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FTS Beta download page, Setting FTS up for SCALA and vice versa,
This has some of the various suggestions made by FTS users, and also some ideas I've had myself and not done yet. Other suggestions have often been implemented straight away - to see some of the things I've added recently, see.Some recent highlights on the beta download page.
Add save to text as you play - in a format particularly easy to read to see what chords are playing at any time, so an extension of the Seed... | Options... | Log notes to text file... fwhich lets one also edit the chords, then read them agian in FTS to play in Midi again.
Add a window showing the midi file being played by the retuning midi player, with option to select a detail, and replay it, or loop it. Do it so that it will also play format 1 and 2 midi files - it is a format 0 midi player at present.
For the find notes option, do it so that FTS tries to find all the notes, and then after that you can edit the results to define your own note boundaries. I.e. so that it finds them just as suggestions. Then for each note it will find the pitch just as it does for the option to find the detail as a single note. (The find note section is very much work in progress).
Set the pan for each note of the scale individually (also each octave). Could be done by adding a dialog for Out | Options | Pan by scale pos. At present this just pans back and forth according to the position in the scale.
Option to select a voice from a particular bank into a part - by adding a bank number for the part, default 0.
Graphic to let one draw / drag to shape for the touch, and for the experiments in varying the FFT resynthesis waveform. For the FFT, would have option to get the waveform from the oscilloscope, then quantise it to, say, 7 points, or whatever, then re-interpolate using polynomials, or linearly, or various splines, to change the timbre.
Click and drag method to highlight a region of the keyboard, and select a track into it = graphics version of In | Options | Kbd regions.
Honeycomb lattice keyboard, and split keys keyboard, with notes sounding as you click on them. For split keys keyboard, white keys would play the mode, and black keys, any in between notes of the scale. Also have it so that the notes are highlighted as you play from p.c. keyboard or midi keyboard, so that you can see what note you have played. (At present, can see by playing with a New Seed window showing, by the position of the selection dot, but this would be more clear).
Picture of keyboard layout when playing from p.c. keyboard, showing the ratios or cents values, or note names etc. for each key, and the keys reverse highlighted as you play them.
Option to autotune wave clips of single notes. Idea - could read the desired pitch from the file name: e.g. recorder_e5.wav (or recorder_76.wav for the midi note number) and FTS would read the waveform, find the actual pitch using the wave counting or fft as desired (prob.. wave counting for recorder), and then change the sample rate accordingly to compensate for it, as the autotune program does. Could be useful for soundfont designers.
More use of the mouse scroll wheel when playing from p.c. keyboard - could use it to vary any of the controllers, as well as a pitch bend wheel. Maybe do it so that holding down caps lock, num lock, etc varies the effect..
Option to use controllers to change the pitch of specific notes of a scale. Idea is, if one has one of those devices with twelve or more knobs or sliders, each assignable to a particular controller, then one could in FTS assign each of those controllers to a particular pitch of the scale. So, one for each note of the scale, and the last one controlls octave (or non octave scales) stretching.
Options to use controller to change the pitch of a particular track. Then, with keyboard divided into regions, one could use one pedal, knob or slider to change the pitch of the right half, say, and another for the left half, and so forth.
Partials for custom voices that change in volume as note continues, or fluctuate in pitch, by using MIDI expression / pitch bend for the channel used to play the partial. Custom voices that transform as the fractal tune continues, from one timbre to another.
Add shepard tones as a custom voice, plus a generalisation of it using any specified list of partials to include at each octave, instead of just having the octave partials of a shepard tone, e.g., use partials 4 to 8, or 8 to 16 of harmonic series (may give interesting timbres, and perhaps make breakpoint less noticeable too when played fast).
Add Christopher Bailey's idea of making modes using a cellular automaton next state rule. The mode changes every so many notes, or after a time interval, or else when you press a key / pedal to change to the next mode. Plus, explore ways of changing the timbre using CA as well, e.g. to decide which partials to include.
Add options to search for chords by looking for consonant component diads in current scale or mode.
Add Jacky Ligon's idea of a rotating animation of "moment of symmetry" scales generation. You can pause it at any point to hear the scale reached. Or show them all in a single image, and you click on any scale to hear it.
Musical orrery for Joe Monzo's solar system chord composition. Idea is, you can enter any planet, asteroid, moon or comet's orbital elements, and specify any location (e.g. on a comet) to hear the relative pitch of the chord. See the tuning list. May include graphics of the planets too - small images for each one that move in orbit as the piece continues, or something of that sort (a few with the prog., and option to add your own). Could be nice to have DirectX graphics for the orrery with rotating spheres for the planets perhaps.
Chann.. Effects | vibrato ticked | Frequency - extend to let one use any function typed in, with option to have separate formulae for each channel
Seed note accidentals (relative to underlying scale for the mode). Say, 1+ to go up one note in the scale, or 1- to go down one, or 1++ to go up 2, etc (would have no effect when next note of mode is same as next note of scale)
Add possibility to move backwards in the tune by recording a sequence of bookmarks at, say 5 second intervals or whatever. It isn't easy, in terms of programming to run the algorithms backwards, which is why there is no reverse button, but this will be a reasonable substitute for that.
You will be able to set bookmarks to any times in the tune as well (as many as you like), and save the bookmarks to the .ts file, so you can go straight back to them again whenever you want.
Add Mary Ackerley's idea of Fractal tune zones. I'd do it so that as tune progresses, you can change any of the parameters, and whenever you do that it automatically makes a new zone, with those zones all recorded to a single file. So this is also a way to record the way a fractal tune changes as you vary the parameters.
Then would be able to set the time for each zone oneself, or leave it to FTS to move between them.
Add chord recognition and browsing, to use the exciting development of chord recognition in SCALA:
would look for closest matches and list all the chords found for the current scale. Shows which notes it cna be played on as root, or as an inversion.
Option to select chords into a track, so one can map the chords to keys in region of the keyboard, or of p.c. keyboard.
Option to change the arpeggio of the fractal tune from p.c. keyboard by playing a chord, e.g. if chord has at least 4 notes, changes the fractal tune arpeggio. Then could use the fractal tune as an arpeggiator.
(including speeding up / slowing down in synchronisaation with the fractal tune as an option, if playing along with it).
Editing the scales and modes drop lists using same method as the current multiple scales / modes for track window.
Make the Scales drop list that you can select from in the New Scales window editable.
Get the Look ahead for the Tunes window to work for all the new playaing options such as Channels | Order of Play | Other, Fibonacci rhythms, and polyrhythms. (This may mean a completely fresh approach to the coding for this window as with the way it works at present, ti will be rather tricky.)
Tool tips, and a context sensitive help window that changes in synchrony with the tool tips. (already implemented in the beta for my VRML Trees program).