37 ms·

Show HN: A guitar tab viewer that listens

190 points by rodw 7y ago

sriram_malhar 7y ago
This looks very interesting. Alas, it doesn't pass security on Mac OS Mojave.
- rodw 7y ago
  Can you share details of what you're seeing? If you want to send it to me directly you can email me as rod at fatpick.
  - thebiglebrewski 7y ago
    This is what I get: https://imgur.com/a/aHy0c0Z https://imgur.com/a/aHy0c0Z Would love to try it!
    - rodw 7y ago
      Thanks. I just double checked on High Sierra and I'm not seeing the problem but I don't have a Mojave install in front of me right now so I can't troubleshoot it immediately. Are you seeing that problem when opening the DMG or the app itself? Does it help to use the right-click-and-choose-open approach? For what it is worth you can download (a zipped version of) the .app file directly from https://www.fatpick.com/releases/FATpick-1.3.5-mac.zip https://www.fatpick.com/releases/FATpick-1.3.5-mac.zip, if that would work around the problem.
      - jtbayly 7y ago
        It's when attempting to run the app.
      - gh123man 7y ago
        Is the app both signed (and notarized)? - if not you will have to CTRL + Right click -> open to run the unsigned code.
        rodw 7y ago
        It is signed with a valid developer ID associated with the same LLC mentioned on the site (and that owns the domain), so you can be reasonably certain that the app you are running is the one that we (I) created. It is not yet notarized, but only because of my own ignorance of the implications of that. (In my defense the notarization thing is a relatively new policy.)
        wila 7y ago
        basically it is just: xcrun altool --notarize-app --primary-bundle-id "com.your.bundleid" --username "username" --password "password" --file "/path/to/installbundle" read the doc here [1] Wait for apple to approve it. Then staple it. [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution/customizing_the_notarization_workflow https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...
        rodw 7y ago
        Thank you. I appreciate that you took the time to post that.
- phaser 7y ago
  oh boy. here we go
- ladino 7y ago
  confirmed on Catalina as well! - can you please post here when it's fixed? I would love to try it!
  - rodw 7y ago
    The app is code-signed with a valid Apple developer ID, but you may be seeing problems because it is not directly distributed through the app store. Per Google apparently a lot of apps have run into this problem: it seems that post-Catalina Apple insists on an additional "notarization" step for non-store apps. I was actually aware of this general problem since there was some hubbub about Electron 7+ apps having issues with that process, but I mistakenly believed I was immune to that problem by pinning to Electron 6. I'll ping you once we've jumped through that hoop, but unfortunately it isn't something that I can fix instantly. In the meantime you can make an explicit exception by "right-clicking" on the application icon and selecting "Open" from the context menu that pops up.
  - rodw 7y ago
    Hey ladino, just to update you (as requested) this should be fixed now. The version currently available at https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg is fully notarized by Apple and should not have this problem. Release notes here: https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2 https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2 Please let me know if you encounter any problems with this new build. You can reach me via the contact form at https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us or you can email me directly at rod@<that-domain>.
- rodw 7y ago
  I'm repeating myself but just to put this near the root of this thread: You should be able to right-click on the application icon and choose "open" from the context menu that pops up to make this problem go away. (Assuming you trust the developer, of course.) This message is just a more strongly worded (and less convenient) version of the dialog that has always come up when opening side-loaded apps for the first time, at least in my experience. It looks like Apple's newly introduced "notarization" process will avoid this step, even for apps distributed outside of the official App Store, but that process will take a little bit of time. In the meantime you'll need to take the right-click-and-choose-open action.
  - ShamelessC 7y ago
    I had to hold control while right-clicking for this to show up. Thanks though.
- rodw 7y ago
  For what it is worth this should be fixed now. The version now available at https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg is fully notarized by Apple and should not have this problem. Release notes here: https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2 https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2
rodw 7y ago
Hi everyone. I'd like to introduce you to a side project I've been working on for a little while now. FATpick (https://www.fatpick.com/ https://www.fatpick.com/) is a practice tool for guitar (and bass) that helps you learn to play new songs, improve your skills and stay motivated to keep playing. It's an auto-scrolling tablature viewer, synchronized with backing tracks, that listens as you play along with any guitar, providing immediate feedback on your accuracy and timing. FATpick will eventually be much more than that - there are a lot of directions to take this in - but even with this more modest scope this M(+)VP release is useful, cohesive and hopefully compelling in and of itself. A couple of things that might be interesting to HN: (1) So far this has been a bootstrapped, solo effort; but it won't necessarily stay that way. (2) The current Windows and Mac apps are built with Electron; but they won't necessarily stay that way either. I'd be happy to discuss any of that if you are interested. A direct link to the downloads page is here: https://www.fatpick.com/support/downloads#get-fatpick https://www.fatpick.com/support/downloads#get-fatpick You can find a brief (and silent) video of the app in action on either of the pages linked above. I'd love your feedback on any part of this, but I'd especially appreciate it if you can give the app a try.
- ssttoo 7y ago
  Electron - does that mean it’s built with JavaScript and webaudio API? Congrats on the launch!
  - rodw 7y ago
    Essentially yes, and thank you. Being able to leverage WebAudio was a major factor in the decision to use Electron. To be honest at first I was thinking of Electron/WebAudio as a prototyping tool that I would only use for a proof-of-concept, but I've been pleasantly surprised by its performance and capabilities. So far I haven't found a compelling reason to change. When you don't need to worry about cross-browser compatibility the modern HTML5 toolset is really pretty powerful.
    - ssttoo 7y ago
      Awesome, thanks! I’ve seen proof-of-concept pitch detection in webaudio but it’s great to learn it’s production-worthy, not just a demo. I’ll try fatpick (love the name, btw) when I get to a guitar and report back. Also curious what did you use for painting the tabs. DIY in Canvas? Or vexflow? Btw there’s a nice talk from Adrian Holovaty on perf challenges with soundslice and its drawing/updating of notation (standard and tabs)
davkap92 7y ago
Looks very cool will try this out and report back but just curious first thing that comes to mind, how are you differentiating between the several frets that could produce the same note, or for example 6th string 5th fret(A) vs open 5th string(A) ?
- davkap92 7y ago
  I'd test this myself but don't have a guitar with me at the moment
- rodw 7y ago
  Right now for pitch-detection purposes I'm not differentiating between them. If you produce a sound of the right pitch and octave that's considered a "hit" regardless of which fret or string you used to create it. Personally I see that as a feature, but I guess if you wanted to be very prescriptive about fingering for educational/training reasons I can see the value in treating them differently. There is some subtle difference in the tone (which is why you can hear the difference, obviously) so this is _possible_ but not trivial. I've actually been experimenting with "string detection" recently so that I can warn users when they are off by one string (a common beginner mistake).
  - thecatspaw 7y ago
    Well, for chords not differentiating between them is correct anyway, since you can play different voicings. The string detection is a good idea imho
lou1306 7y ago
