10 Preview r2840 - Quality of Life 3

Archived development update discussion from past versions
Archived development updates.
kiwi
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Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

Nicholas wrote: That is the point. :lol: (If you click the score box to shimmy it off to the right, does that diminish the effect enough?
No it's not enough and it is usefull to see error that's why the red is ok but the shaking effect no :p
Nicholas wrote:For now they're embedded in the app. It's a little inconvenient to modify/add them in Windows. If you've got a Mac handy, you can just look inside the App folder with a right-click. They're the "beat44_rock1", "beat34_rockWaltz1", etc. named MIDI files in resources.
I use Windows :)
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

On the iPad,using a 25 key Rock Band keyboard, if I shift the range of the keyboard, e.g. from C3-C5 to C2-C4, and go to Settings and reset the keyboard range, everything seems to behave as expected. However, on the play screen the range is still C3-C5. Even more strange, the keys play the range C3-C5 even though they are sending MIDI notes C2-C4 (I assume).

In a similar vein, neither option for notes outside the range of the keyboard seems useful for serious play. I realize that solving this is non-trivial. I think it would a significant improvement if there was a better to handle notes outside of the keyboard range.

At a minimum, if all notes can be made to fit by shifting by octaves, I think that should be done.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
kiwi
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Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

I have noticed we can't make bookmarks when a loop is on the timeline dunno if it's intended or no.

Also a black contour for the coloured dots on the keyboard would be great like the new one on the falling area. (we can't see the next notes on the keyboard if we are doing a chord)
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

jimhenry wrote:Even more strange, the keys play the range C3-C5 even though they are sending MIDI notes C2-C4 (I assume).
This is the old "Gameplay.AutoShiftToBestOctave" behavior. Synthesia is trying to be helpful by shifting your input to a range where it can hit the most notes for the given hand/part combination. On the iPad it's inconvenient to disable this.

(It takes using a tool like iFunBox to extract "Synthesia/Library/Application Support/com.synthesia.synthesia/settings.xml", placing it in the usual place on a PC or Mac, using the Synthesia Configuration utility to change that setting, and then sending the file back to the device.)
jimhenry wrote:At a minimum, if all notes can be made to fit by shifting by octaves, I think that should be done.
How does this differ from the "Move Them Inside My Keyboard's Range" behavior?
kiwi wrote:I have noticed we can't make bookmarks when a loop is on the timeline dunno if it's intended or no.
Ah, I see the bug. It's only supposed to prevent future bookmarks you can't see (because you're "inside" a loop). Once you're past the end of the loop, the behavior should return to normal. I'll fix it. In the meantime you can still Ctrl-click in the timeline to make bookmarks.
kiwi wrote:We can't see the next notes on the keyboard if we are doing a chord
Do you mean the color of the circle is too similar to the color of the key? (I.e., the lime green circle is too close to white?)

Before adding a border, I'd sooner just adjust the color of the circle a bit so the whole thing had more contrast.
kiwi
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Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

Screenshot is better :) i have underlined the dot.
Last edited by kiwi on 09-04-14 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Nicholas wrote:
jimhenry wrote:Even more strange, the keys play the range C3-C5 even though they are sending MIDI notes C2-C4 (I assume).
This is the old "Gameplay.AutoShiftToBestOctave" behavior. Synthesia is trying to be helpful by shifting your input to a range where it can hit the most notes for the given hand/part combination.
That probably explains it. I was working on the first verse of a long piece. The first verse would have fit in the octave I was trying to select. But the rest of the song probably moves higher up the keyboard.

How do you feel about using only the notes in a loop to find the best octave when looping?
Nicholas wrote:
jimhenry wrote:At a minimum, if all notes can be made to fit by shifting by octaves, I think that should be done.
How does this differ from the "Move Them Inside My Keyboard's Range" behavior?
"Move Them Inside My Keyboard's Range" moves only the notes outside of the range which can lead to some odd passages. Gameplay.AutoShiftToBestOctave is probably the behavior I was trying to describe.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

jimhenry wrote:How do you feel about using only the notes in a loop to find the best octave when looping?
There are some shortcuts in the "Play Controls" category that let you change the input octave shift on the fly, as needed. On the iPad they aren't bound to anything by default. (It's Z and X by default in the desktop version.)

