10 Preview r2571, r2613 - Free Play

Archived development update discussion from past versions
Archived development updates.
613Skier
Posts: 49

Post by 613Skier »

More about the metronome having a few different kits is cool, but a regular straight up metronome would be cool too! Also, being able to upload your own drum loops would be pretty swell too. I'm really hoping it will turn into being able to program your own midi as it's by far the best method I've SEEN to see that actually layout and keys as your playing. Perhaps being able to go in and edit keys that were struck for time signatures would also be awesome Ie. Quarter, half, Whole notes Etc.
TonE
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by TonE »

New video presentation style and free play, both are cool. Now I imagined I am Vangelis and playing on three different keyboards, each set to a different channel. First for higher, right hand melodies, midi channel 1, we call this zone 1, highest zone. Second for middle range to lower notes, usually used for holding chords, on left hand, which might get elsewhere their arpeggios or not, as arpeggiation would occur outside Synthesia, irrelevant here, but this is our zone 2, on midi channel 3. Finally, for the lowest notes, left hand again, bassline notes. This is anything which is not higher melody or middle chords, this is lower melody, on midi channel 16, and called zone 3.

Now the trick: Synthesia would show for each zone a 'played chord name', above the zone ranges, then on top of all three names, the combinative result, as a single big chord name.

Example: You play two note intervals on zone 1, plus a single note bass note on zone 3, and you would still get a combinative chord name on top! Why and where is this useful? You can play all yourself or analyze any existing songs, if you filter out anything which is not melody, not chords, not bassline first!

Interesting? Nicholas knows. :) Keep up the great work! Now, Synthesia is a little closer to MAMPlayer, Music Animation Machine Player, but still lacking those colourful interval relationship overview.
darkman
Posts: 10

Post by darkman »

Hello !

Just a translation notification:

You shouldn't translate "Free Play" by "Jouer Gratuitement" in French. That would rather mean "Play for free"
You should translate it by "Jeu libre" or maybe "Session Libre" .

Thank you for your hard work <3
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

TonE wrote:... but still lacking those colourful interval relationship overview.
I actually still had a link to those musical-relationship visualizations in my bug-tracker item for Free Play. I still think they're cool and would like to do something like that some day.
darkman wrote:You should translate it by "Jeu libre" or maybe "Session Libre".
Thanks, I'll fix that.

It makes me wonder how many of the other languages have it wrong, too. I'll put a note in the language file that specifies "free" as in "freedom" and not that as "zero cost". Then if I add more languages in the future, they won't make the same mistake there.
darkman
Posts: 10

Post by darkman »

Nicholas wrote:
darkman wrote:You should translate it by "Jeu libre" or maybe "Session Libre".
Thanks, I'll fix that.

It makes me wonder how many of the other languages have it wrong, too. I'll put a note in the language file that specifies "free" as in "freedom" and not that as "zero cost". Then if I add more languages in the future, they won't make the same mistake there.
Thank you !

Some other questions about Free Play mode:

- Is it normal that the backgroud set up in Synthesia Config is not loaded in Free Play mode?
- Will we be able to change the color of falling notes in Free Play Mode?

I'd like to use the free play mode as a "decoration" when I record a video (With a themed background and a note color that fits with the background ^^)
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

darkman wrote:Is it normal that the backgroud set up in Synthesia Config is not loaded in Free Play mode?
Thanks for reminding me! I missed adding that the first time around. I'll fix it so the global background image (specified in the config tool) is also shown during Free Play.
darkman wrote:Will we be able to change the color of falling notes in Free Play Mode?
I suppose if it's just a matter of customizing things on that screen, I could add a little color picker like the Advanced song view has. I hadn't thought to do it since all the notes are coming from the user. Out of curiosity, which color did you want to use besides green? Is it just because you have a favorite color? Thanks!
TonE
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by TonE »

If you set a background image, mainly, with color x, you might not want note color being x?
jweaver
Posts: 30

Post by jweaver »

Probably a silly question, but I thought I would ask..

Is the iPad version being developed in Parallel? Will it launch the same time? Is there any way to get a preview/Beta of the iPad version?

