AudioTheory Guitars News

AudioTheory Guitars version 1.12.0 is now here and this latest update introduces an extension to the colour coding system which I have dubbed 'scale based highlighting'. This applies the colour/ note relationship currently used for the white keys onto the black keys, where the colour used is determined by the selected scale.



The idea behind this is that just as the names for the black keys can be context dependant (say, C♯ or D♭ depending on the scale) the highlighting colour can be too. That means that when, say, C♯/ D♭ is presented as C♯ it highlights in yellow (the colour used for C) but when it's D♭ it highlights in orange (the colour for D). As such you have a consistent colour spectrum used through the scale preset.

As this is all scale-dependant, to make use of this you must first select a scale from the preset selector.



This update also includes a few other bits and pieces:

–The note overlay names now also display as a sharp or flat relative to the selected scale.

–There is a new 'invert fretboard' option in the settings. This reverses the order the guitar strings display on the diagram.

–There is now a second keyboard overlay option that assigns a key to each of the piano notes sequentially across all three octaves. This (option 2) can be used instead of the default overlay (option 1 – a single octave across two rows) by selecting either the 1 or 2 option next to the 'keyboard' button.



And finally, this update coincides with the announcement of my next software release; AudioTheory Grids. You can check this out on Steam, it comes out September 25th and if you are interested in a grid-based sequencer with a focus on music theory then please do add it to your wishlist!

AudioTheory Grids on Steam



Anyway, I added in some new instrument presets for Grids and they are also coming to AudioTheory Guitars... today! The guitar preset has been replaced with a deeper sound that better matches that of a steel string acoustic guitar and there are two new synth presets for you to try out.

Thanks for reading and keep practicing.

Fraser

Today's update adds a few new enhancements to AudioTheory Guitars. We've got Diminished 7 Chords as the star features, but version 1.11.0 goes beyond this to rounds up a whole bunch of miscellaneous improvements.



But yes, let's start with Diminished 7 Chords. These are now available as a 4th tab on both the mini-selector popup and full chord sheet page. Adding these proved to be an interesting challenge due to the numerous ways in which a dim 7 chord can be constructed (different shapes and root positions) as well the chord's symmetry, meaning there are four different chords in any one position!

The solution is a more comprehensive selector, where you can build your Diminished 7 Chord from the available options. When a diminished chord is chosen, the additional notes which compose an identical chord are highlighted in light grey.



You can also click the chord name to cycle between these options. This functionality has also been extended to the display of sharp and flat chords.

And the rest:

Note playback duration
The system through which keyboard sound effects are played back has been reworked. This now means the playback sound length is controlled by the duration of the piano-key (or fretboard) press.

Sustain effect
The above makes possible a new sustain feature. The button for this is on the left, just above the keyboard and can be toggled on or off to include a resonating effect on note playback.

Streamlined mute button
To make room for the new sustain button the 'mute' option has been moved into a single toggle (rather than tabbed playback modes, as it existed before).

Quick select modal scales
The modal scale presets introduced in version 1.10.0 can now also be selected from the mini-selector (bottom left when the 'scale' button is pressed) as well as the fullscreen selector.

♭ Glyph
The flat glyph icon (♭) is now used across the application.



And to round it all off some miscellaneous bugs have been fixed and a few bits-and-pieces have been reworked behind the scenes to better optimise the application. I'm excited to say that this is the foundation for more updates and features to come in the future!

But that's about all for today. Thanks for reading and keep practicing.

Fraser

AudioTheory Guitars version 1.10.0 is now here. This update focuses primarily on scales, adding modal scales to the available set of reference diagrams and presets.



These are accessed using a new 'modes' tab on the fullscreen scale selector ('scale ––> all scales' in the bottom left). From here you can selected the desired mode (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian etc.) to view the relevant scales.



Along with this we have a couple more changes:

There is also a new 'scale looping' button on the right hand side of the screen. This can be toggled to loop scale playback on repeat.

All existing scale diagrams now display over a single octave. This makes it easier to differentiate between a mode and its relative key.

That's about all for today. Thanks for reading and keep practicing!

Fraser

AudioTheory Guitars version 1.9.0 introduces a new view mode for the main interface. This replaces the chords with a set of note options to fully configure the guitar tuning and then uses the extra space to display a larger fretboard diagram.



The new view mode is swapped to using a new double-arrow button found on the right hand side on the screen. Pressing this closes down the chord box, filling this space with a wider fretboard and a row of note options to customise the tuning of each guitar string.

There's also a few bug fixes and technical improvements since last time. This includes support for additional aspect ratios (5:4, 4:3 etc.) although admittedly I put this out in a patch as soon as it was ready so it's actually been part of AudioTheory Guitars for a few weeks now. Plus the capo setting is now only managed by directly pressing the note numbers underneath the fretboard (the plus minus icon that did the same thing in the settings cog has been removed).



That's all for today. Thanks for reading and keep practicing.

Fraser

AudioTheory Guitars version 1.8.0 introduces shifted guitar tunings. This means the fretboard and chord diagrams can now display relative to any systematic increases or decrease of standard E tuning, with an option to lower (or 'drop') the 6th string as required.



There's a couple more changes also making their way into this update, but let's talk a little bit more about tuning first. It's long been my goal to support full tuning customisation in AudioTheory Guitars, and following on from the previous Drop D update this is now step two.

Shifted tunings means support for any tuning where all the strings are tuned by the the same interval relative to E tuning (EADGBE). Combined with the option to lower the 6th string (as in Drop D, Drop C tuning etc...) this means a total of 24 tuning options.

In terms of using these new tunings, they can be found in the 'guitars' tab in the settings. As for chords, open chords are still selected by relative chord shape (not sound) from the mini pop-up. I'm looking at options to choose by both in a future update.



So what else is new?

Well, there's a new and improved method for setting a capo. Now you can click on the desired number on the fretboard and... ta-da! When a capo is applied there is a new capo icon that appears below the open strings that can be used to remove it. At least for now the existing plus/ minus selector still exists (although relegated to the settings cog) however I'm thinking about removing it in the future.

I'm also pleased to report that numerous code optimisations go live with this latest update, in part to support the new tuning settings and in part to improve general performance of the application. I pleased to inform you that AudioTheory Guitars is running better than ever.

Thanks for reading and keep practicing.

Fraser