Re: Question about Scala

Hi Gene,

As Manuel has said, the way to play from the p.c. keyboard is to show,
e.g. the scale window if you want to play in the scale - expand and
select all to play more octaves.

Perhaps I can add a few more details and mention other options:

If you want to play in a mode of the scale show the arpeggio window.

Now, choose Play, or move mouse over the keyboard picture to activate it.

In scale window, it only plays the scale as far as it goes. This is the one
to use for listening to and editing the current scale.

In arpeggio window, you can play as high as you like in the arpeggio. You
can also play the scale just as you do in the Scale window, if you choose follow
scale as the arpeggio to play.

You can have as many Arpeggio windows showing at once, each with its own mode,
and if you want, each can have its own scale too (to do this, untick Sync
scale with m.w. - m.w. = main window - , and to keep the appropriate modes list
showing for each scale, also untick Sync modes)

So if scale is already made and you are working with the modes, it's better
to use the arpeggio window.

If both are decided on, you can use the Seed window.

Notes of mode are played consecutively from key to left of 1 down to the bottom right key of
the typing area of the keyboard.

You can use the space bar as a sustain pedal when playing from P.c. keyboard.

For the help, what there is of it so far, click the ? icon for the Seed window.

As the help will mention, some triads can't be played using p.c. keyboard, e.g. on this one I'm
using now, the letters 3, 4, and 5 can't all be typed and held down simultaneously. Hold down
3 and 4 in text editor, then hold down the 5 and it won't show. Same for many other
keyboard triads. Other keyboards do this with other combinations of keys. Seems to be
independent of operating system, so something to do with the p.c. keybaord hardware itself.
So FTS just never gets the information that the 5 is held down, and as far as I can tell,
neither does the p.c. either, the information never leaves the p.c. keyboard. So nothing
to do about it.

Of course p.c. keybaords do need to be able to play some combinations of three keys such as
Ctrl + Alt + letter, or whatever. However, seems p.c. keyboards perhaps weren't designed
with object of using them to play arbitrary triads :-)

You can still play the triads to listen to them by playing the notes one at a time and
holding down the space bar sustain " pedal".

You can also play the mode of the scale from second row of the p.c. keyboard, and use first,
third and fourth rows to play any accidentals, simulating split key type effect.

For this, use Seed, Scale or Arpeggio | P.c. Keyboard Voice | Pitches for keyboard rows
| 2nd row arpeggio, others accidentals (pa only). (pa only = play along only)

Incidentally, same drop list also has option to modulate each row of p.c. keyboard by a custom
modulation.

If for example you modulate each row by 6/5 and use 1/1 3/2 as the scale, you can then play
a 2D triangular lattice from the p.c. keybaord, and by changing the numbers there, play the
other 2D triangular lattices in the same way.

Perhaps I'll add more about this to the help. If you click the blue ? icon you will get some
help about this

All of this works here. If you find any of it doesn't work, let me know and we can find out
what is causing it.

This is all for p.c. keyboard. For Midi relaying from Midi keyboard, you don't need to show any
of the windows; just select the keyboard for the Midi In, and it will relay to
the current scale and mode as shown in the main window.

Sometimes one might want to see the notes shown graphically as they are played, with the
values in cents / ratios. Best window to show for this is the Seed Window / Play.
To see where they are being relayed, in which channel, and the pitch bends used in cents,
show Out | Options | Notes In Play channels.

Keyboard mapping configured from In | Options | Configure Midi Keyboard | Play Arpeggio with,
or use In | Options | Midi relaying defaults... which sets of 1/1 to pitch of middle C
and to midi note 60. For more about this, see the beta download page sections about midi relaying,
which is up to date.

I'm sure there are things that can be done to improve the layout and the help for all this,
and any comments that will help with that are much valued.

http://members.tripod.com/~robertinventor/ftsbeta.htm

Robert