Christopher Souvey's Blog

As promised in my previous post, I’ve just released a major update to Musical Lite, bringing it up to speed with Musical Pro again (and adding drums, the new metronome, multitouch, and more), but now including advertisements.

For anyone who already has the application installed, on first launch, the following message will be displayed:

“I’ve added ads to this latest release. It should be unintrusive, but if you aren’t okay with them, I’m making the previous version available on my website souvey.com as a free download. Try out this version first though, as I’ve added a bunch of new features from the pro version to make up for the ads, including multitouch, drums, and a brand new metronome. Thanks for your support.”

So, if that’s the route you want to take, click here to download Musical Lite 2.0.3 (which has no ads, but is old and will no longer be updated).

As always, feel free to email me with any feedback, and I hope this solution is acceptable for everyone.

I’ve just pushed a major update to Musical Pro with a new UI and a bunch of requested changes that I’ve been getting emails about.

The new UI (which is currently in the Piano, Keyboard, and Metronome and is heading to all parts of the application) adds a toolbar to the top of the screen that provides access to all the common settings that were previously hidden away in menus.  It allows you to see at all times what settings you are using and seamlessly modify them in overlayed popups.

The Piano is now grand.  You were previously limited to only 3 preloaded octaves, but instead octaves are loaded on demand as you scroll along the piano (so there may be a slight delay when trying to use an octave for the first time).  There are now buttons to make it easier to scroll by a single note or octave at a time (the existing drag/drop on the mini piano is still in place as well).  Instrument loading time should be greatly improved (or in some cases eliminated), as the last 16 instruments are cached on the SD card.  This means you can seamlessly switch between instruments using the new UI toolbar.

The Keyboard gains the same improvements as the Piano with regard to instruments (faster and easy to switch) as well as a change in how octaves are handled.  Previously, the two available octaves had to be sequential, but you can now choose octaves independently for the top and bottom keyboard.  Octave selection is available in the toolbar, and as with the instruments, they can be changed seamlessly.  In addition, the way the keyboards handle touch has changed, allowing you to play both at once (if your phone supports multitouch).

The Metronome, which was completely overhauled in the previous release earlier this month (making it more reliable and steady), has been updated with the new UI.  Settings (BPM, subdivisions, time signature) are available in the toolbar, and the remainder of the screen has been filled with an animated metronome image.  There is also a dedicated Start/Stop button now, since there had been some confusion about how to get it to turn off (since it continues automatically in the background if you do not stop it, allowing you to use the metronome along with other instruments or applications).

There are some other insignificant changes that shouldn’t cause any problems.  Preferences (like vibration) have been unified into one list (now also accessible from the main menu).  The multitouch wizard has been removed (it should now automatically use the best multitouch your device supports).  Finally, I’ve added Google’s new Licensing Verification Library to help prevent piracy–this means that the application will verify with the Android Market whether or not you have purchased it.  If you’ve bought the application, you shouldn’t notice this at all, but if something goes wrong, please contact me and I’ll do my best to fix it.  I’m not a fan of DRM, but my analytics imply that potentially up to 90% of devices (for sure over 1/2)  running Musical Pro have not paid for it, so I’m going to give it a try.

Over the next few days, I will be releasing an updated version of Musical Lite that brings it up to par with the changes I’ve made in Musical Pro.  My current plans are to leave the basic feature set of Musical Lite the same (no choice of instruments or octaves, no WiFi, etc) with the exception of drums and multitouch will I believe will be added to Musical Lite.  In addition, I will likely be placing a Google Adwords ad unit on the main menu screen. I will be making the old version without ads available on my website for free for anyone who would like to remain ad-free, but this will disqualify you to receive any new updates to the application (including the improvements listed in this post).

This weekend, in anticipation of the Verizon Droid’s arrival this week, I released an update to Musical Lite and Musical Pro that should provide support for Android 2.0 and the new larger and smaller screen sizes that are heading to the next generation of Android phones.  Once the Droid comes out, I’ll hopefully be able to experiment with the multi-touch and implement it in Musical (as Android 2.0 on new phones finally supports multi-touch).  Sorry for the lack of exciting new features in this release–I had to spend my time making the existing features work with new phones.  Good things are coming… stay tuned!

I released an update to Musical Pro a few days ago (on the 24th) and am finally writing up a post about it. This update brought two major updates and a few minor changes.

First and foremost, the drums have been completely revamped. All the drum sounds have been replaced with professionally recording samples courtesy of JohnnyBluePrint (Thanks!) and 4 new ones have been added. The default kit now includes the following: crash, 3 toms, ride, hi-hat, snare, and kick. There are now two modes–single-touch mode (which has 8 pads) and multi-touch mode (which can only have 4 due to hardware limitations with multi-touch).

Secondly, the metronome can now run in the background. If you start the metronome and then exit Musical Pro or change to another instrument, the metronome will continue running. What this means is that you can now use the metronome along with the piano or the drums. While the metronome is running, an icon will be added to the notification bar to provide access to the metronome from anywhere in Android. A word of caution: don’t expect to be able to heavily multitask while the metronome is running–anything CPU intensive (gaming, load screens, etc) can cause the metronome to skip a beat.