Jon
PBrother
Posts: 7

Post by PBrother »

Hello,

The ipad version should be Apple approved before become disposable in Apple Store. Of cours Apple doesn't validate a beta version !
So a developer could not send a beta version directly to a user without registering the user's Ipad serial number on his apple developer account. This list isn't extensible and the maximum serial numbers that could be set is 100. So I think that for Ipad you should wait the new released version and then get it from Apple Store directly.
jweaver
Posts: 30

Post by jweaver »

PBrother wrote:Hello,

The ipad version should be Apple approved before become disposable in Apple Store. Of cours Apple doesn't validate a beta version !
So a developer could not send a beta version directly to a user without registering the user's Ipad serial number on his apple developer account. This list isn't extensible and the maximum serial numbers that could be set is 100. So I think that for Ipad you should wait the new released version and then get it from Apple Store directly.
Makes sence.. I only asked because recently I did a trial of a new version of a game called "Dots" and they didn't need anything from me.. They just gave me a code and I used it to download the 'trial'.

But I guess it might have been an approved 'trial' rather than a Beta... I don't fully understand the Apple model, so I will just wait (or upgrade to the PC version so I can play with the new features :) )

Jon
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Yeah, if all it took was a code, then it was already an approved app on the store.

We had a beta for the first iPad version of Synthesia, but it had to follow all the rules PBrother mentioned (Device IDs had to be collected and there was a limit of 100 participants). That beta was important because up until that point, no one had ever touched the iPad version but me. It's a good thing it happened, too, because there were a dozen or so critical bugs found by people using different configurations (display languages, keyboard hardware, etc.).

Since then, because there are very few iPad-exclusive features, I have relied on feedback from the desktop version previews (which are much easier to distribute) and just kind of cross my fingers that nothing bad will happen on the iPad side when it's released. The good news is that on the iPad side I use a free bit of technology that gives incredibly high-fidelity information about any crashes that anyone has run into. It's a much better stream of information than I have for either desktop version. So when there have been problems on the iPad side, I've been able to track them down very quickly.

The short answer: no iPad beta, but both versions are developed in parallel and officially released at roughly the same time. (The desktop version goes out while the iPad version is still going through Apple's approval process, which takes about a week.)
jweaver
Posts: 30

Post by jweaver »

Thanks Nicholas.. I am sure you get asked this a lot and don't want to give specifics.. But do you have an approx timescale on v10? Are we talking weeks or months? I am still tempted to pick up the PC versions, just so I can play around with the 'preview' release.


Jon
User avatar
jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Remember that the desktop versions only require a Learning Pack Key for the Melody Mode and the annotation features. There is quite a bit you can play with on the unregistered desktop versions.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Yeah, Jim is right. There isn't anything stopping you from grabbing the latest version right now. And even if you want to check out new Learning Pack features, you can always fire up one of the 20 demo songs. They always behave as though you have the Learning Pack so you can at least get a taste of the upcoming features.

As for an ETA on version 10, I've learned my lesson at this point. Giving any kind of estimate (even when I believe it's something as short as "in the next few days"), historically all I've done is disappoint people by missing that deadline. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable guaranteeing anything more than a few hours into the future. :D

That said while I'm not good at giving time estimates, I can describe how I've got the release broken down on my schedule: this "10 Preview rXXXX - Some feature name" forum topic that you're in right now is how I track major milestones internally. Subsequent previews in the same topic are smaller revisions. To give an example, I plan to make at least one more big-green-text preview post in this same forum topic soon. That build will roll in all the feedback I've gathered from you guys and add the finishing touches to the first pass of the Free Play screen.

So: new topic = new milestone.
And: additional previews inside the same topic = smaller revisions.

With that process described, here are the milestones I have planned for Synthesia 10:
  • Free Play
  • Big quality of life update
  • Track splitting
So, you can see we're wrapping up the first milestone and have two more remaining. Unfortunately this isn't as useful as a time indicator as you might hope, because any one of those may be way larger/smaller than another one. Still, you can be sure there will be at least two more "10 Preview rXXXX" posts in the dev updates section of the forum before the official release goes out the door. So hopefully that helps a little.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

PREVIEW r2613
Download from the pink box above.

