Synthesia Talk

SYNTHESIA 10.7.5491
Download from the pink box above.

CHANGES SINCE r5425

New

• Multi-track recorder available from the Free Play screen (when unlocked). Use the "Share" button at the top-left to save as a MIDI file.
• Settings --> Gameplay --> Play My Parts in the Background, Too.
• Right-clicking a part's color tile is now a shortcut to quickly set it to gray/hidden.
• System.ScreensaverInterruptChar advanced setting to change (or disable) which fake key-press is used to prevent screensavers during play.

Changes

• The sheet music display now always shows both hands (regardless of the hand you've selected to play).
• Free Play demo timer has been removed. Play as long as you like.
• Old-style "configHashes" are now always written to the data files (again).

Fixes

• Instead of sometimes double, sometimes no MIDI device reset between screens, it should be a consistent "exactly one reset" now.
• Fast forward should now always work.
• Blue sheet music highlight was sometimes not shown when transitioning to the next line.
• The "Falling Notes" display toggle is now independent between the Play screen and Free Play.
• When an output device is set to a single MIDI channel, Synthesia now only sends reset messages to that channel (instead of all 16).
• A (rather old) display artifact on the white keys when zoomed out to all 88 keys (at 1x display scale, with the smallest possible window size) should be fixed.
• The outlines on labels should no longer be cut off.

For what it's worth---while this is all I'm planning to do for song recording in 10.7---the feature is very bare-bones right now. So bare-bones you might be justified in calling it "half finished"! The idea is to get something out there and gather feedback on the most important parts that are missing. Rather than front-load it with a bunch of stuff that is completely divorced from reality that I thought might be useful, I figure I'd put it in your guys' hands and hear about what's actually going to make it useful.

Next up: down-stems in the sheet music... and that's 10.7 complete.

Just Downloaded the R5491.. love the record feature and I like the feature of seeing the full grand staff is I am just working with one hand!! THANK YOU!!!

Thanks for the feedback! I was beginning to wonder if anyone was going to try it.

Don't worry I use it daily I just don't have much to say about it, it's great as it is !

I'm not very good yet, but working on it... seems I keep picking really hard songs to try to learn!!!

I have been using the new version for a couple of weeks - I like the "Restart loop after errors" option - it is quite good - but it picks up everything - like if you just accidentally brush a key when stretching across many notes. I know good piano players wouldn't do this but...

The number of tolerated errors It is totally adjustable I know, but I wondered if the sensitivity could be adjusted - and would this be a if it would be a popular option. I have some ideas...
- for it to have a drop off (hysteresis) effect going on if you don't make any mistakes at all - eg: play 10 notes correctly, then one wrong - it goes up to count that error - but if you make the next ten notes then the counter goes back to zero.
- Or if it knows you have 4 notes to get with one hand and then another three, so it gives you a bit of lea-way for that error.
- Or if the error is a very short tap of the wrong key, compared to the duration of the next note

I like the way you can click on the score and it moves there

Loops:

When trying to create a loop you can click in the sheet notes and it will move there. But when your mouse pointer gets near the top left of the sheet music, clicking there will take you back to the beginning of the song (even if the top left of the sheet music is not on the first bar.

The loop control buttons (Loop Start / End / Entire Loop) don't now move/stretch the loop start and end like they did before. They either move it to the next bookmark, or where the beginning and end of the song is. I think the previous versions moved it by one measure a time.

When dragging with the mouse in the measure window at the top, when the pointer moves out of the measure window you stop dragging it and have to start again. To get round this I try now to move my mouse as horizontally as possible.

Lastly, when you have sheet music up on multi line and try to create a loop, the page does not shift when you drag over the visible page. i.e. Say that the sheet music is showing bars 1 - 8, on two lines and you want to create a loop on bars 4 to 12. It's brill that you can click and get the start of the loop in the right place, but you can't drag the loop down to bar 12 because the sheet music doesn't move down. The work arounds are to zoom out of sheet music so that you can see the bars, or before going into the loop settings note the measures that you want to loop and then go into the loop setting but only drag in the measure window at the top.

I am liking the multiline sheet music display, and I am using it a lot with the piano display at the bottom - for when I get stuck with the notes on the sheet.

I am not sure if it has been said before, but if you want to get more screen space for the sheet music or falling notes, when you move down the piano at the bottom, it doesn't scale, so you loose the spots on the white keys first but it still shows the black keys until it is moved almost off the page. Maybe some kind of scaling in the vertical direction would be a popular feature.
It is OK on my laptop screen but others my be using it on smaller displays?

I hope this helps.

Just wanted to add: I notice on the free play, on my computer at least (windows 10), It doesn't say 'F' properly - All the others are fine.

