Lmms: User added scales.

[zonkmachine]

There should be a way for users to add scales. Today the scales are hard coded but they could instead be read from a file and also from user defined templates.
How about adding a scale by actually playing it?

[Sti2nd]

What more scales could there possibly be?

[zonkmachine]

Yo scale? You might want inversions of all scales you allready have in there for starters. There are plenty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_scales_and_modes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Janya_Ragas#Scales

[DoosC]

Yes I agree, it would be nice to have user custom scales (that for example would be saved in a "Scale" folder so that they would be import/exportable).
There are many nice scale available out there, just have a look at :
page 204 (187) for pentatonic scales
pages 262 (245) through 268 (251) for exotic scales
ftp://188.134.1.36/Upload/Music%20Theory%20for%20Computer%20Musicians.pdf

The foundations are already there, because a scale system is already in place, which not all DAWs have. Let's make it even better !

[Sti2nd]

Well it wouldn't hurt I guess but I propose to make all those billions of other scales into the category other so the current scale window isn't overflowed

[DoosC]

I am not a developer but I wonder how I could contribute to scales in LMMS ?
I don't think just having "others" is relevant but we should rather have a fully organized tree of scales, for example : western scales (major, minor, etc), Gregorian modes (Dorian, Lydian, etc), Pentatonic Scales, etc
How could we go on in a concrete way in expanding and organizing the scale menu ?
Also this way, there could be a "Custom scales" folder for those added by users themselves (which was the starting point of this issue).
So, guidance anyone ?

[diizy]

On 04/06/2014 12:04 AM, DoosC wrote:

I am not a developer but I wonder how I could contribute to scales in
LMMS ?
I don't think just having "others" is relevant but we should rather
have a fully organized tree of scales, for example : western scales
(major, minor, etc), Gregorian modes (Dorian, Lydian, etc), Pentatonic
Scales, etc
How could we go on in a concrete way in expanding and organizing the
scale menu ?
Also this way, there could be a "Custom scales" folder for those added
by users themselves (which was the starting point of this issue).
So, guidance anyone ?

Seems like a moderately big change that would require some amount of
coding to accomplish. The "not a developer" part sort of puts a bit of
an obstacle on that...

There's not much to do for the "not-developer"-people, until the
"developer"-people have first implemented the functionality to allow
that sort of thing to happen.

[eagles051387]

Out of curiosity here, would it be possible to provide scales as presets?

On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 11:04 PM, DoosC [email protected] wrote:

I am not a developer but I wonder how I could contribute to scales in LMMS
?
I don't think just having "others" is relevant but we should rather have a
fully organized tree of scales, for example : western scales (major, minor,
etc), Gregorian modes (Dorian, Lydian, etc), Pentatonic Scales, etc
How could we go on in a concrete way in expanding and organizing the scale
menu ?
Also this way, there could be a "Custom scales" folder for those added by
users themselves (which was the starting point of this issue).
So, guidance anyone ?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/241#issuecomment-39650822
.

Jonathan Aquilina

[Sti2nd]

Agree on "a fully organized tree of scales". Someone which knows a lot of music theory should read this, and start thinking! I suspect there might be a lot of ways to organize scales. Wikipedia is useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_(music) There is a list of scale types and a link to a list of all scales in that article.

[softrabbit]

It doesn't have to be a huge, "everything at once" enhancement. First, enable loading of scales (and chords) from XML files or something, and users can make them in a text editor. That might be enough for some. After that, start looking at making an integrated scale editor solution, with tree views and so on.
Does this make any sense?

[sphenocorona]

Old issue I know, but here's another reason to allow some sort of user-made custom scale/chord 'pack/bank' sorta thing: If someone is using, say, ZynAddSubFx and trying to make microtonal music that has more than 12 notes per octave, it can get disorienting and confusing to remember which notes you're using and where the octaves occur. Since you can't save which notes are marked either (which might be another good option), it would be very helpful to at least have a shortcut for re-marking notes on the piano roll.
Though, saving those marked notes might at least serve as a "quick fix" that would at least remove some hassle.
It doesn't make sense to bundle scales like that into LMMS, so... that isn't a practical solution in my opinion.

[musikBear]

in fact user 'scales' can be created since 1.1
Use the context option 'Mark all corresponding....'
Now you will have marked out the 1. note of your user-scale
Repeat for n-notes
The cravat here, is that these 'marked notes' are not preserved within the project-file, so this tedious task has to be repeated every time you open the project, but it can be done..

[sphenocorona]

That's the problem, it's very tedious. I mentioned that method in my last post, saying that another option might just be to make an option to save the marked notes in the project file.

[psxws]

here's a great resource, a compedium of all possible scales analyzed mathematically

https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales

this might provide a framework for user added scales. there's certainly many missing, i myself found this topic looking for a way to add the "Youlan Scale" as none of the current scales are nonatonic.... but a custom nonatonic scale would be even better, GUI suggestion would be to represent scales as in that website, & perhaps offer the same navigation between them (modes, prime, chirality, etc)

[musikBear]

@psxws Great find!
Adding to Resources at next update!

[psxws]

@musikBear a proper implementation of this allowing the user to set any mathematically possible scale & have it work natively is a killer feature no other software let alone a DAW lets you do, as far as I'm aware.

It's true innovation & would set LMMS apart & allow users to Craft music that pushes boundaries & I think this should be taken seriously & implemented quickly considering how awesome it'll be..