OP: I don't know if you already know it, but there is a huge homebrew tabs community around the Rocksmith "video game". (Try looking for CustomsForge). If you find a way to support their format, you might gain access to a huge repository of tabs. Maybe this might put your tool on Ubisoft's radar, so I suggest to thread lightly, but it would be awesome.
- rodw 7y ago
  Thanks. I'm familiar with CustomsForge, and there are a lot of interesting things about it. But you don't need anything nearly as complicated as Rocksmith files or CustomsForge to import songs into FATpick. FATpick already accepts Guitar Pro files, so there are thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of scores you can download from ultimate-guitar and other sites to import into FATpick. Also, while obviously not as convenient, free software like TuxGuitar can convert other formats (MuseScore, MusicXML, etc.) into GuitarPro, so you can import pretty much any machine-readable score into FATpick (modulo proprietary formats like Rocksmith/CustomsForge, but you need to jump thru hoops to "extract" data in that format in the first place).
  - lou1306 7y ago
    > FATpick already accepts Guitar Pro files This is interesting. I suggest you add that somewhere in the home page.
    - rodw 7y ago
      Well, technically I do mention it on both the landing page and the download page (and usually where-ever the functionality is described), but I guess the lesson here is that it needs to be called out more aggressively. I appreciate the feedback.
    - vwarner1411 7y ago
      I agree with this. I didn't see any mention of this either.
      - 7y ago
rkagerer 7y ago
Nice work! Do you think this work could be adapted to recognize human-sung notes in real time (e.g. turn my humming into an orchestral melody)? If so, let's get in touch!
- rodw 7y ago
  It can absolutely do near-real-time pitch detection of singing or humming or even better whistling. We may want to tweak the parameters a little bit for that specific domain but it probably does reasonably well right now. If you want you can test out how well it does as-is right now. Within the app go to "Settings" then "Audio Analysis Settings" then click the "Test Settings" button. That will show you the same pitch and note-onset detection as used during game-play. I'd be happy to talk more -- you can reach me as rod@ the domain I linked to -- but to be candid monochromatic pitch detection of the human voice is not a hard problem. I'm not sure FATpick is as special at this as you seem to think, but I'm not quite sure what you have in mind. And I certainly don't want to talk you out of thinking that :) I'd love to hear more about it.
semitones 7y ago
Looks awesome! Gonna try it out when I get home. I'm sure you're already familiar with Yousician - what would you say your app will have that they don't?
- rodw 7y ago
  Moxie.
  - rodw 7y ago
    Actually that probably deserves a less flippant answer, so let me offer one. To be honest the most interesting differentiators are not really visible in this MVP release, but there are some, even now. At a practical level: * FATpick lets you import and play any song you can get your hands on (as well as those shared by other users). You can import any GuitarPro-format scores directly (or at least any .gp3/4/5 files) and if you're motivated enough you can easily convert anything else to the GuitarPro format using free software like TuxGuitar. * FATpick is also totally free right now. There are no time limits or features hidden behind a paywall. To be clear it won't always be free, but it will remain free for at least several months (as we refine the product) and we'll work out a special offer for early-adopters as we get closer to defining the actual subscription model. At a philosophical level: * Most of the competitors in this space - possibly all of the "big" ones - focus on trying to "teach" guitar and so invest heavily in instructional videos and in content selected for pedagogical reasons. * FATpick takes a different approach. We assume you've heard of JustinGuitar and focus instead on being the best platform for viewing tabs and learning to play songs, to the extent that even someone that is brand new to guitar can be playing songs they know in just a few minutes -- maybe slowly or poorly or relatively simple ones -- but literally going from "Where do I put my fingers?" and "Is this where the guitar strap should go?" to "Cool, now I can play Seven Nation Army along with the recording as if I'm in the band" in a just a few minutes. More experienced players are able to sight-read new stuff, even on the first play thru, making it easy to learn new songs. And all with objective feedback on your performance and the ability to track your progress over time. We aren't trying to teach you guitar -- you should be looking at multiple sources for that anyway -- but we are trying to be an indispensable tool on your belt, helping make your practice sessions more fun, more engaging and more effective. But again I think the most interesting and unique stuff is still on the roadmap. A big part of what I'm trying to do now is field-test the technology. This version was more or less scoped specifically to be useful and compelling enough to support that but the really good stuff is still in the pipeline.
alfor 7y ago
Did you tough about removing the account creation at the start. This seem to me as unnecessary friction to try it out.
- rodw 7y ago
  You're not wrong, but to be honest, no, not very much. It might make an appreciable difference in "conversions" (to using the app) for the Hacker News crowd, but I'm not sure if it's justified in the general case, for these reasons: 1. A lot of the features are oriented around having some identity. There would need to be a lot of special cases in the code to support account-free use. 2. Ultimately the app will be something you have to pay for, so the account is valuable as a lead but also maybe as a proxy for whether or not someone is interested enough to pay for the product eventually. 3. By the time you encounter this you've already downloaded and installed (or at least unpacked) the application. I'm not sure there are a lot of people that go through all that trouble only to balk at registering an email/name/password account. (If nothing else I would think at that point you're already committed due to the effect of the "investment" you've already made on basic human psychology.) And if they do balk at entering an email address, are they the kind of people that are likely to enter a credit-card when the time comes? For what its worth, most of my competitors make you enter a credit card (and promise to charge you if you don't cancel) before letting you try the product. That said, I guess it _could_ work with some type of gradual account creation flow (like asking for your name when you've earned a spot on the leaderboard). I'm just not convinced that the return that would provide justifies the effort to make it happen (not to mention the complexity that this would permanently add to ongoing development and testing). I could easily be wrong about this, but that's been my intuition and rationale around this topic so far. Do you really think that _that_ many "normal" users that are serious paid-subscription prospects will be lost at that step. I can probably measure that to find out, but its also plausible (and maybe harder to measure) that is a useful way to filter out users that will never pay for the service before they become a support or capacity burden.
  - stan_rogers 7y ago
    I'd immediately delete it. And I have done so with several other applications. Time-limited trials don't need anything other than the time limit and usefulness to make paying customers out of trial downloads.
lessthanstellar 7y ago
Some early ideas: Dynamics exercises. Capture amplitude changes, so users can practice crescendos when using acoustic guitars. Solve the reverse problem, but for singing. Given a song, extract it's melody and replay as a karaoke with scores. Guitar Pro compatibility is more important than you think. You'll probably have to differentiate yourself from Yousician. Cheers.
- rodw 7y ago
  Thanks for that. Just in case you missed this point, you can already import Guitar Pro files.
mynameishere 7y ago
I tried using this and it's a damn mess. You need to sit down with someone unfamiliar with it and take a note of all the roadblocks on the way towards getting it to do something. I never could get it to do anything. I got as far as pressing "play" and then seeing a page with a little bar on the left, two quotes in the middle and the word "practice" on the right. Press that and it says "paused". Oh, I was playing? Didn't seem like it.
