KVR Audio

thetechnobear · Post by **thetechnobear** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 9:41 am

Hi, this looks very interesting...
Im currently trying to take a new step, by learning about harmony and chord progressions in music theory, and I wonder if this might give me an interesting way to work through some of the material in the books Im reading, and also putting the ideas into practice.

I do already have a good sequencer (Numerology 4), but I'm wondering if this 'lead' me a bit... as it highlights things like tension, and would also help on the melody line.

is this a reasonable idea?

a couple of questions:
- in the chord mode, are the modes indicated with respect to scale? ( they seem to be)
- are common chord progressions indicated? e.g. 'rules' of harmony, indicated which chords often/sometimes/never follow each other.

- time signatures? is it just 4/4? (Im trying to break my habit of always using 4/4

)

some have mentioned using RC (and Nora, which I've not seen), where do this come into the picture, from a quick look, RC looks quite similar.

thanks for any insight
Mark

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 10:19 am

thetechnobear wrote:Hi, this looks very interesting...
Im currently trying to take a new step, by learning about harmony and chord progressions in music theory, and I wonder if this might give me an interesting way to work through some of the material in the books Im reading, and also putting the ideas into practice.

Hi Mark,

I think that Sundog will be a good companion here. I know that my view is a little bit biased, as I am the dev

. However, I DID write the first version of Sundog because I needed a way to handle harmony more efficiently myself. My personal observation: Sundog helped me tremendously to get a feel for the different scales and "scale atmospheres", because I simply had to click and listen to the chords.
At the moment Sundog will only work on scale notes (= diatonic songwriting). This will be perfect for many songs and styles. However, advanced songwriters sometimes go off the scale to add a different feel to some parts of their chord progressions. At the moment this isn't possible with Sundog (yet

). In the beginning this shouldn't bother you, though.

thetechnobear wrote: a couple of questions:
- in the chord mode, are the modes indicated with respect to scale? ( they seem to be)

Hmm.. do you speak of the Chords page here? Then yes, the chord buttons will show you the most important chords of that scale - and nothing else.

thetechnobear wrote: - are common chord progressions indicated? e.g. 'rules' of harmony, indicated which chords often/sometimes/never follow each other.

Yes and no: In fact I tried to implement such a feature - predicting the next chord - in Sundog 2.0. But my personal experience wasn't _that_ great. The results tended to be a) rather generic and b) it annoyed me that Sundog couldn't read my mind

.
Here's the main problem: There are several different goals that a songwriter might have in mind if he works on a chord progression. Maybe he needs the whole progression to go up. Or down. Or he needs to sound "off" at certain times, but not at others. Maybe he wants to create an ongoing feeling, or he wants to resolve the progression to a different song part. All these things make it hard to write an algorithm that feels right most of the time.

BUT: I included the new chord tension feature in the Chords view - and this feature helped me a lot: You can see at once which chords might sound harmonic and which chords sound full of suspense. As a songwriter you can use this information to build and release tension on your own. Because you know yourself when you need more or less tension in your song.

thetechnobear wrote: - time signatures? is it just 4/4? (Im trying to break my habit of always using 4/4 )

Yep, at the moment this is just 4/4.

thetechnobear wrote: some have mentioned using RC (and Nora, which I've not seen), where do this come into the picture, from a quick look, RC looks quite similar.

I guess this should be answered by other people

. My bias is too strong

. Honestly: I think we all have different strengths and weaknesses here, but many things can be done one way or the other. Just test the demos and see what feels right for you. And of course it's possible to mix the programs (e.g. take a look at the answer by tolstoevsky).

Cheers,
Hauke

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 12:26 pm

Hi dsan,

I gave the whole rtpMIDI / MIDI sync thing a shot.

My setup:
* Windows 8, rtpMIDI or loopBe1 (see below), Sundog
* Mac OS X, network MIDI, Ableton Live

Here are my results:

Scenario 1: Sundog as MIDI sync master, Ableton Live as sync slave on the same computer, loopBe1 as virtual MIDI cable:
Works without flaws, Sundog starts and stops Ableton everytime

Scenario 2: Sundog as MIDI sync slave, Ableton Live as sync master on the same computer, loopBe1 as virtual MIDI cable:
Works without flaws as well. Ableton starts and stops Sundog.