Finally, there are a few minor changes that you probably won’t notice. One that is worth mentioning, however, is the ability on the keyboard to swap the Y and Z keys on the keyboard. What this means is that the hardware keyboard mapping (currently useful on the G1) now supports QWERTZ “kezboards” (used in German speaking countries). You can find this setting under the preferences dialog for the Keyboard instrument.

More updates are hopefully on their way–including the much requested ability to record…

Two things to announce today regarding Musical for Android:

1. I’m currently on vacation (and have been all week) in Hawaii, which is why there haven’t been any updates or new features. Development will resume as soon as I return mid next week. I have internet though (obviously) and am still responding to support emails, so as always, feel free to contact me–although I’ll be a bit slower to respond than usual (within 24 hours, rather than a couple hours).
2. I’ve had an official site up for Musical for 2 weeks or so now, but haven’t officially annonced it yet, so here goes… Visit androidmusical.com for a list of features, descriptions, and screenshots of Musical. If you already have Musical, this won’t be of much use to you, but if you are still on the fence about purchasing it, give the site a skim and see what you are missing.

I just released a new version of Musical Pro with a rewritten MIDI over WIFI system.  If you already are using the Desktop Client, you must download the latest version here: http://www.souvey.com/musical. Conversely, the new Desktop Client will not work unless you have the latest version of Musical.  Apologies for the inconvenience, but I had to make some back-end changes to allow for some exciting new features that are on their way.

I’ve just released an update allowing you add your own songs to the practice piano.  The format is documented here: http://www.souvey.com/musical/

Because this is only an experiment, the format may (and quite possibly will) change in the future, but if it does, I will release a simple program to convert to the new format, so rest assured you will not have to rewrite anything you create for this version.

If you come up with any interesting creations, email them to me, and I’ll add a directory on the format page of songs other people have created (although anything I provide on my site has to be legal and can’t be copyrighted).

The latest experimental feature in Musical Pro for Android is a “light-up” play-along piano for practicing using the touchscreen piano. It is now available in the Android Market and is a free update for all current Musical Pro customers. For those who haven’t yet made the upgrade to Musical Pro (from Musical Lite, which is free), it is still just $1.99 in the Market.

When a note is to be played, the corresponding key lights up in red (it is difficult to see in the attached video on the black keys) and the program waits until you press it to continue. As you play the song, Musical provides a chordal accompaniment in the background at the tempo you play.

This video demonstrates the 3 songs, When the Saints Go Marching In, Twinkle Twinkle, and My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, played on an Android G1/Dream (but it also works just as well on the Magic/MyTouch)

As promised, Musical Lite has been updated with the latest fixes from Musical Pro.  The piano and keyboard have been optimized and scrolling has been replaced with sliding.  The main menu has also been revamped to match the new iconified menu in Musical Pro.  Finally, the main launcher icon has been replaced with a variation upon the recent Musical Pro icon.

This weekend, I finally finished my “Cupcake” update (the first version that only works on Android 1.5) for Musical Pro, focusing on optimizing the piano and keyboards.  I completely rewrote the interface to decrease latency.  Although it may look the same, it is now a custom control with all the drawing and event handling done by me (rather than using a combination of stock android controls).  Both the keyboard adn the piano should be far far more responsive, less prone to lock up, and much easier to play.

One semi-unfortunate side effect of the improvement is that the piano now longer allows kinetic scrolling–instead you must scroll using the mini-keyboard at the top of the screen.  The problem was that I was having to add an artificial delay (ie purposely increase latency) so that it wouldn’t play notes by accident when you were trying to scroll.  I made the decision, however, that it was more important for the piano to be as responsive as possible, so I sadly removed the touch scrolling.

On the positive side, because moving a finger along the piano no longer scrolled it, I was able to replace it with sliding (aka glissando).  What this means is that you can slide your finger along the piano or keyboard and it will play each note that you pass.  If you don’t like this feature, however, there is also a new “Preferences” option in the piano/keyboard menu that lets you enable/disable sliding.  Worth noting is that the preferences are not shared between the piano and the keyboard, so each can have different options set.

Another feature you will likely notice right away is the haptic/tactile feedback.  In both the piano and keyboard, when you play a note, your phone will gently vibrate.  This, for some people at least, makes it much easier to play, because it feels more responsive.  This option is enabled by default, but like the new sliding, it can easily be turned off under “Preferences”.

Finally, in the minor fix category, the letters/numbers on the piano keyboard (representing mapping to the physical keyboard on the G1/Dream) now only show up when the keyboard is open, and don’t show up at all on the new keyboard-less Magic/Ion/MyTouch.

This is the first of hopefully many exciting updates coming out this summer, so I hope you enjoy!

P.S. For all the Musical Lite users, I do plan to back-port the latency improvements in the coming week.  What this means, is that the piano and keyboard in Musical Lite will be updated to the faster interface and maintain the same speed as its Pro counterpart.  Sliding will also be ported to make up for the loss of scrolling, but haptic feedback (vibration) will remain a Pro only feature, and there will be no preferences system to disable sliding.  This is in keeping with my update policy: all bug fixes will be released for both Pro and Lite (I consider latency to be a bug) and keeps up the existing pattern of Musical Pro’s piano providing customization and options, but Musical Lite’s having just one static configuration.