• Extended barre and power chord library. This has been completely overhauled to now support 5+ power chord shapes per note and 6+ barre chord shapes per note. This means there is now approx. 4x as many power and barre chords than before!
  
  
• To make this larger amount of chords manageable the mini 'Quick Select' popout as well as the fullscreen chord selector have both been reworked. Barre and power chords can now be loaded by selecting a combination of a root note and chord type.
  
  
• Some chords have more than one shape. There is a new 'cycle chord' button which is a circle with two arrows inside it. For any supported chord, this can be pressed to cycle between the alternate shapes.
  

With this initial chord revision the following alternate shapes have been added:

• Alt. barre chord shapes (Major, Minor and Major 7th).
  
  
• Alt. power chord shapes to optionally include an additional root note with the 3rd finger.
  
  
• Alt. F and B open chord shapes.
  
  
• Alt. shapes for all open Major 7th guitar chords.
  
  
• The cycle chord button can be used to alternate Dim7 chord positions (these chords were already in the application but this is a new way to swap between them).
  

Aside from chords there are a couple more miscellaneous features this update adds:

• The loaded preset file name now displays in light grey above the fretboard.
  
  
• Manual scale preset changes (as in adding or removing notes in the bottom left box) are referenced against the main scale library. If a manual combination matches a library preset then this will apply the correct relative scale highlighting (for example if you manually entered in the G Major scale it would automatically adjust the highlighting on the F# note to blue).
  

This update also includes the following bug fixes:

• The sustain button state now correctly saves between sessions
  
  
• Fixed a display bug on the menu slide out icon hover state
  
  
• The grey-out effect has been made uniform across the relative scale highlighting notes.
  
  
• Display bug when re-pressing the current chord selector tab has been fixed.
  
  
• Dim7 chord shapes reviewed and corrected (including fix for alternate tunings).
  
  
• Open string display on power chords revised.
  

And that's just about everything! Thanks for reading and keep practicing.

Fraser