Scenario 3: Sundog as MIDI sync master, Ableton Live as sync slave on the Mac, rtpMIDI as virtual MIDI cable (+ network MIDI on the Mac):
No problems, Sundog starts and stops Ableton everytime

Scenario 4: Sundog as MIDI sync slave, Ableton Live as sync master on the Mac, rtpMIDI as virtual MIDI cable (+ network MIDI on the Mac):
Hmmm... strange thing. About half of the time it works. The other half Sundog receives the start signal, but doesn't stop. When I used an external MIDI monitor to see what is going on in the system I discovered that sometimes the Mac/Ableton/network-MIDI would send the stop and sometimes not. I couldn't discover a pattern here. But one thing is clear: It wasn't just Sundog that missed the signal - the signal was invisible to other programs as well.

My conclusion: As MIDI sync works well with loopBe1 and other virtual MIDI cables on the same computer (both Mac and Windows), I think the problem might have to do with rtpMIDI, network MIDI, or the whole network protocol. Maybe certain packets are dropped from time to time? Would be a very selective drop, though...

dsan: Could you please try MIDI sync on a local computer with both Sundog and Live + loopBe1 or so? I expect it to work, but you never know.. Thanks in advance

!

Cheers,
Hauke

Simon Posford · Post by **Simon Posford** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 12:49 pm

hauke wrote:
P.S.: Simon: I just looked through my mails but couldn't find anything under your name. Did I miss something?

The mail was Under kurushi name if i remember it was about complaint in the workflow but i was curious how the things will become and i was not so happy with the handling.

It's better but need some essential functions like:
*Hability to jump in the pattern/song directly with a mouse click.
*To see what chors the harmony follow in real time
*Better keyboard shortcut support
*and i forgot somes...

Some random buttons on the pattern editor& trigger would be great (not essential)

Anyway i enjoyed the process to create a song and i become more familiar with sundog.

By the way is there a way to change the main colour interface (white for a grey tone) i want to make a skin :p

dsan@mail.com · Post by **dsan@mail.com** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 1:40 pm

Hi Hauke,
That's a very thorough examination you have performed. Thank you for looking into this so deeply!

I will do as you suggest. I assume the same reuslts but will get back to you as soon as possible. Likely later today but will have to see how the honey do's go.

In the meantime, I have run across another error message. This upon saving a file and then exiting Sundog. There were no problems I am aware of prior to the message.

Code: Select all

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "inputeditlabel.pyc", line 522, in paintEvent
  File "inputeditlabel.pyc", line 285, in update_text
TypeError: object of type 'NoneType' has no len()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "workerview.pyc", line 271, in action_new_mouse_input
  File "controller.pyc", line 559, in set_new_input
  File "controller.pyc", line 520, in do_currentWorker_playing_logic
NameError: global name 'midiExporter' is not defined

HTH

Happy Musiking!
dsan

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:09 pm

dsan@mail.com wrote: In the meantime, I have run across another error message. This upon saving a file and then exiting Sundog. There were no problems I am aware of prior to the message.

Whoops - yeah, that was a harmless hiccup that probably didn't do anything at all. I silenced the offender now

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:26 pm

Simon Posford wrote: It's better but need some essential functions like:
*Hability to jump in the pattern/song directly with a mouse click.
*To see what chors the harmony follow in real time
*Better keyboard shortcut support
*and i forgot somes...

Some random buttons on the pattern editor& trigger would be great (not essential)

Anyway i enjoyed the process to create a song and i become more familiar with sundog.

By the way is there a way to change the main colour interface (white for a grey tone) i want to make a skin :p

Hi Simon,

I'm happy that you could create some songs now

. A project like Sundog takes some time to blossom

.

Some replies:

"Hability to jump in the pattern/song directly with a mouse click.":
Yep, I will add that to the feature request list. Sounds good.

"To see what chors the harmony follow in real time":
When you set an instrument to "Chord Notes" you should see the chord notes in the editor. During playback they will update to the currently played values.

"Better keyboard shortcut support":
Could you give some examples? In 2.0 there are quite a few common shortcuts included (take a look at the in-app-help), but I'm open to other interesting use cases.