- rodw 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. That sounds like a bug. If you see the two quotes and didn't see the tabs you definitely weren't playing anything. Specifically it sounds like we failed to load the song data, so you don't really see anything at all. This is typically a momentary issue. If you want to give it another try you can go back to the track or song selection page and try again. That generally clears the problem up. (The problem is that data file wasn't fully flushed to disk when the player tried to open it. If you give it a second and try again it generally works.) If the file happens to be very large or the network connection is slow you might see this more often. Also if you are a little more leisurely about going from the track-selection page to the player this is less likely to happen. Worst case scenario is that the data file was somehow corrupted when being written to the cache. That will clear itself out eventually, or you could clear the cache from the settings panel, or try another song if you are just playing around. I know this seems like a problem that should be easy to fix, but it's been a little bit of a whack-a-mole problem to address all the edge cases. I'm sorry you ran into this, but fortunately it's almost always a temporary glitch.
JustinAiken 7y ago
Okay, I'm probably your exact target demographic - I have about 1,300 hours in Rocksmith and I'm obsessed with it, but often find myself wanting more "pro" features like Guitar Pro has. So hopefully you'll find my feedback useful... On the tab interface: - Seeing a blob of 6 numbers come isn't intuitive enough. The strings REALLY need to be colored. You should be able to get away with using the same colors as Rocksmith, as there's generic sets of strings using those (https://www.guitarcenter.com/DR-Strings/Hi-Def-NEON-Multi-Color-Coated-Medium-Electric-Guitar-Strings.gc https://www.guitarcenter.com/DR-Strings/Hi-Def-NEON-Multi-Co...) - or at least make them configurable. It's hard for me to tell which string is which in fatpick. - Bar lines for the beat/measure changes would be helpful. - Chords saying their name above them would be a huge help - "G" is much easier to parse quickly than "355433"! Practice mode: - Just adjusting playback speed isn't enough. To be actually useful, fatpick needs something like Rocksmith's Riff Repeater, where you can select a section, loop it at a selected speed, and have it increase 1% each time you get the notes right. In fact, here's where you can outshine Rocksmith, since Rocksmith only lets you select entire sections, whereas you could make it so you could really drill in on notes Audio: - Being able to play the audio file instead of just guitar pro-style midi would be a huge bonus. Don't make it required, so you can still just import a quick GP file to play, but for curated tracks or imported Rocksmith psarcs (see my comment elsewhere about psarcjs), the real audio would be great. - Even better... multitrack audio! Just play the song .mp3 if that's all there is, but there's plenty of multitrack ogg's sourced from rock band / guitar hero floating out there. For these songs you could play with your chosen instrument removed - IE, pick a song with a multitrack ogg, pick the bass part, the audio engine wouldn't play the bass part but would play the rest. - Some kind of effects on the guitar would be nice. Using an AxefxIII and Loopback I can mix in real guitar sounds with the game, but most of your demographic won't have that ability, so being able to pick an AC/DC song and have basic distortion effects will be a must. Anyways, after playing with fatpick for 20 minutes I'm going to go back to Rocksmith. Will check on this in a month though and see how far along it is - there's a lot of potential here!
- thecatspaw 7y ago
  Personally I switched from Rocksmith to goPlayAlong, mostly because it syncs audio to tabs. It does not do note recognition, but I had more trouble in rocksmith than its worth. Notes that do not get recognized for some reason. My low e string has trouble getting recognized even though its in tune. I've also realized that its not a good idea psychologically. You basically remove the "did I play it correctly and did it sound good?" part from your brain, and rely on a external system to provide that feedback for you. This would be no issue if these tools could gauge that better, going beyond "does the input have the correct frequencies at the correct times?". It does not recognize fret buzz, it does not recognize you slightly panicing but still hitting the correct notes. So in goPlayAlong I just select the parts I wanna work on (you can not just select bars, but also single notes), make sure the pitch is correct (it has halftone + semitone corrections), slow it down to the tempo I want to work on. Then I play it a few times. If I am happy with how it sounds, I press the + key on my keyboard to increase the tempo by 5%. It also has a trainer mode which increases the speed after a set amount of playthroughs (of the section), by a set amount of speed. So increase 1% every 5repeats for example. I use it when I am more focused on improving speed. It also has a very tight feedback loop. After it played the last note of the section it straight goes into the first note of the section again. No "You did great", no playing 5 seconds after and before the section like rocksmith does. Unfortunately it costs something like 40$. After trying the demo and the song syncing I instantly bought it. I was very impressed it was able to accurately sync a live version of a song to the tab, accurately. The only thing I miss about it is beeing able to edit the tabs.
arriu 7y ago
Looks like a helpful tool! Thanks for sharing! One thing that was frustrating when learning guitar was figuring out which finger goes where. Even though the tabs show where you need to press, they don't really tell you which finger should go where. Is this something you would be able to help with?
- rodw 7y ago
  "Yes", in general but "not yet", in practice. FATpick's internal data-format supports color-coding the note "bubbles" to indicate the recommended finger to use to "fret" the note, but the standard import format doesn't include this information. FATpick has an algorithm to programmatically determine where to place your fretting hand and fingers (when the information isn't available in the score) but to be honest I wasn't confident enough in that logic to enable it by default quite yet.
dcist 7y ago
I love the idea for this (and for Yousician), but it never works for me. If the note recognition by the software isn't at least 95%, I feel like I'm wasting my time and it's just an exercise in frustration. I tried using FatPick with both (1) a Rocksmith USB guitar cable hooked directly into my guitar; and (2) a microphone picking up my amped guitar externally. And for both connections, I didn't think that the note recognition from my playing was anywhere close to accurate. I tried playing a very basic 12 bar blues, which I can play in my sleep, and the software just doesn't pick up the notes. I feel like a software developer needs to make a guitar that is specially tested with its software just for practicing. The software may work for others and I admire your effort, but I'm just sharing my experience.
- rodw 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Pitch detection can be tricky and system dependent but when it's not working at all (or missing most of the notes you are playing) the root cause is usually one of a few common problems. The troubleshooting guide at https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting may help. If you want to experiment some you can enable the advanced settings (under General) which will add the Audio Analysis options to the main settings menu. There are a lot of knobs you can turn on that screen to adjust how the audio analysis works, and you can test the pitch detection from that screen. There are actually a bunch of additional options, including alternative pitch detection algorithms that are included but not exposed on that screen. If you reach out to me (rod@<that domain> or using the contact form on the web) I'd be happy to try to help get it to work for you.
danielvinson 7y ago
I tried this out and I really just need a way to manually set the latency. My recording computer only has an audio interface with no monitors (just headphones) and I pretty much can't use this software because you don't seem to support ASIO input or manual latency settings.
- rodw 7y ago
  You can manually set the latency using the button on the bottom of that screen.
  - rodw 7y ago