Changes in r2613 since r2571 release:
  • Free Play now shows measure lines while a style is playing (in the correct time signature for the style).
  • Free Play now includes a color picker to change the color of your notes.
  • Free Play now shows individual note names and two-note interval names (but all the music theory stuff now requires the Learning Pack).
  • Free Play now uses the background image set via the Synthesia Configuration tool.
  • Free Play now pauses the background song library scanning thread (like song playback).
  • Free Play now has it's own "--on-startup FreePlay" command-line option and will remember if it was the last screen upon re-opening Synthesia.
  • Free Play now no longer glitches notes out when you have a keyboard set to Channel-1 lights.
  • Free Play now prioritizes sus4 chords over sus2... which means that for the time being you'll probably never see a sus2. This will be fixed once the chord detection stuff gets smarter about inversions.
  • Entering non-ASCII text into text boxes should no longer cause crashes or broken Unicode characters (like this: � ).
  • Extended IME text-entry methods (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.) should now work on Windows again.
  • Fixed that zero-height table problem on the recent song/news title screen list.
  • Fixed a problem (and Mac crash) where song paths were sometimes lost (for the purposes of the recent history list).
  • Songs on no-longer-available network paths should no longer cause a crash.
  • French language "Free Play" text fix.
  • Should be a little more resilient against device unplug/replug crashes on the Windows side.
Lots of Free Play tweaks and bug fixes! That's about it for Free Play in Synthesia 10. I want to keep the ideas simmering for a while before we go down any of the cool music theory / chord progression / jazz improv stuff we've been talking about. It's very exciting and I'd like some more time to think about all the possibilities.

The next milestone is going to be a big quality of life update with lots of little things (mostly on the play screen) that I've been promising for years. That's going to happen over two or three previews where it makes sense to draw a line in the sand. I.e., some of the updates are related, others aren't.
kiwi
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

Yep Nicholas but before synthesia 10 u haven't missed any date :)

So for the new "jam mode" or "jeux "libre" like it have just tested a litlle.

So more drums styles would be great but i am pretty sure it's planned.

The top would be an IA drummer like u can found in Archibald or Jamstix but i think it's really too much works for now :)

Archibald have buttons for probability of the sound to be triggered or not ( based on one of the 16 grid of the bar).
Demo here: http://www.polyrythmic.org/en/archibald.php

Jamstix react to you're incoming midi or audio activity and change his feel according to you're playing.
Jamstix is a vsti grab the demo here:
http://www.rayzoon.com/

And know i go to test this newly build more.
Korados
Posts: 64

Post by Korados »

Nicholas, I'm sorry to annoy you again with the errors I'm struggling with but in the new previews I encountered some new bugs.

Maybe you know I told you about the ever-lasting error with VirtualMIDISynth which makes notes play indefinitely. What's new now is that
when the error occurs the respective keys are constantly held down throughout the rest of the piece but the note itself is neither shown nor sounded. Look
at the rightmost notes here:

Image

In Synthesia 9, I had the problem that some notes where constantly held down and shown without being sounded. In Synthesia 10, this error still applies
to the the MIDIs I saw it in but as you remember these are very poorly rendered.

What is the worst part now is that Synthesia 10 is doing this new error on every MIDI that contains strings or brass even on the MIDIs that were perfectly fine
in the previous versions.

Af if this weren't enough, I still have this instrument change error. In this one Saint-Saens MIDI where the organ tracks were broken in Synthesia 9, the organ tracks
are fine now but the trombone tracks are changed to piano.
TonE
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by TonE »

What about visualizing pitchbended notes in Free Play? See attached image, sorry for cheap hand drawing. :) Only as an example, pitchbend up could make note color more and more red, pitchbend down could make notes more and more blue, hotter and colder. Hot like red, cold like blue. Not much interesting with a real piano, but with synthesizers.

How difficult would it be to implement this, with the given code structure? If somehow possible, I would suggest using +- 6 semitones for bending curve width.
Attachments
Pitchbend up, red, pitchbend down, blue
Pitchbend up, red, pitchbend down, blue
synthesia-pitchbend.jpg (28.19 KiB) Viewed 22693 times
TonE
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by TonE »

A simpler version would be forgetting the note shape bending, instead only using note color changes. For pitchbend 1..max: Gradient transition from green to red. In the other direction the same, but using blue.

In case nobody tried it yet, you can use Free Play with any software! For example, set Van Basco Midi Player midi output to Midi Yoke 5. Input in Synthesia to Midi Yoke 5, then play any midi files in Van Basco Midi Player and watch the real-time used chords in Synthesia. Great.
TonE
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by TonE »

Nicholas wrote:[*]Free Play now uses the background image set via the Synthesia Configuration tool.
...
[*]Free Play now has it's own "--on-startup FreePlay" command-line option and will remember if it was the last screen upon re-opening Synthesia.
Free Play view is so useful, it would be great if we could set the background image there via the command line, too. Ok, we can replace each time the xml file directly. :D Any official support for this idea? Or do we have this already and I missed it?
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