"Some random buttons on the pattern editor& trigger would be great (not essential)"
I already have some ideas here

Skinning the interface:
Ufff.. no, this isn't planned yet

.

Cheers,
Hauke

xbitz · Post by **xbitz** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 4:30 pm

so I've played a bit with it, and if u check the concurrency, without mentioning its name

so I miss the full Roman numeral symbol("common practice") supports (especially the inversions are much more readable in their one, and check the top right section u can instantly see the parameters of a given chord), and the borrowing chords from your one, do u plan to support these things?

ps. "applied" chords also would be good

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:16 pm

xbitz wrote: so I miss the full Roman numeral symbol("common practice") supports (especially the inversions are much more readable in their one, and check the top right section u can instantly see the parameters of a given chord), and the borrowing chords from your one, do u plan to support these things?

ps. "applied" chords also would be good

Better support for inversions is planned, borrowing chords from outside the scale, too (chromatic chords in general). As for the roman numerals: I think this only makes sense for the most common western scales (major, minor, etc). Even then I am sceptical if any roman numerals beside the ones that are already displayed in Sundog would be of great use.

xbitz · Post by **xbitz** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:25 pm

thx for replying

roman numerals format is pretty good one (so would be good) because they can be "translated" back instantly to the patterns of Push (which is currently far the best and versatile chorder in the market just hasn't got memory, but great for trying things quickly )

lnikj · Post by **lnikj** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:29 pm

basslinemaster wrote:Terrible 'flat' design - you can't immediately see what is a button and what is merely text...

I love the interface personally. Clean, attractive, unfussy and functional.

--
TBH, OT and on a competitor, RC's interface has always made me run a mile. Horrible.

dsan@mail.com · Post by **dsan@mail.com** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:22 pm

Hello Hauke,
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

My results are the same as yours. External sync works fine with both programs on the same machine, and intermittently when using LAN services.

I agree the problem is within the protocols and limitations of the LAN services and I will just have to live with these.

Thank you again for taking the time to explore all this. Very much aprreciated!

Happy Musiking!
dsan

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 2:40 pm

dsan@mail.com wrote:Hello Hauke,
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

My results are the same as yours. External sync works fine with both programs on the same machine, and intermittently when using LAN services.

I agree the problem is within the protocols and limitations of the LAN services and I will just have to live with these.

Thank you again for taking the time to explore all this. Very much aprreciated!

Happy Musiking!
dsan

Hi dsan,

perfect, thanks

!
Too bad that network MIDI apparently has some issues, the concept itself is really nice.

Cheers,
Hauke

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:10 pm

Sundog 2.0 Beta 2 is out now!

You can download the new version here:
http://feelyoursound.com/public-beta-sundog/

Please make sure to install the current version before sending in new bug reports (but let's hope that everything was found in beta 1

).

New in Beta 2:

Fix: Drawing bug + crash; no steps known how to reproduce this, happened in rare cases (crashlog with "update_text" in it)
Fix: Crash; no steps known how to reproduce this, happened in rare cases (crashlog with "restart_input_at_position" in it)
Fix: Dragging song parts around while playing back the song -> crash in rare cases
Fix/Change: In Sundog 1.5.0 and below the MIDI instrument 0 wasn't recognized properly. Instrument 0 wouldn't send any instrument change at all. In Sundog 2.0.0 beta 2 I fixed this. Now instrument 0 will send an instrument change, too. As Sundog 2.0.0 includes a new feature to set the MIDI instrument to "Off" (= don't send instrument changes), I added some lines that will convert instrument 0 to instrument "Off" if a Sundog 1.5-and-below song is loaded. This way the old behaviour will get reproduced, but new songs can be created without wrong/missing MIDI messages.
Added: Paragraph on MIDI exports

Thanks a lot to everybody who participated and helped me to find the bugs

!

Greetings,
Hauke

Simon Posford · Post by **Simon Posford** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 7:13 pm

Fast debuging!
For the keyboard shortcuts i mean totally control sundog with the keyboard like I can do in Ableton live or Windows (using the tab key to navigate beetween part of the software per eg)

For to see the harmmony in realtime i mean chords names not notes names.

For skinning stuff ok np but i had already finish my skin i just need this background color not white :p

Sundog Scale Studio 2.0 BETA out now