    Wait, I'm sorry, that option is hidden by default. You can set the latency manually but first you must got to "Settings" (gear icon) then "General" then toggle "Show advanced options" to on. This will expose a bunch of new configuration options, both in the settings and in a few other places in the app. Once you have enabled advanced options you'll see a "link" at the bottom of the Latency Calibration screen that says "Manual configuration...". That will let you manually configure the input and output latency. It's unfortunate that this wasn't easy for you to find but I'm glad you said something. I wasn't sure whether anyone would know what to do with this, so you've at least validated that it's worthwhile to have that option.
pressurefree 7y ago
I was hit with sticks as a child by my dadand he washed my mouth out with soap I'm all fat for eternity
ShamelessC 7y ago
Running into problems on MacOS Catalina 10.15.2 (MacBook Pro 2019 16" model). My mic isn't being detected for some reason. I tried messing with the settings and running the "Latency Calibration" but it just says "We were unable to measure the system latency". Can't determine what's wrong as GarageBand and the System Preferences both show it as working. Also, just a minor bug I found - if you have a song already loaded then it will play on top of the test tones in the Latency Calibration menu. Edit: Some other thoughts. It would be great to show the tuning somewhere while the track is being played. I keep forgetting to tune my guitar until after I've selected the track to play.
- rodw 7y ago
  1) Are you using the built in mic or an external one? 2) By "not detected" do you mean "doesn't appear in the list of audio input devices" or "doesn't seem to hear me playing"? There is an input monitor (input volume meter) on the player and in the audio settings view. If there is a signal getting thru then that meter should be moving. If FATpick is hearing your mic but not detecting any notes then the troubleshooting guide at https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting has some tips that might help. If the mic is seen as an input device but the audio signal isn't getting thru then you could check that both the system (sound control panel) and FATpick (settings > audio) have the input volume turned up high enough. If there mic is not seen as an input device at all I don't have any troubleshooting advice off the top of my head (short of using a different input device). If you can't solve the problem feel free to contact me as rod@<the-domain-name> or using the contract form on the website. I'd be happy to help you troubleshoot the issue.
- royletron 7y ago
  Also suffering the same problem. Did this get resolved? I noticed that Catalina has a security panel for what can and can't access the microphone (god bless it), but can't find anyway of registering FatPick inside of that panel.
  - rodw 7y ago
    Per https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-access-to-your-microphone-on-mac-mchla1b1e1fe/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-access-to-y... you should be able to grant the FATpick app access to your microphone from that panel. It is likely you'll need to "install" the app (drag it to your Applications folder as prompted in the DMG), not just run the app directly.
0xfffff 7y ago
This is cool! What about availability on phones/tablets? Can Elektron apps be easily ported?
adrianh 7y ago
For anybody interested in guitar tabs and great tech, Soundslice is a community built around learning music from tabs synced with real recordings. https://www.soundslice.com/community/ https://www.soundslice.com/community/ is a good place to start. You can follow people to get updates on their posts (licks, transcriptions), it has a fully baked notation/tab editor, it imports GuitarPro/MusicXML/PowerTab/TuxGuitar files, and it's just really damn good. (Disclaimer: I am the developer.)
SamBam 7y ago
I would recommend making your entire database of songs available from the web page. Is there any technical reason preventing this? None of the bands in your "small sample of songs" were really what I wanted to play, so I didn't bother downloading this. It seemed like it would probably be a lot of work to download, install, get past the security errors on macOS Mojave, presumably create a login, and then find out what songs you have. However, maybe the library of songs isn't what your main target audience cares about.
- rodw 7y ago
  Just in case this isn't obvious: You can import any GuitarPro file and play it in FATpick.
  - SamBam 7y ago
    GuitarPro is a $70/year subscription. I would hope I wouldn't need to pay that in order to get some sheet music for this app...
    - rodw 7y ago
      You don't need the GuitarPro software, you need GuitarPro-format files. GuitarPro is a pretty common format for machine-readable sheet music. Most "tab editor" programs can open and save to the GuitarPro file format. TuxGuitar is one example of a tab editor that is both good and free and does this well. But you don't need to do that either. There are tens of thousands of GuitarPro format files readily available on the Internet. Ultimate-Guitar is one major source but there are lots of others. EDIT: Name a band or a song and I'll import one for you. (Just don't go out of your way to "stump" me with an obscure choice).
tensecondflash 7y ago
Please add support for Ukulele tabs!
- rodw 7y ago
  You can import and play Ukulele tabs right now, if you have a GuitarPro file the contains one. Most string-instrument-based tracks are playable in FATpick so if you have a GuitarPro file (or want to use TuxGuitar to convert another format to guitar pro, ideally gp5) you can import and play it right now. To be fair we haven't really tuned anything for Uke so the pitch detction might need a little TLC but it should work reasonably well as-is. Even banjo would theoretically work but to be honest I'm not sure if the short-string on the banjo is handled properly, nor how that's represented in GuitarPro files. Let me know if you run into problems (rod at fatpick or via the in-app or on-web contact form). Obviously we'd like to support ukulele, we just haven't been able to prioritize that yet.
PhaedrusV 7y ago
I tried importing a tab from ultimate-guitar (.gp4) and after about 10 minutes fatpick notified me that the tab was ready to play, but when I opened it up the tab was empty. The name was imported correctly, but it looked like that was it. Since this is a semi-established space that you're just putting a few variations on, concur with other posters suggesting you need to reduce friction. There shouldn't need to be a login process to start playing pre-built tabs, and if users can't already see tabs others have uploaded you need that function soonest. Will check back later, cool idea in general. In case you're wondering, the tab I tried to upload: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the_lumineers/ho_hey_guitar_pro_1899306 https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the_lumineers/ho_hey_gu...
- rodw 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback PhaedrusV, and apologies for the issue you encountered. I just tested the Lumineers song you uploaded (meaning that I played your exact import, not that I imported the gp4 file from scratch) and it seems to be working ok for me. I think that if you try again it will probably work. I think the problem you encountered was that the file wasn't properly (fully) downloaded when the app tried to open it. Specifically that sounds like an example of a file-download race condition we're working on (I mentioned it elsewhere in this discussion if you are curious). Usually when this happens if you just hit the back button in the header to go back to the track-selection screen, wait a few seconds and then hit the play (or forward) button it will work the second time around. I realize what a crappy UX it is when that happens but it is almost always a temporary glitch. If you go back to the track selection screen, give it a second to finish flushing to disk it should work. (Moreover once the file is loaded to your local cache you shouldn't see the problem again.) If you are still having problems you could try flushing your local cache (go to the Settings, toggle "Advanced Options" to on then clicking the "Clear Cache" button that now appears at the bottom) and try again. If you are still having problems even after that please reach out via the contact form in the app, or online at https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us, or contact me directly as rod@<that-domain> and we'll work it out.

