Key Control Highlight

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caseyjamesbasichis
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 9:05 pm

Key Control Highlight

Post by caseyjamesbasichis »

I use Thumbjam with all of the key controls on display to quickly modulate.

It would be really cool if the key buttons in the key controls would highlight depending on what notes were currently being played. This would allow for very intuitive pivots into new keys.

For example, if I was hold and Emaj chord, the keys B E and A would all turn green to indicate that all notes currently held are featured in those keys... D Major might only turn cyan because only two notes are featured in the scale.

A few other related thoughts:

When switching keys, I really like the way it transposes, but it would be handy if there was a gesture that would prevent it from transposing, so if you were holding an E and modulated to a Key with an E in it, it would appear in the same place. If there was no in in the Key it would round to the nearest note (the rounding could be more intricate and musically aware but I think it would matter all that much)

There is a nice chunk of space below the key controls that never really gets used. Are there plans for that? I suspect that might be the place for chords, but It would be neat if it was possible to store a few scales there for on the fly scale switches... This could be integrated into the Key Highlighting so you could easily modulate from a whole-half scale to a pelong and have a visual guide as to what the most compatible keys are. -- The selected scale wouldn't take effect until a key is reselected (even if its the same one) -- so you could be playing in once scale, switch scales (while still playing in the initial scale/key), the keys would highlight using the new scale (but the thumbjam kb would still be set to the old scale) to give a visual guide, when a new key or the same key is selected the scale would switch as well.

BTW as much as I liked this app on my phone it is simply milkshake heaven on the ipad.


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Jesse
Posts: 1053
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2009 3:25 am

Very interesting and subtle

Post by Jesse »

Very interesting and subtle interface idea with the key highlighting.

I can also see the use of keeping the current position of a pivot key. Obviously this would cause the lowest note to be different than the selected key, but I don't see that as a problem, and it should be trivial to implement. Do you have a suggestion as to how you would signal this behavior?

Yeah, that chunk of space below the keys was going to be for quick scale/key switches. Chords need a substantial more space... probably to take up the lower third of the screen when active. But all for later versions..... the next one needs wrapping up first.

caseyjamesbasichis
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 9:05 pm

While playing with the right

Post by caseyjamesbasichis »

While playing with the right hand and selecting the key with the left it would be simple enough to, instead of just pressing, press and swipe to the left to get the non transposed scale. This way it wouldn't need an extra button and it wouldn't get in the way of the playing hand.

Yes I am totally looking forward to testing the latest one, I got my system all setup up for the OSC network and I've been practicing with thumbjam all day.

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