Laras Composition

I think the app is awesome but it took me for like 10 minutes to figure out how to start playing a sequence I didn't used to pres logo to play something, I was hitting PLAY and nothing was going on A little bit questionable design decision. But overall design and progression database is phenomenal.

Hi Soundpeaks. Yes, maybe I should have made it more obvious to user. I put the info in the Instant Start section in the integrated user guide. I have made the user guide section more obvious now. Thanks.

I have a number of suggestions, but I don't know how to contact you. The first suggestion is to swap the colors for vi and vii dim (Am and Bdim in the screenshot). The colors are out of order. Purple comes before the hot pink in the spectrum. All of the other colors are in order.

Oh. I found your email address in the application about menu. I will try to get some time to contact you regarding other suggestions. Looks great. I teach high school music technology so this is very handy.

Ahhh good :) I was just about to write my email here. Love to hear any suggestion. One of my hope for Laras, that it can be useful in teaching music. Thanks Rock.

May I suggest Highlighting the 'Generate and Play MIDI' label in the integrated user guide. Either by increasing the font, making it bold or both. I too had the problem with not knowing how to get it to play, though I did look at the 'instant start' page, though it was too busy for me to see the basic information needed to get started.

Would it also be possible to employ tooltips, or perhaps a message area somewhere that explains what something does when hovering over a control?

Although I am yet to really delve into making use of the tool, it looks great and very, very helpful in so many ways.

Hi Stewart.

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I will rework the guide a bit in future release. I hope you enjoy your experience with LARAS.

That's a wonderful tool. Well done.

Next step, a video tutorial? Newbies like me would appreciate a lot :-).

Yes, an introductory video tutorial aimed at music theory newbies would really help. Just explaining the layout and the basic functions. Ideally, post the video to a corresponding KVR thread and allow forum users to ask additional questions.

Hi Oldcastle and Kazi7
Video tutorial is up and running on Youtube.

@Tatanka
I'm sorry that I mistakenly removed the comment when I wanted to reply. Hope you find the way in LARAS menu. That old Jamstix comparison is really spot on :).

Hi, .

no problem, the video tuturial is really good, I recommend to anybody wanting to get into it. Encourages me to give it another try :-).

Very nice tool. Been waiting for something like this. There are a couple bugs that needs to be reported. Also suggestions would be nice to send in. I see that you're going to release the software as open source. Maybe github? Anyhow, do you have a issue tracker where I/we can report bugs/suggestions?

I use Linux and have tested Laras on two different OS, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu Studio.

Hi Aggplanta.

Thank you very much, glad that you like LARAS.
I'm still cleaning the code, etc. In the mean time we can discuss suggestions or bug reporting through LARAS discussion forum here https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=567518

Nice to hear that it runs on OpenSUSE. I only tested it Ubuntu Studio and PCLinuxOS.

Cheers.

Seems interesting, but I've been unable to load the app under Big Sur. I have a 'Unable to access jarfile Laras.jar' message. What didi I miss in the installation process ? My JRE is up to date.

Hi Tguyfr, you might to check the discussion here https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=567518 a user, zachy9, faced the same problem and found the solution.
I'm sorry I could not recreate the problem. I don't have access to Big Sur machine, I tested Laras on Catalina. You might want to check this article https://wolfpaulus.com/java-on-macos-big-sur/

Hi I just found the solution... by placing Laras folder in the App folder. So simple ! Big Sur (Big Secure ?) refused to launch it outside the App folder. You should update your readme to help other users open the gates;).

Thanks Tguyfr for letting me know. I will surely update the readme. The "Gates" will open in Big Sur, without Bill :).

A big thank you for this wonderful instrument.
I am a novice and an example for the Major / minor motion composition learning tool would be valuable.
Likewise for the connection with my daw cubase
thanks again.

Thanks Paul, enjoy :).

Hello, it seems like such a beautiful resource. I am trying to open the app on Win10, but as I run the .bat file it says can't locate laras.jar file.

Any recommendations? Thanks.

Hi AG21
Hmmm... that's strange, you just need to double click the .bat file in the file manager. Maybe the file is corrupted. You can download it again. If the problem still exists, you can go to command prompt and go into the directory where you extract the program and type java -jar laras.jar.

Hey.

My bad, I needed to install Java first. It now runs smoothly.

Thank you.

Great job Laras, great tool that was needed in Linux.