190 points by rodw 7y ago

sriram_malhar 7y ago

This looks very interesting. Alas, it doesn't pass security on Mac OS Mojave.

rodw 7y ago
Can you share details of what you're seeing? If you want to send it to me directly you can email me as rod at fatpick.
- thebiglebrewski 7y ago
  This is what I get: https://imgur.com/a/aHy0c0Z https://imgur.com/a/aHy0c0Z Would love to try it!
  - rodw 7y ago
    Thanks. I just double checked on High Sierra and I'm not seeing the problem but I don't have a Mojave install in front of me right now so I can't troubleshoot it immediately. Are you seeing that problem when opening the DMG or the app itself? Does it help to use the right-click-and-choose-open approach? For what it is worth you can download (a zipped version of) the .app file directly from https://www.fatpick.com/releases/FATpick-1.3.5-mac.zip https://www.fatpick.com/releases/FATpick-1.3.5-mac.zip, if that would work around the problem.
    - jtbayly 7y ago
      It's when attempting to run the app.
    - gh123man 7y ago
      Is the app both signed (and notarized)? - if not you will have to CTRL + Right click -> open to run the unsigned code.
      - rodw 7y ago
        It is signed with a valid developer ID associated with the same LLC mentioned on the site (and that owns the domain), so you can be reasonably certain that the app you are running is the one that we (I) created. It is not yet notarized, but only because of my own ignorance of the implications of that. (In my defense the notarization thing is a relatively new policy.)
        wila 7y ago
        basically it is just: xcrun altool --notarize-app --primary-bundle-id "com.your.bundleid" --username "username" --password "password" --file "/path/to/installbundle" read the doc here [1] Wait for apple to approve it. Then staple it. [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution/customizing_the_notarization_workflow https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...
        rodw 7y ago
        Thank you. I appreciate that you took the time to post that.
phaser 7y ago
oh boy. here we go
ladino 7y ago
confirmed on Catalina as well! - can you please post here when it's fixed? I would love to try it!
- rodw 7y ago
  The app is code-signed with a valid Apple developer ID, but you may be seeing problems because it is not directly distributed through the app store. Per Google apparently a lot of apps have run into this problem: it seems that post-Catalina Apple insists on an additional "notarization" step for non-store apps. I was actually aware of this general problem since there was some hubbub about Electron 7+ apps having issues with that process, but I mistakenly believed I was immune to that problem by pinning to Electron 6. I'll ping you once we've jumped through that hoop, but unfortunately it isn't something that I can fix instantly. In the meantime you can make an explicit exception by "right-clicking" on the application icon and selecting "Open" from the context menu that pops up.
- rodw 7y ago
  Hey ladino, just to update you (as requested) this should be fixed now. The version currently available at https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg is fully notarized by Apple and should not have this problem. Release notes here: https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2 https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2 Please let me know if you encounter any problems with this new build. You can reach me via the contact form at https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us or you can email me directly at rod@<that-domain>.
rodw 7y ago
I'm repeating myself but just to put this near the root of this thread: You should be able to right-click on the application icon and choose "open" from the context menu that pops up to make this problem go away. (Assuming you trust the developer, of course.) This message is just a more strongly worded (and less convenient) version of the dialog that has always come up when opening side-loaded apps for the first time, at least in my experience. It looks like Apple's newly introduced "notarization" process will avoid this step, even for apps distributed outside of the official App Store, but that process will take a little bit of time. In the meantime you'll need to take the right-click-and-choose-open action.
- ShamelessC 7y ago
  I had to hold control while right-clicking for this to show up. Thanks though.
rodw 7y ago
For what it is worth this should be fixed now. The version now available at https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg https://www.fatpick.com/downloads/FATpick-mac-latest.dmg is fully notarized by Apple and should not have this problem. Release notes here: https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2 https://www.fatpick.com/blog/release-notes-fatpick-v1-4-2

rodw 7y ago

Hi everyone. I'd like to introduce you to a side project I've been working on for a little while now. FATpick (https://www.fatpick.com/ https://www.fatpick.com/) is a practice tool for guitar (and bass) that helps you learn to play new songs, improve your skills and stay motivated to keep playing. It's an auto-scrolling tablature viewer, synchronized with backing tracks, that listens as you play along with any guitar, providing immediate feedback on your accuracy and timing. FATpick will eventually be much more than that - there are a lot of directions to take this in - but even with this more modest scope this M(+)VP release is useful, cohesive and hopefully compelling in and of itself. A couple of things that might be interesting to HN: (1) So far this has been a bootstrapped, solo effort; but it won't necessarily stay that way. (2) The current Windows and Mac apps are built with Electron; but they won't necessarily stay that way either. I'd be happy to discuss any of that if you are interested. A direct link to the downloads page is here: https://www.fatpick.com/support/downloads#get-fatpick https://www.fatpick.com/support/downloads#get-fatpick You can find a brief (and silent) video of the app in action on either of the pages linked above. I'd love your feedback on any part of this, but I'd especially appreciate it if you can give the app a try.

ssttoo 7y ago
Electron - does that mean it’s built with JavaScript and webaudio API? Congrats on the launch!
- rodw 7y ago
  Essentially yes, and thank you. Being able to leverage WebAudio was a major factor in the decision to use Electron. To be honest at first I was thinking of Electron/WebAudio as a prototyping tool that I would only use for a proof-of-concept, but I've been pleasantly surprised by its performance and capabilities. So far I haven't found a compelling reason to change. When you don't need to worry about cross-browser compatibility the modern HTML5 toolset is really pretty powerful.
  - ssttoo 7y ago
    Awesome, thanks! I’ve seen proof-of-concept pitch detection in webaudio but it’s great to learn it’s production-worthy, not just a demo. I’ll try fatpick (love the name, btw) when I get to a guitar and report back. Also curious what did you use for painting the tabs. DIY in Canvas? Or vexflow? Btw there’s a nice talk from Adrian Holovaty on perf challenges with soundslice and its drawing/updating of notation (standard and tabs)

davkap92 7y ago

Looks very cool will try this out and report back but just curious first thing that comes to mind, how are you differentiating between the several frets that could produce the same note, or for example 6th string 5th fret(A) vs open 5th string(A) ?

davkap92 7y ago
I'd test this myself but don't have a guitar with me at the moment
rodw 7y ago
Right now for pitch-detection purposes I'm not differentiating between them. If you produce a sound of the right pitch and octave that's considered a "hit" regardless of which fret or string you used to create it. Personally I see that as a feature, but I guess if you wanted to be very prescriptive about fingering for educational/training reasons I can see the value in treating them differently. There is some subtle difference in the tone (which is why you can hear the difference, obviously) so this is _possible_ but not trivial. I've actually been experimenting with "string detection" recently so that I can warn users when they are off by one string (a common beginner mistake).
- thecatspaw 7y ago
  Well, for chords not differentiating between them is correct anyway, since you can play different voicings. The string detection is a good idea imho

lou1306 7y ago

OP: I don't know if you already know it, but there is a huge homebrew tabs community around the Rocksmith "video game". (Try looking for CustomsForge). If you find a way to support their format, you might gain access to a huge repository of tabs. Maybe this might put your tool on Ubisoft's radar, so I suggest to thread lightly, but it would be awesome.

