RapidComposer v5 beta feedback and discussion

[musicdevelopments]

RapidComposer v5.3b2 is available!

Thanks for your patience, this took longer than expected.
There are lots of new features in this update, that were tested thoroughly, so it is unlikely you will find serious bugs.

Improvements:

• Guitar chords displayed on the master track with preview and fingering choice
• Fretboard added for chord fingering editing
• Guitar preview instrument and options added
• When using guitar chord voicing, the chord fingering is computed by a smart algorithm and not taken from a library anymore
• Piano keyboard layer added (size and key range configurable)
• A small but good quality guitar soundfont is included in the installation package
• A better quality piano soundfont is included in the installation package
• Reworked Settings / Preview and Locations pages
• Functionality removed: RIP master track chord magnet

[BluGenes]

nice.. so, the rhythm issue is fixed.. thanks! Maybe mention that and the file name of the new sound font in the releases notes too..

So, how do you view these chords now?

[musicdevelopments]

You need to click on the small guitar button on the master track:



If you enable preview on the master track (previous button) guitar chords preview is automatically activated.

Thanks,
Attila

[lulukom]

Hello Attila. The new version freezes the program when selecting the guitar icon and selecting a new chord. Мас Os 10.13.6

[frimpiso]

Hi Attila,

when I select the keyboard overlay and press play, the application automatically crashes and closes.
(see attached picture - when I press play here it crashes).

Cheers

Jens

[musicdevelopments]

Hello Attila. The new version freezes the program when selecting the guitar icon and selecting a new chord. Мас Os 10.13.6

Hello lulukom,

I am not sure why that happens This works well here, I could not reproduce it. Maybe something does not work on 10.13, which is the earliest supported macOS version. Or maybe because of your custom fonts you use?

Will you locate and send me a crash report, that will probably be helpful.

Thanks!
Attila

[musicdevelopments]

Hi Attila,

when I select the keyboard overlay and press play, the application automatically crashes and closes.
(see attached picture - when I press play here it crashes).

Cheers

Jens

Hi Jens,

are you on Windows? It would help a lot if you send me a composition file that crashes because I was not able to reproduce the crash. I cannot see the chord and notes at the playback position on your screenshot at 2.2.00. Maybe the chord recognition crashes (I changed it somewhat). I'd be grateful for any information you could send me about this.

Thanks!
Attila

[musicdevelopments]

Question: Is it possible to also distinguish the note labelling between b3 and 3 or b7 and 7?

Currently it is all the same e.g. for a min7 and maj7 chord the third and 7th are all labelled "3" and "7" instead of "b3" and "b7" for the min7 chord.

Hi Jens,

yes, it is possible to use different colors for b3 and 3 or b7 and 7:



You will need to slightly change the default colors at the bottom of the Settings / User Interface page.

P.S.: I am currently taking a jazz piano jump start course from Open Studio and Rapid Composer is a blast to record everything I learn.

Cool!

Thanks,
Attila

[lulukom]

Hello lulukom,
I am not sure why that happens This works well here, I could not reproduce it. Maybe something does not work on 10.13, which is the earliest supported macOS version. Or maybe because of your custom fonts you use?

Will you locate and send me a crash report, that will probably be helpful.

Hello Attila. Of course, I also don’t know why this terrible problem is happening. I checked that it is not related to the use of a custom font. When this happens, the crash report does not open and perhaps you can tell me where I can find it?
At the same time, for the future, I will express the wish that when the guitar fretboard is opened, it would be nice to see the selected scale in this picture with the ability to edit the scale. Well, if it were possible to see all the scales corresponding to a chord graphically and even each with a different color, then this would be a guitarist's dream, because musicians always want to know which scale to use for the selected chord. Thank you .

[foster911]

A good feature would be enabling note-hearing by clicking on the vertical piano notes on the tracks. No way to do this because piano is a static image and by clicking on it, no note is selected or heard.

[frimpiso]

Hi Jens,

are you on Windows? It would help a lot if you send me a composition file that crashes because I was not able to reproduce the crash. I cannot see the chord and notes at the playback position on your screenshot at 2.2.00. Maybe the chord recognition crashes (I changed it somewhat). I'd be grateful for any information you could send me about this.

Thanks!
Attila

I tried again and now it does not crash anymore. I rebooted the computer maybe that helped.

Just one thing:
The chords are shown on the piano during playback. But as soon as I press stop, the key hightlighting on the piano keyboard disappears. That is too bad because I would like to look at the voicings to reproduce them on the actual piano.

Could you enable a freeze of the current notes on the keyboard (at the playback cursor)?
It would also be great if I could select a pattern in the composer view and the keyboard overlay would show the keys.

Thanks for the awesome work!

By the way: a bass fretboard would also be nice for basslines

Cheers

Jens

[musicdevelopments]

A good feature would be enabling note-hearing by clicking on the vertical piano notes on the tracks. No way to do this because piano is a static image and by clicking on it, no note is selected or heard.

Yes, the vertical piano is only for scrolling and zooming.
It would not be comfortable to use it for both turning notes on/off and scrolling. In many cases the notes are just few pixels high.

However you can press notes on the new virtual keyboard, where you can select the target track.

Thanks,
Attila

[musicdevelopments]

Just one thing:
The chords are shown on the piano during playback. But as soon as I press stop, the key hightlighting on the piano keyboard disappears. That is too bad because I would like to look at the voicings to reproduce them on the actual piano.

Yes, that would be useful. It would be good to display the notes at the playback position so you could set the position to see the active notes. I'll add this shortly.

By the way: a bass fretboard would also be nice for basslines

So you want to play chords on a bass guitar?
There will be a guitar tab view for tracks, even for bass guitars.

Thanks,
Attila

[sj1]

Hi.

Consider this setup, where two tracks of chords/harmony can be generated from the Master Track by pressing 'G':

RC - Two Tracks for Harmony 01.jpg

When I generate, as shown, both tracks get identical chords/harmony phrases.

However, in this case I have a reason for wanting to create different chords/harmony on different tracks.

So basically, I'd like to generate for both, then lock one down and regenerate the other to make them different. (Actually, I would do this for more than 2 tracks.)

Is this possible today? If so, how do I do that? If not, could this possibility be added?

__

The motivation lies in exporting a MIDI file with different chords/harmony on each track. I have use for such!

Thanks.

[BluGenes]

When I generate, as shown, both tracks get identical chords/harmony phrases.

However, in this case I have a reason for wanting to create different chords/harmony on different tracks.

Ya know, I never tried that myself, but, you do have the ability to over ride the master track chords at the track level. Try that.. it's in the track inspector..