Comment by veli_joza | Hacker News Reader

Comment by veli_joza | Hacker News Reader

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Now I've spent some time with harmopark, let me share some thoughts.

Experience is somewhat clumsy on laptops without mouse. Maybe in 'select mode' the left click could also toggle selected nodes. On tablet the interface makes more sense.

I like how easy it is to enter a progression and generate a musical loop. Harmonic table is great choice for working with chords.

Arpeggios sound great. With a bit of reverb and delay there are some nifty soundscapes in there. The synths themselves could use some improvement.

Sound settings could perhaps be pulled out of modal into main page? I had fun fiddling with settings, I'd like them to be more accessible & exposed.

It would be nifty if 'explore harmony' chords could be dragged onto progression track. Maybe clicking a chord in that modal could make it a active selection and than it could be dragged from selection info.

Thanks for sharing this with us. It looks great already and I'll drop in occasionally to check for updates.

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!

Just to follow up on the first issue: my laptop has a touch screen. The framework I use (Love2D, which is built on SDL2) can detect this and receives multiple simultaneous touches.

In Harmopark the touchscreen is detected, but multi-touch doesn't work. Therefore I had to use touchpad.

Auto-voicing is complicated and it's very culture-specific. One good implementation is this: http://www.sealab2021.tv/etcetera/choir/

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.

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