rodw 7y ago
Thanks. I'm familiar with CustomsForge, and there are a lot of interesting things about it. But you don't need anything nearly as complicated as Rocksmith files or CustomsForge to import songs into FATpick. FATpick already accepts Guitar Pro files, so there are thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of scores you can download from ultimate-guitar and other sites to import into FATpick. Also, while obviously not as convenient, free software like TuxGuitar can convert other formats (MuseScore, MusicXML, etc.) into GuitarPro, so you can import pretty much any machine-readable score into FATpick (modulo proprietary formats like Rocksmith/CustomsForge, but you need to jump thru hoops to "extract" data in that format in the first place).
- lou1306 7y ago
  > FATpick already accepts Guitar Pro files This is interesting. I suggest you add that somewhere in the home page.
  - rodw 7y ago
    Well, technically I do mention it on both the landing page and the download page (and usually where-ever the functionality is described), but I guess the lesson here is that it needs to be called out more aggressively. I appreciate the feedback.
  - vwarner1411 7y ago
    I agree with this. I didn't see any mention of this either.
    - 7y ago

rkagerer 7y ago

Nice work! Do you think this work could be adapted to recognize human-sung notes in real time (e.g. turn my humming into an orchestral melody)? If so, let's get in touch!

rodw 7y ago
It can absolutely do near-real-time pitch detection of singing or humming or even better whistling. We may want to tweak the parameters a little bit for that specific domain but it probably does reasonably well right now. If you want you can test out how well it does as-is right now. Within the app go to "Settings" then "Audio Analysis Settings" then click the "Test Settings" button. That will show you the same pitch and note-onset detection as used during game-play. I'd be happy to talk more -- you can reach me as rod@ the domain I linked to -- but to be candid monochromatic pitch detection of the human voice is not a hard problem. I'm not sure FATpick is as special at this as you seem to think, but I'm not quite sure what you have in mind. And I certainly don't want to talk you out of thinking that :) I'd love to hear more about it.

semitones 7y ago

Looks awesome! Gonna try it out when I get home. I'm sure you're already familiar with Yousician - what would you say your app will have that they don't?

rodw 7y ago
Moxie.
- rodw 7y ago
  Actually that probably deserves a less flippant answer, so let me offer one. To be honest the most interesting differentiators are not really visible in this MVP release, but there are some, even now. At a practical level: * FATpick lets you import and play any song you can get your hands on (as well as those shared by other users). You can import any GuitarPro-format scores directly (or at least any .gp3/4/5 files) and if you're motivated enough you can easily convert anything else to the GuitarPro format using free software like TuxGuitar. * FATpick is also totally free right now. There are no time limits or features hidden behind a paywall. To be clear it won't always be free, but it will remain free for at least several months (as we refine the product) and we'll work out a special offer for early-adopters as we get closer to defining the actual subscription model. At a philosophical level: * Most of the competitors in this space - possibly all of the "big" ones - focus on trying to "teach" guitar and so invest heavily in instructional videos and in content selected for pedagogical reasons. * FATpick takes a different approach. We assume you've heard of JustinGuitar and focus instead on being the best platform for viewing tabs and learning to play songs, to the extent that even someone that is brand new to guitar can be playing songs they know in just a few minutes -- maybe slowly or poorly or relatively simple ones -- but literally going from "Where do I put my fingers?" and "Is this where the guitar strap should go?" to "Cool, now I can play Seven Nation Army along with the recording as if I'm in the band" in a just a few minutes. More experienced players are able to sight-read new stuff, even on the first play thru, making it easy to learn new songs. And all with objective feedback on your performance and the ability to track your progress over time. We aren't trying to teach you guitar -- you should be looking at multiple sources for that anyway -- but we are trying to be an indispensable tool on your belt, helping make your practice sessions more fun, more engaging and more effective. But again I think the most interesting and unique stuff is still on the roadmap. A big part of what I'm trying to do now is field-test the technology. This version was more or less scoped specifically to be useful and compelling enough to support that but the really good stuff is still in the pipeline.

alfor 7y ago

Did you tough about removing the account creation at the start. This seem to me as unnecessary friction to try it out.

rodw 7y ago
You're not wrong, but to be honest, no, not very much. It might make an appreciable difference in "conversions" (to using the app) for the Hacker News crowd, but I'm not sure if it's justified in the general case, for these reasons: 1. A lot of the features are oriented around having some identity. There would need to be a lot of special cases in the code to support account-free use. 2. Ultimately the app will be something you have to pay for, so the account is valuable as a lead but also maybe as a proxy for whether or not someone is interested enough to pay for the product eventually. 3. By the time you encounter this you've already downloaded and installed (or at least unpacked) the application. I'm not sure there are a lot of people that go through all that trouble only to balk at registering an email/name/password account. (If nothing else I would think at that point you're already committed due to the effect of the "investment" you've already made on basic human psychology.) And if they do balk at entering an email address, are they the kind of people that are likely to enter a credit-card when the time comes? For what its worth, most of my competitors make you enter a credit card (and promise to charge you if you don't cancel) before letting you try the product. That said, I guess it _could_ work with some type of gradual account creation flow (like asking for your name when you've earned a spot on the leaderboard). I'm just not convinced that the return that would provide justifies the effort to make it happen (not to mention the complexity that this would permanently add to ongoing development and testing). I could easily be wrong about this, but that's been my intuition and rationale around this topic so far. Do you really think that _that_ many "normal" users that are serious paid-subscription prospects will be lost at that step. I can probably measure that to find out, but its also plausible (and maybe harder to measure) that is a useful way to filter out users that will never pay for the service before they become a support or capacity burden.
- stan_rogers 7y ago
  I'd immediately delete it. And I have done so with several other applications. Time-limited trials don't need anything other than the time limit and usefulness to make paying customers out of trial downloads.

lessthanstellar 7y ago

Some early ideas: Dynamics exercises. Capture amplitude changes, so users can practice crescendos when using acoustic guitars. Solve the reverse problem, but for singing. Given a song, extract it's melody and replay as a karaoke with scores. Guitar Pro compatibility is more important than you think. You'll probably have to differentiate yourself from Yousician. Cheers.

rodw 7y ago
Thanks for that. Just in case you missed this point, you can already import Guitar Pro files.

mynameishere 7y ago

I tried using this and it's a damn mess. You need to sit down with someone unfamiliar with it and take a note of all the roadblocks on the way towards getting it to do something. I never could get it to do anything. I got as far as pressing "play" and then seeing a page with a little bar on the left, two quotes in the middle and the word "practice" on the right. Press that and it says "paused". Oh, I was playing? Didn't seem like it.

rodw 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback. That sounds like a bug. If you see the two quotes and didn't see the tabs you definitely weren't playing anything. Specifically it sounds like we failed to load the song data, so you don't really see anything at all. This is typically a momentary issue. If you want to give it another try you can go back to the track or song selection page and try again. That generally clears the problem up. (The problem is that data file wasn't fully flushed to disk when the player tried to open it. If you give it a second and try again it generally works.) If the file happens to be very large or the network connection is slow you might see this more often. Also if you are a little more leisurely about going from the track-selection page to the player this is less likely to happen. Worst case scenario is that the data file was somehow corrupted when being written to the cache. That will clear itself out eventually, or you could clear the cache from the settings panel, or try another song if you are just playing around. I know this seems like a problem that should be easy to fix, but it's been a little bit of a whack-a-mole problem to address all the edge cases. I'm sorry you ran into this, but fortunately it's almost always a temporary glitch.

