AudioTheory Grids News

Today is launch day for AudioTheory Piano Keys. This is a brand new piece of software designed to give you real time visual and audio feedback when learning and practicing the piano. I'm super excited to be releasing this, and coincide with the launch there is also a big new update for AudioTheory Grids.

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

[h3]So what's new with AudioTheory Grids?[/h3]

I'm glad you asked. Many features developed externally for AudioTheory Piano Keys and AudioTheory Guitars too are making their way here too, so this new update contains a whole bunch of new features.



[h3]Chromatic highlighting[/h3]

This is the culmination of numerous highlighting enhancements that have been made over the last few updates. The new chromatic highlighting options mean there is full flexibility on how sharp and flat notes highlight not only within a scale preset but also in chromatic mode (using all notes) as well as any custom subsection.

I am confident that this is a much improved solution for how to display sharp and flats. Firstly, two changes to how this previously worked:

• Sharp and flat notes now display with coloured highlighting even when a scale preset is not being used
  
• The previous sharp and flat settings in the options cog are no more
  

[h3]New scale library[/h3]

The mini-scale selector has been neatened up, and there's a new look for the fullscreen selector. Minor scales have been split out into their own tab and there's now also a set of Dim scales available.

[h3]New octave selector[/h3]

The octave selector has been revised to better match that of a real-world device. It now starts at 0 and can be increased to +1 or decreased to -1. There is also a new option in the settings to show the MIDI input octave directly in the main view. I'd recommend turning this on if you are using a MIDI device and frequently change the octave directly on the device. This (now labelled as 'input octave') should match the device to ensure highlighting works as expected.

For example: if you increase the octave by +1 on your MIDI controller, then you should set the input octave as +1 too as this will ensure the device continues to highlight the correct octave. Meanwhile the output octave independently sets the pitch of the application software instruments.



[h3]Additional Guitar configuration[/h3]

The guitar view now includes is the option to select a full 24 fretboard diagram as an alternative to the default 15 fret diagram, letting you see two octaves at once. Plus, there's now the option in the settings set the guitar tuning per string (rather than just as a root note).



[h3]DSP Latency Settings[/h3]

I've added in some new optimisations to the app's latency settings (this is the fractional delay between input and playback). The DSP buffer size can now be configured (between 1024 and 32 samples) in the settings, with the idea being that a lower buffer size will result in less latency, but as this requires more CPU power you may incur audio distortions if it's reduced too much.

The buffer also now starts out at a platform-optimised size, meaning latency has been reduced without the need to adjust the settings, however full control is now available to tweak this further.

[h3]Hotkeys[/h3]

Some hotkeys are now in place to optimise control of the app:

Num keys 1–4: quickly swamp note languages
1 – English
2 – Fixed Do solfège
3 – Relative Roman numerals
4 – Movable Do solfège

Ctrl (Windows)/Cmd (Mac) –O: Open preset from file
Ctrl (Windows)/Cmd (Mac) –S: Save preset to file
Ctrl (Windows)/Cmd (Mac) Shift –O: Toggle keyboard overlay view
Ctrl (Windows)/Cmd (Mac) Shift –M: Toggle mute
Ctrl (Windows)/Cmd (Mac) –K: Toggle QWERTY keyboard input
Ctrl (Windows)/Cmd (Mac) –L: Toggle lock to scale



Plus there's a few more miscellaneous bug fixes and tweaks that have made their way into this version of AudioTheory Grids. Highlights include:

• Modal scale backgrounds now correctly update in the mini popup
  
• Fix for lines not correctly transposing when shifted up or down
  
• Fix for a display bug where icons in the bottom left would incorrectly overlay at a reduced width
  
• Sustain state now correctly saves
  
• Fix for colour overlap when two notes next to each other were both pressed
  
• Application now properly checks to resize if swapping from a 16:9 windowed to 16:10 fullscreen view
  
• Fix for highlighting issue when using MIDI and QWERTY input together
  

And that concludes today's update. Thanks for reading.

Fraser

A small update is here to fix an issue where the app could unexpectedly crash if all notes were removed from the selector.

A new patch for AudioTheory Grids is here! This includes the following:

• Scale preset now updates if manually set
  
• Fixed mute button for playback grid
  
• The grey-out effect has been made uniform across the relative scale highlighting notes
  
• The sustain button state now correctly saves between sessions
  

A small update is inbound!
–Bug fix for scales not reloading correctly
–Save/ load retains file name and last saved location
–Engine upgrade
–Larger sharp and flat icons for the default option buttons

I'm super-excited to announce the first feature update for AudioTheory Grids. Right around launch I was working on a new system for highlighting the piano notes (and in turn grid rows) which I dubbed 'Scale Based Highlighting'. This was added to the other AudioTheory application (AudioTheory Guitars) but I was pleased to be able to offer it at launch for AudioTheory Grids!

But that was only step 1. This release fully completes the set of improved highlighting tools I have been working on and I hope you enjoy the improvements.



[h3]Relative Fretboard and Chord highlighting[/h3]

This update extends the relative highlighting principles already in effect on the piano and grid onto the guitar fretboard. This means that all Sharp and Flat notes now update dynamically based on the applied scale. These display with an outline indicating the note colour (again relative to the scale!).

This of course requires a scale to be selected, however I have also added some default display options to the 'guitars' tab in the settings cog. This means that when a scale is not loaded you now have the choice between displaying sharps, flats or both (before the only option was both).

[h3]Fixed Do solfège[/h3]

In the spirit of customisation the other big addition is an option to change the note language in the settings.

If you would prefer for notes to be named using the Fixed do convention (Do, Re, Mi... instead of C, D, E...) then this is now supported.

Aside from this there have been a few bug fixes since the initial launch, however I set these live as soon as they were ready so these have actually been in effect for a week or so now! Thanks for reading and keep practicing.

Fraser