Hello!, I have also done the test in Windows 10 and no error appears when showing the note tag

Hi, I just purchased Synthesia for PC as I'm excited to see that it is getting recording capability and I wanted to try it out in the Preview of v10.7.

My initial feedback is this:

It would be useful if there were playback controls in the Free Play area, so I could immediately play back my recording. My main use would be to record me playing something, then immediately play it back to see how good it was, so I could decide whether to delete it, add more recording to it, or keep it. Right now, it seems it is necessary to first save the recording, and then come out of the Free Play area and go to Play a Song area to load the recorded song. Which is a bit tedious.

Also, it would be useful to be able to delete all the tracks/instruments at once, rather than one-by-one.

Anyway, that's my initial feedback. I'm excited to have found this application, which does most of what I was looking for, and I'm looking forward to future releases!

I've found a bug in this Preview version that doesn't appear to exist in v10.6.

In this 10.7 Preview, I've found that when I go into 'Play a Song', the very first note of any music doesn't play any sound on my Casio keyboard. Whether I use 'Watch and Listen Only' or 'Practice the Melody', the first note makes no sound. It's not a timing issue -- in 'Practice the Melody' mode, even if I wait several seconds before hitting the first note, it still makes no sound. Only from the 2nd note onward does the sound work.

I've installed the latest stable version (v10.6) to compare and haven't been able to reproduce the issue there. That version seems to work fine.

I'm using a Casio CT-S300 keyboard with Windows 10. My input and output are both set only to 'CASIO USB-MIDI'.

It would be nice to give the option to overwrite file if possible

Hello ! When it comes to deleting a track, I think it would be much more practical if you could drag the trash directly onto a track.

I find missing the possibility of being able to individually listen to the created tracks

Sorry everyone that it's taken several months before I've had a chance to look at this feedback.

miek wrote: ↑05-06-20 5:44 pm... for it to have a drop off (hysteresis) effect going on if you don't make any mistakes at all - eg: play 10 notes correctly, then one wrong - it goes up to count that error - but if you make the next ten notes then the counter goes back to zero.

This sounds exactly like the "life meter" you find in rhythm games like DDR, Guitar Hero, or Beat Saber. As long as the bar isn't empty, the song progresses. Mistakes drain the bar. Correct notes re-fill the bar.

Because it's such a familiar idiom (and with good reason: it works very well!), I'd probably choose that one first whenever something like this makes it in.

miek wrote: ↑05-06-20 5:44 pmBut when your mouse pointer gets near the top left of the sheet music, clicking there will take you back to the beginning of the song

That's a known issue, sorry! Instead of fixing it this time around (10.7) I was planning to revamp the whole sheet music scrolling behavior some more in 10.8. It will be fixed by then.

miek wrote: ↑05-06-20 5:44 pmThe loop control buttons (Loop Start / End / Entire Loop) don't now move/stretch the loop start and end like they did before.

I wasn't able to reproduce this. Is this in every song or only a particular one?

miek wrote: ↑05-06-20 5:44 pmWhen dragging with the mouse in the measure window at the top, when the pointer moves out of the measure window you stop dragging it and have to start again.

Oh, interesting! The sheet music is stealing the mouse focus. If you turn off sheet music, it doesn't happen when the mouse goes above or below the timeline, but with sheet enabled it stops dragging when you cross into that area. I'll get that fixed. Nice catch.

miek wrote: ↑05-06-20 5:44 pm... when you have sheet music up on multi line and try to create a loop, the page does not shift when you drag over the visible page.

These are the sorts of things I was going to try and tackle with that additional revamp in 10.8. There are a few situations where it doesn't behave quite the way you'd like it to... and we can do better than that.

miek wrote: ↑05-06-20 5:44 pm... it doesn't scale, so you loose the spots on the white keys first but it still shows the black keys until it is moved almost off the page.

Do you mean the note labels? What are "the spots on the white keys"? Do you mean the round, colored "next note" indicators? This has been a thorn in Synthesia's side for a long time. There is a pretty major under-the-hood technology revamp coming to labels in 10.8 (to make them use much less CPU). I'll see if I can't fit a fix for this in the meantime. Rather than squashing the keys vertically, I'd rather just slide the labels up (or, rather, keep them in the same place relative to the screen; vs. relative to the keyboard).

miek wrote: ↑05-17-20 4:52 pmIt doesn't say 'F' properly - All the others are fine.

We caught that just after this preview went out the door, sorry! It's already been fixed and will show up in the next preview.

Gregor wrote: ↑05-18-20 4:54 am... no error appears when showing the note tag

I'm afraid I don't know what this means. What do you mean by a note tag?

paronym wrote: ↑05-19-20 6:04 pm... so I could immediately play back my recording.