JustinAiken 7y ago

Okay, I'm probably your exact target demographic - I have about 1,300 hours in Rocksmith and I'm obsessed with it, but often find myself wanting more "pro" features like Guitar Pro has. So hopefully you'll find my feedback useful... On the tab interface: - Seeing a blob of 6 numbers come isn't intuitive enough. The strings REALLY need to be colored. You should be able to get away with using the same colors as Rocksmith, as there's generic sets of strings using those (https://www.guitarcenter.com/DR-Strings/Hi-Def-NEON-Multi-Color-Coated-Medium-Electric-Guitar-Strings.gc https://www.guitarcenter.com/DR-Strings/Hi-Def-NEON-Multi-Co...) - or at least make them configurable. It's hard for me to tell which string is which in fatpick. - Bar lines for the beat/measure changes would be helpful. - Chords saying their name above them would be a huge help - "G" is much easier to parse quickly than "355433"! Practice mode: - Just adjusting playback speed isn't enough. To be actually useful, fatpick needs something like Rocksmith's Riff Repeater, where you can select a section, loop it at a selected speed, and have it increase 1% each time you get the notes right. In fact, here's where you can outshine Rocksmith, since Rocksmith only lets you select entire sections, whereas you could make it so you could really drill in on notes Audio: - Being able to play the audio file instead of just guitar pro-style midi would be a huge bonus. Don't make it required, so you can still just import a quick GP file to play, but for curated tracks or imported Rocksmith psarcs (see my comment elsewhere about psarcjs), the real audio would be great. - Even better... multitrack audio! Just play the song .mp3 if that's all there is, but there's plenty of multitrack ogg's sourced from rock band / guitar hero floating out there. For these songs you could play with your chosen instrument removed - IE, pick a song with a multitrack ogg, pick the bass part, the audio engine wouldn't play the bass part but would play the rest. - Some kind of effects on the guitar would be nice. Using an AxefxIII and Loopback I can mix in real guitar sounds with the game, but most of your demographic won't have that ability, so being able to pick an AC/DC song and have basic distortion effects will be a must. Anyways, after playing with fatpick for 20 minutes I'm going to go back to Rocksmith. Will check on this in a month though and see how far along it is - there's a lot of potential here!

thecatspaw 7y ago
Personally I switched from Rocksmith to goPlayAlong, mostly because it syncs audio to tabs. It does not do note recognition, but I had more trouble in rocksmith than its worth. Notes that do not get recognized for some reason. My low e string has trouble getting recognized even though its in tune. I've also realized that its not a good idea psychologically. You basically remove the "did I play it correctly and did it sound good?" part from your brain, and rely on a external system to provide that feedback for you. This would be no issue if these tools could gauge that better, going beyond "does the input have the correct frequencies at the correct times?". It does not recognize fret buzz, it does not recognize you slightly panicing but still hitting the correct notes. So in goPlayAlong I just select the parts I wanna work on (you can not just select bars, but also single notes), make sure the pitch is correct (it has halftone + semitone corrections), slow it down to the tempo I want to work on. Then I play it a few times. If I am happy with how it sounds, I press the + key on my keyboard to increase the tempo by 5%. It also has a trainer mode which increases the speed after a set amount of playthroughs (of the section), by a set amount of speed. So increase 1% every 5repeats for example. I use it when I am more focused on improving speed. It also has a very tight feedback loop. After it played the last note of the section it straight goes into the first note of the section again. No "You did great", no playing 5 seconds after and before the section like rocksmith does. Unfortunately it costs something like 40$. After trying the demo and the song syncing I instantly bought it. I was very impressed it was able to accurately sync a live version of a song to the tab, accurately. The only thing I miss about it is beeing able to edit the tabs.

arriu 7y ago

Looks like a helpful tool! Thanks for sharing! One thing that was frustrating when learning guitar was figuring out which finger goes where. Even though the tabs show where you need to press, they don't really tell you which finger should go where. Is this something you would be able to help with?

rodw 7y ago
"Yes", in general but "not yet", in practice. FATpick's internal data-format supports color-coding the note "bubbles" to indicate the recommended finger to use to "fret" the note, but the standard import format doesn't include this information. FATpick has an algorithm to programmatically determine where to place your fretting hand and fingers (when the information isn't available in the score) but to be honest I wasn't confident enough in that logic to enable it by default quite yet.

dcist 7y ago

I love the idea for this (and for Yousician), but it never works for me. If the note recognition by the software isn't at least 95%, I feel like I'm wasting my time and it's just an exercise in frustration. I tried using FatPick with both (1) a Rocksmith USB guitar cable hooked directly into my guitar; and (2) a microphone picking up my amped guitar externally. And for both connections, I didn't think that the note recognition from my playing was anywhere close to accurate. I tried playing a very basic 12 bar blues, which I can play in my sleep, and the software just doesn't pick up the notes. I feel like a software developer needs to make a guitar that is specially tested with its software just for practicing. The software may work for others and I admire your effort, but I'm just sharing my experience.

rodw 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Pitch detection can be tricky and system dependent but when it's not working at all (or missing most of the notes you are playing) the root cause is usually one of a few common problems. The troubleshooting guide at https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting may help. If you want to experiment some you can enable the advanced settings (under General) which will add the Audio Analysis options to the main settings menu. There are a lot of knobs you can turn on that screen to adjust how the audio analysis works, and you can test the pitch detection from that screen. There are actually a bunch of additional options, including alternative pitch detection algorithms that are included but not exposed on that screen. If you reach out to me (rod@<that domain> or using the contact form on the web) I'd be happy to try to help get it to work for you.

danielvinson 7y ago

I tried this out and I really just need a way to manually set the latency. My recording computer only has an audio interface with no monitors (just headphones) and I pretty much can't use this software because you don't seem to support ASIO input or manual latency settings.

