Show HN: A tool for creating chord charts on the go (tiniuc.com)
Author here - one of the most notable facts about the app is that it's made entirely in Godot Game Engine! I think it's great for apps like this because it makes it especialy easy to iterate on GUI designs such as this one.
Feel free to ask me anything about Chord Chart Memo, or my experience with Godot.
41 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] threadI enjoyed your write up, and was surprised to read that it was built in Godot, which I'd only ever considered for games, but of course it makes sense that games are simply a kind of app.
Love that you employ the circle of 5ths in the keyboard, whereas a more naive approach might've been to just ascend stepwise from C.
Any plans for an iOS version? Does Godot make it easy to port to other platforms?
Yes, there are plans for an iOS version! Godot has native support for iOS, so it should be pretty much plug-and-play. I haven't done it yet because of the developer fee that Apple charges, and because I am mainly an Android user myself. If there is enough interest though, I'm sure my partner would let me borrow her Macbook & iPad in order to bring this out though :)
App looks lovely
The Godot editor is built in Godot [0]
[0] https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.5/getting_started/introduc...
Because it isn't clear from the launch page: can it play sounds? I'm wondering if it can "audition" chords so that I can get a double-check on whether I'm picking the right one. I'm a musician who mostly plays by ear and improvisation, and I sometimes have to spend an annoying amount of time figuring out the correct name of a chord if I want to write it down for another musician to play. (a feature that showed which notes made up each chord, maybe behind a long press or something, would also be handy for this)
Interesting suggestion about showing the note names that make up each chord! The data will definitely be in the app when sounds are added, I'll have to think about adding that.
As for libraries of charts, there are many other apps that do that very well already! I wanted to focus on fast editing of charts for musicians writing original songs, who are not really served that well by other apps at the moment.
Would you concider addinf support for numbers only. Generally for my use case I actually only use numbers and not specific chords... I IV V vii etc
Chord Chart Memo is also specifically designed with the stage in mind: charts load quickly & work entirely offline.
You are already able to input inversions, using the Slash Chords feature. Once the sound engine is implemented, being able to hear the specified inversion will come for free.
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll keep them in mind!
> For example, the I - IV - VIIm - V7 progression below uses the same motions in A as it would in C, where the chords would be C F Am G7.
Shouldn't that be "I - IV - VIm - V7" instead? (The transposition from A to C looks right, it's just the roman numeral for the 3rd chord in the text that is wrong).
The transposition is correct because I used the app for it ;)
Not at the moment, but a "Preferences" menu is in the works. This would be a great addition to that, alongside an option jazz notation and the like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8KYHfCKr8
How long have you played the Stick? I’ve played a few stringed instruments, but I’ve never even seen one irl. I’m curious as to how you would compare playing that vs. a traditional guitar?
It doesn't play anything like a traditional guitar! Some of the shapes are the same on the melody side, but you're now tapping them with your right hand instead of fretting them with your left. In a lot of ways it's more like playing the piano than any other fretboard instrument.
Lately I've been performing in a band, where the Stick slots into the traditional 'bass guitar' slot. There the technique is quite similar, a lot of the time I am playing it exactly like a bass. However it has a much bigger pallette of sounds available to you: tapping the strings (instead of plucking) creates a much more aggressive & throaty bass tone. And at the same time you can very easily play broad, airy chords, or harmony & melody.
My only wish is that it came with a sustain pedal like the piano ;)
Aside: Following your github link led me to discover another one of your music related projects, harmony-explorer which seems quite similar to something I've wanted to build for myself.
Parts of Harmony Explorer are kind of still in the app to this very day, namely the modulo-12 arithmetic for notes. And once support for sounding chords is added, that will also be heavily based on how things were done in Harmony Explorer.
Thanks for sharing this! Honestly makes me feel better about some of my projects
I have been using it for games and am totally enamoured by the speed, pragmatism and simplicity of the engine. I would totally use it for non-game projects.
A small aside, this reminds me of one of my first attempts at a digital side hustle, a website called "What fucking chord is this" that let you enter the notes, and get back all the different chord names.
I've written another blog post about this very topic: https://tiniuc.com/godot-for-apps/