If you just press the record button again (but then don't play any notes), it should play all your other tracks back immediately. Or is this too different than the usual Play screen? (E.g., there is no timeline, which makes it a little tedious waiting for a part you were curious about.) I went back and forth a few times about making a kind of "quick play" button that would jump you over to the play screen. I can still see lots of pros and cons. (The main con is simply the added complexity of more controls on the Free Play screen.)

paronym wrote: ↑05-19-20 6:04 pmAlso, it would be useful to be able to delete all the tracks/instruments at once, rather than one-by-one.

I could probably fit this in somewhere. It could even be framed as "New Song" or "Start Over" instead of "Delete All Tracks".

paronym wrote: ↑05-19-20 11:53 pmIn this 10.7 Preview, I've found that when I go into 'Play a Song', the very first note of any music doesn't play any sound on my Casio keyboard.

I'll check this out. I've got a couple Casio test keyboards around here. I'm having trouble imagining what might have changed to make this happen, but then again it's been like four months since I've looked at any of the code.

Gregor wrote: ↑05-20-20 12:24 pmIt would be nice to give the option to overwrite file if possible

I was trying to save a little effort with handling all the edge cases and adding lots of confirmation prompts. Hmm. I always worry about touching people's files, which is why Synthesia never modifies an existing MIDI file. Overwriting one feels almost as bad. Maybe it could suggest a number that could be tacked onto the end to prevent the duplicate?

Are you running into this problem because you are jumping over to the play screen to audition the song between edits? If there were a quick play button that didn't require saving the song to disk, would that solve this problem a different way?

Gregor wrote: ↑05-20-20 12:35 pmWhen it comes to deleting a track, I think it would be much more practical if you could drag the trash directly onto a track.

It's a little tricky to signal when a drag is possible. And then a tap (or click) on a screen with a tiny bit of extra movement can sometimes be tracked as a spurious drag and lead to a bit of confusion. Going in the opposite direction, I could have gone further with the current style and added the little "jiggle" animation that you see in places like the iPhone to let you know you're in a special "deleting" mode.

Gregor wrote: ↑05-20-20 12:35 pmI find missing the possibility of being able to individually listen to the created tracks

This one is all about balance. For each control that I add up in that top corner, it continues to eat more screen real-estate and give a first impression of clutter and confusion.

I had considered a little mixer-style volume bar below each track. Not only would that let you listen to things individually, but it would even let you balance things for the eventual saved song. So instead of being an edit-only feature, it would enhance the richness of songs you could produce with the tool.

The loop control buttons (Loop Start / End / Entire Loop) don't now move/stretch the loop start and end like they did before.

I wasn't able to reproduce this. Is this in every song or only a particular one?

Yes I have tried it on a few songs (Two built in) and the functionality of the 6 buttons at the bottom of the window have gone.

If you select one bar, half a bar or more bars, then

• press the buttons to move the entire loop left, it includes all bars to the start, loop start left is the same
• press the buttons to move the loop start right, there is no effect - same for loop end to the left
• press the buttons to move the loop end right it includes all bars to the end - same as move entire loop right

Also it doesn't let you select a bar with one note in it (eg a minim) but it will let you select two notes out of one bar or even a crotchet and a rest in one bar.

I see sometimes that some notes for right hand on synthesia are marked on the computer screen but the red keylights are not turned on.

Is this only happening in 10.7 (but not 10.6)? Which model keyboard are you using with key lights?

Umm. Well it wasn't working (at first, I'm sure of this), for my big MIDI file. I tried it on some of the others and it was the same. However, more recently I tried again and it works like a treat. I don't know why or when or even if this was even an issue at all.

It is something I use a lot so I am glad it works.

Nicholas wrote: ↑08-24-20 9:48 am Is this only happening in 10.7 (but not 10.6)? Which model keyboard are you using with key lights?

I see that in 10.7 but I can share the midi file in case if it is allowed (I am not the author).

Another problem that I saw that is marking a wrong note in various files. I noticed because I am practicing on reading the sheet so I saw as example with Toccata in C (I don't remember if easy or easiest honestly) there was a note that is wrote in a way in the sheet only mode but when I press that key is wrong.

I will try to replicate with a vid anyway everything.

I did some photo of yesterday about the missing keylights note with my casio lk-265.
Attached there are some photos in 3 different midi songs, if I use just the right hand they are highlighted rightly.

In a german test of the Casio LK-265 (https://www.bonedo.de/artikel/einzelans ... -test.html) is stated as a minus that only 4 keys can be lighted at the same time on this keyboard. All examples you posted try to light 5 keys.