pitpank

Joined 7 years ago

Karma

Submissions

Member since

Mar 24

Web developer from Spain. Creator of Harmopark (https://www.harmopark.app).

View on Hacker News

Recent submissions

Comment · 7 years ago

Ok, I see. I use p5.js to handle input, and I've just read this in the reference: "The touches[] array is not supported on Safari and IE on touch-based desktops (laptops)." Is that your case?

That link you shared is amazing. I've just visited David Li's website and his work is so cool.

But I don't think I need a smart algorithm to harmonize a melody. In the case of my "diatonic chords chart", I already know what notes to put in the Harmonic table. My voicing concerns are simply about the octave to use and the position in the hex lattice. The voicing itself is constructed out of stacking thirds, roughly speaking.

By the way, I've already added this feature following your advice: the last pressed chord button will be selected in the hex lattice.

Comment · 7 years ago

That's some valuable feedback, thank you very much!

When you say laptops without mouse, are you talking about using a touchpad or a touchscreen? The "Play mode / Select mode" switch is only visible on touch-enabled devices and doesn't really affect mouse or touchpad clicks. Using a touchpad, the left button plays and the right button selects/deselects. I suppose what you mean is that I should modify the behaviour of the mouse/touchpad in the case the mode switch is visible. That seems reasonable.

I'm not an expert on sound synthesis and most of the included synth configurations are library defaults, or presets I found somewhere. I'd like them to have a bit more character, and it would also be nice to add some more. This is an area I could work on, I agree.

Someone else here has suggested the same thing about making the sound settings more visible. I think it's a good idea, I'll see what I can do!

I thought about adding that feature in the 'explore harmony' modal but I was concerned about having to choose a specific voicing for the chords. But I guess it shouldn't be a big deal: if the provided voicing is not the best to integrate in your progression, you can always modify it.

Great comments, thanks again. And good luck with your Hexpress app!

Comment · 7 years ago

I'm sorry. I hesitated over the language to use to reply to this comment. I understand it should have been English. Thank you for taking the time to post a translation.

Comment · 7 years ago

Thank you!

I used Wikipedia quite a lot when researching on the harmonic table format, chord naming and symbols, scales and modes, Roman numeral analysis, and similar stuff. I found myself frequently visiting threads in https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/ and https://music.stackexchange.com/.

And of course there are great Youtube channels about music theory (I linked some of them in the Credits page of the website).

Most of the time I just search in Google and jump from blogs to forums to dedicated websites until I find what I'm loooking for.

Comment · 7 years ago

¡Muchas gracias, por el reconocimiento y por las sugerencias!

- Quería diferenciar las notas que pertenecen a la escala seleccionada de las que no pertenecen (como sucede en un piano con las teclas blancas y negras), pero sin utilizar tanto contraste como para hacer pensar que las notas fuera de la escala no se pueden utilizar o algo por estilo. Por eso más o menos utilicé la misma paleta, variando el grado de opacidad. Simultáneamente, las notas se van haciendo un poco más oscuras según se vuelven más graves. Quizá haga alguna prueba con dos colores, a ver qué tal queda.

- Suena bien lo de tener un atajo para cambiar el preset de sintetizador, aunque quisiera tener el interfaz lo más limpio posible porque en pantallas de móvil no sobra el espacio... Si se me ocurre cómo integrarlo lo añadiré.

- Se pueden cargar progresiones con los enlaces que se obtienen al compartirlas, como éste: https://www.harmopark.app/?s=c3g5jd7i_gn0g8JBX9GB1n2g4dzX0aF... . Quizás debería enlazar varias desde algún sitio para que los usuarios recién llegados puedan trastear rápido.

Jaja, puede que escriba a Jaime, sí, por probar... ¡Gracias de nuevo!

Comment · 7 years ago

Hi, nice work! That's right, I wanted this tool to be browser-based and sound processing is more limited in a browser than in a native mobile app. So the focus is not on real-time playing. Still, you can do cool stuff on tablets.

Comment · 7 years ago

On what platform? What are the issues you experience?

Comment · 7 years ago

Hi, thanks a lot for your feedback!

- Progressions can be shared as a link, so a demo could be just a link like this: https://www.harmopark.app/?s=bVw_q_qn7g7JBH0GB1n1g3d7a_en9g7.... That's the famous Pachelbel's progression; it's embedded as an example in the 'How to use' page.

- I'd like to explore those MIDI possibilities, both input and output.

- It's possible to use a simple power chord dyad (root + fifth) as a roughly neutral placeholder.

- Individual chords can be removed by dragging and dropping into the Trash.

Comment · 7 years ago

Thank you! I tried to aim for that goal.

Comment · 7 years ago

Yes, it should. I've tested the website on Windows Firefox and iOS Firefox and it worked OK, except for some sound distortion when selecting certain synth presets, like "FM". But I think that's a bug of the sound library I'm using and I hope it will be fixed soon.

Comment · 7 years ago

Thank you! I might prepare some screencast demos, it's a good idea. I did a short screencast video a couple of days ago to show a new feature in a forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAbLCSoBGMU. It's got no narration and gets straight to the point, though. The tool can be hard to use in small devices. Were the keys easier to hit using landscape orientation?

Comment · 7 years ago

Thank you very much! I'm happy you find it intuitive and fun to use, and I hope the tool is useful to people.

Comment · 7 years ago

I'm not sure I understand. Why do you need to switch key/scale to select a single note? The notes in the harmonic table are always the same, the only thing that can change is the enharmonic spelling.

Comment · 7 years ago

Thanks for your helpful feedback! I believe that lattice in the video is a Tonnetz. The Harmonic table and the Tonnetz are topologically equivalent, actually. I had doubts about the right-click being the best option to select notes. I thought a new user would left-click on the harmonic table initially, before reading anything, and I wanted that to just produce a sound rather than making an unwanted selection. But it's something I'm willing to change if more people finds it strange. I think you're right about the label order thing in chord buttons. I guess I found the Roman numerals more relevant in the progression context, but I agree it can be confusing. There's a help page (/how-to-use.html) with instructions and explanations of some concepts like parallel progression, but maybe a few tooltips can be helpful. Notes that have a lighter color are those that belong to the currently selected scale, to ease identification. At the same time, notes are slightly darker as they get lower in pitch. I like your idea about adding the scale degree label to notes. You mean something like 1, b2, 2, b3, 3, etc.? I'd have to make sure it doesn't get confused with octaves, though. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

Comment · 7 years ago

Hello HN,

I'm Pedro, the creator of Harmopark (https://www.harmopark.app). A year ago I found out about this interesting hexagonal lattice named 'Harmonic table' and decided to build a web music tool whose UI includes this note layout with the purpose of exploring harmonic concepts and helping with composing.

Features:

- Build chords in a visual way and get their possible symbols immediately.

- Harmonize scales and their modes. Display a chord chart based on any scale.

- Create chord progressions and visualize them while they play.

- Easily switch progressions to any parallel scale/mode you want.

- Get a mirror version of a chord progression using negative harmony concepts.

- Use modal interchange borrowing chords from the parallel and negative progressions to create more interesting harmonic sequences.

- Export progressions as MIDI files to work with them in a DAW.

- Share progressions via link or embed code.

- Just use the harmonic table as an instrument to play around on. Sound can be adjusted choosing among several synth presets and effects.

I would love to hear your thoughts.