Harmony Navigator introduces a new kind of user interface for browsing through harmony space. Although we've designed it to be as intuitive as possible, it can still be confusing for new users (and we could still have overlooked important details). We'd be really interested in your views and observations, especially wrt your expectations and how well HN met them (or missed them).
Here are a few examples of typical questions:
Timeline
For example, one typical reaction we often get is: "Heck, so many chords. Where's the timeline?" Well, although HN isn't comparable to a sequencer, it nevertheless has a timeline: Check "View -- Show Progression" in the palette window to make it visible. Chords can be dragged from the palette (actually: any open palette) directly to the progression.
Changes
Another question was: "How do I select a particular chord in the progression, in order to delete it?" It is important to known that a progression consists of chord changes, each of which is a point on the timeline: The beginning of the colored box. To select exactly one of them, one must select it's starting position (left border) with the hair line cursor. Although chord changes look like boxes here, they actually have no surface.
You might also ask yourself "How can I merge two chords into one?". There is no specific merge function. The simple answer here is: Delete the second chord change. The first chord will then last until the beginning of the next one.
Please feel free to add your own questions and/or observations. I'll answer them all.
Andre
BTW: According to a discussion in the german forum, we are very likely going to improve the progression editor in a way that the chord "blocks" actually behave more like movable blocks in other software. This will lower the barrier for new users and provide more comfort.
Only been using the demo for a few hours
It seems unintuitive the way you add & edit blocks in the progression timeline, be nice to be able to make them bigger or smaller by dragging the out side & maybe move them around by holding the alt key. Also its a bit difficult to see what is high lighted its a little too transparent.
@rosiko
I'm currently working on this. The next version of the demo and full release will dramatically simplify editing. Blocks will be fully resizable, dragable etc. Just like in almost every application.
Just wanted to post this here quickly ;-)
Be sure you don't miss the next demo (newsletter?)
the coding slave
(Cognitone)
I cant seem to find the harmonizer. How do I harmonize a melody? There's no "window - harmonizer" menu item anywhere.
The harmonizer is launched from the pattern window. Look for "Instrument -> Import" and "Instrument -> Harmonize".