I wonder if there shouldn't be a bit of UI someplace like the zoom popup so input shifting becomes possible without binding shortcuts.
kiwi wrote:Screenshot is better...
By "more contrast", I was thinking of something like this:
moreContrast.png
moreContrast.png (52.37 KiB) Viewed 26265 times
kiwi
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

Well something like this is perfect :D but what about the black keys? The dots are readable?Because black keys are a little more dark.
Ps: am glad the shadow effect is removed :p it looks really clean now.
Nicholas
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Post by Nicholas »

I went in the opposite direction for black keys. It's a little quirky when you're already holding the keys from a bit of contrast illusion, but it gets the job done.
reverse.png
reverse.png (29.57 KiB) Viewed 26259 times
henryco
Posts: 26

Post by henryco »

So eventually have you given up at least for this coming version 10 the idea of changing one note from one track to another in synthesia (which would avoid not so easy manipulations with another midi editing software ) ?
kiwi
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Post by kiwi »

The opposite contrast is really good!
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

henryco wrote:So eventually have you given up at least for this coming version 10 the idea of changing one note from one track to another in Synthesia?
Not at all. It's what I've been working on every day for weeks now, and it's coming along nicely. :D

Really, track splitting is just about the only thing that's going to be in the next development preview. It's a big technology change that breaks many of the underlying assumptions in the code, so it's just taking more effort than many features combined.

I should have things to show pretty soon. Yesterday I had some fun testing "discarded" notes. During the track splitting process, you're basically assigning the notes in a track to the left hand, right hand, background, or "this is a bad note that doesn't belong and it should never be played by me or in the background, discard it". Watching a well-known song (that hasn't been edited) with a few notes missing because they were marked to be discarded was neat.

Never fear: track splitting is on its way.
kiwi
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

It 'll be the big major feature for Synthesia (personally with the time i can split the hand in my head).
And no others app like this have this feature good job Nicholas!

Also with this feature coming more colors choices for track would be great :)
rumpole
Posts: 22

Post by rumpole »

Four small annoyances:

1: Being able to choose a different background other than black;

2: Notes do not scroll smoothly. May/may not be a Synthesia issue, but mine?

3: The important and valuable "green" and "blue" progress bars at the top of the screen are too large, taking up too much screen space;

4: Sometime distortion of sound: is it simply an issue of buying, say, the Yamaha ux16/emu interface cable rather than the generic Chinese offerings? Is the problem automatically solved by the later keyboards' usb connection?

Regards,

Frank

PS: The "10" development version is a big improvement on the ninth version, but waiting with abated breath version "11's" revised note reading capacity.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

1. Follow the instructions in this post and change the "screenBackground" entry in colors.xml

2. This is something we started looking into last week. We've come up with two or three hypotheses that should help. Those changes will make it into the next development preview.

3. Use the Synthesia Configuration utility to disable the "Gameplay.PinMenuDrawerOpen" setting.

4. Change your keyboard's "Local" setting to "Off", which should fix the distortion (of duplicate notes).
kiwi
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Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

rumpole wrote: 2: Notes do not scroll smoothly. May/may not be a Synthesia issue, but mine?
Also you can press page up/down depending on the zoom level the falling notes are more fluid.

@Nicholas you say "we" before you said "I" so you are not the only one developer on Synthesia?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

This guy helps out now. :D

I've known Timothy for years and years, since he sent an email demonstrating the first, actually-finished Linux port of the old, open-source version of Synthesia. This was a time when I might get an email once a week from someone telling me they were going to attempt a Linux port. But by the next week or so, each person would inevitably shuffle off to whatever shiny object they had found in the interim.

By actually finishing a non-trivial project, Timothy proved he had the self-motivation and ability required. By choosing Synthesia, he was obviously interested in the project. And over the next half-decade of staying in communication with me, he's earned enough trust to overcome even my super-paranoid tendencies.

He's been working on the project since April and is responsible for virtually all of the work on Synthesia for Android. That's how the Android version was able to be developed at the same time as all the Synthesia 10 previews. (I kind of threw him to the wolves: "Here are hundreds of thousands of lines of code you've never seen. Make them work on this other thing.") He's also already made some under-the-hood improvements that I've been putting off for years now. Pretty much anytime something good happens to Synthesia from now on, it'll probably be Timothy's fault. :lol:
kiwi
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

Thanks for the Historic lesson :)
And thanks to Timothy! Even if i don't use android version (my phone is only good for phone calls, i don't install apps on it)
jitsua
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 12

Post by jitsua »

Wait! :o Synthesia is open source? Awesome! repo is where? I've checked the usual suspects GitHub and BitBucket. I have bugs I want to get fixed and patches submitted.
Nicholas
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Post by Nicholas »

It used to be open source a long, long time ago. The last real commit over there was in 2007 (which explains why it's on SourceForge and not something more... modern).

That's the core that Linthesia uses (and Timothy's unreleased Linux port, and two or three other spin-offs).
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