rodw 7y ago
You can manually set the latency using the button on the bottom of that screen.
- rodw 7y ago
  Wait, I'm sorry, that option is hidden by default. You can set the latency manually but first you must got to "Settings" (gear icon) then "General" then toggle "Show advanced options" to on. This will expose a bunch of new configuration options, both in the settings and in a few other places in the app. Once you have enabled advanced options you'll see a "link" at the bottom of the Latency Calibration screen that says "Manual configuration...". That will let you manually configure the input and output latency. It's unfortunate that this wasn't easy for you to find but I'm glad you said something. I wasn't sure whether anyone would know what to do with this, so you've at least validated that it's worthwhile to have that option.

pressurefree 7y ago

I was hit with sticks as a child by my dadand he washed my mouth out with soap I'm all fat for eternity

ShamelessC 7y ago

Running into problems on MacOS Catalina 10.15.2 (MacBook Pro 2019 16" model). My mic isn't being detected for some reason. I tried messing with the settings and running the "Latency Calibration" but it just says "We were unable to measure the system latency". Can't determine what's wrong as GarageBand and the System Preferences both show it as working. Also, just a minor bug I found - if you have a song already loaded then it will play on top of the test tones in the Latency Calibration menu. Edit: Some other thoughts. It would be great to show the tuning somewhere while the track is being played. I keep forgetting to tune my guitar until after I've selected the track to play.

rodw 7y ago
1) Are you using the built in mic or an external one? 2) By "not detected" do you mean "doesn't appear in the list of audio input devices" or "doesn't seem to hear me playing"? There is an input monitor (input volume meter) on the player and in the audio settings view. If there is a signal getting thru then that meter should be moving. If FATpick is hearing your mic but not detecting any notes then the troubleshooting guide at https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting https://www.fatpick.com/support/troubleshooting has some tips that might help. If the mic is seen as an input device but the audio signal isn't getting thru then you could check that both the system (sound control panel) and FATpick (settings > audio) have the input volume turned up high enough. If there mic is not seen as an input device at all I don't have any troubleshooting advice off the top of my head (short of using a different input device). If you can't solve the problem feel free to contact me as rod@<the-domain-name> or using the contract form on the website. I'd be happy to help you troubleshoot the issue.
royletron 7y ago
Also suffering the same problem. Did this get resolved? I noticed that Catalina has a security panel for what can and can't access the microphone (god bless it), but can't find anyway of registering FatPick inside of that panel.
- rodw 7y ago
  Per https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-access-to-your-microphone-on-mac-mchla1b1e1fe/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-access-to-y... you should be able to grant the FATpick app access to your microphone from that panel. It is likely you'll need to "install" the app (drag it to your Applications folder as prompted in the DMG), not just run the app directly.

0xfffff 7y ago

This is cool! What about availability on phones/tablets? Can Elektron apps be easily ported?

adrianh 7y ago

For anybody interested in guitar tabs and great tech, Soundslice is a community built around learning music from tabs synced with real recordings. https://www.soundslice.com/community/ https://www.soundslice.com/community/ is a good place to start. You can follow people to get updates on their posts (licks, transcriptions), it has a fully baked notation/tab editor, it imports GuitarPro/MusicXML/PowerTab/TuxGuitar files, and it's just really damn good. (Disclaimer: I am the developer.)

SamBam 7y ago

I would recommend making your entire database of songs available from the web page. Is there any technical reason preventing this? None of the bands in your "small sample of songs" were really what I wanted to play, so I didn't bother downloading this. It seemed like it would probably be a lot of work to download, install, get past the security errors on macOS Mojave, presumably create a login, and then find out what songs you have. However, maybe the library of songs isn't what your main target audience cares about.

rodw 7y ago
Just in case this isn't obvious: You can import any GuitarPro file and play it in FATpick.
- SamBam 7y ago
  GuitarPro is a $70/year subscription. I would hope I wouldn't need to pay that in order to get some sheet music for this app...
  - rodw 7y ago
    You don't need the GuitarPro software, you need GuitarPro-format files. GuitarPro is a pretty common format for machine-readable sheet music. Most "tab editor" programs can open and save to the GuitarPro file format. TuxGuitar is one example of a tab editor that is both good and free and does this well. But you don't need to do that either. There are tens of thousands of GuitarPro format files readily available on the Internet. Ultimate-Guitar is one major source but there are lots of others. EDIT: Name a band or a song and I'll import one for you. (Just don't go out of your way to "stump" me with an obscure choice).

tensecondflash 7y ago

Please add support for Ukulele tabs!

rodw 7y ago
You can import and play Ukulele tabs right now, if you have a GuitarPro file the contains one. Most string-instrument-based tracks are playable in FATpick so if you have a GuitarPro file (or want to use TuxGuitar to convert another format to guitar pro, ideally gp5) you can import and play it right now. To be fair we haven't really tuned anything for Uke so the pitch detction might need a little TLC but it should work reasonably well as-is. Even banjo would theoretically work but to be honest I'm not sure if the short-string on the banjo is handled properly, nor how that's represented in GuitarPro files. Let me know if you run into problems (rod at fatpick or via the in-app or on-web contact form). Obviously we'd like to support ukulele, we just haven't been able to prioritize that yet.

PhaedrusV 7y ago

I tried importing a tab from ultimate-guitar (.gp4) and after about 10 minutes fatpick notified me that the tab was ready to play, but when I opened it up the tab was empty. The name was imported correctly, but it looked like that was it. Since this is a semi-established space that you're just putting a few variations on, concur with other posters suggesting you need to reduce friction. There shouldn't need to be a login process to start playing pre-built tabs, and if users can't already see tabs others have uploaded you need that function soonest. Will check back later, cool idea in general. In case you're wondering, the tab I tried to upload: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the_lumineers/ho_hey_guitar_pro_1899306 https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the_lumineers/ho_hey_gu...

rodw 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback PhaedrusV, and apologies for the issue you encountered. I just tested the Lumineers song you uploaded (meaning that I played your exact import, not that I imported the gp4 file from scratch) and it seems to be working ok for me. I think that if you try again it will probably work. I think the problem you encountered was that the file wasn't properly (fully) downloaded when the app tried to open it. Specifically that sounds like an example of a file-download race condition we're working on (I mentioned it elsewhere in this discussion if you are curious). Usually when this happens if you just hit the back button in the header to go back to the track-selection screen, wait a few seconds and then hit the play (or forward) button it will work the second time around. I realize what a crappy UX it is when that happens but it is almost always a temporary glitch. If you go back to the track selection screen, give it a second to finish flushing to disk it should work. (Moreover once the file is loaded to your local cache you shouldn't see the problem again.) If you are still having problems you could try flushing your local cache (go to the Settings, toggle "Advanced Options" to on then clicking the "Clear Cache" button that now appears at the bottom) and try again. If you are still having problems even after that please reach out via the contact form in the app, or online at https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us https://www.fatpick.com/contact-us, or contact me directly as rod@<that-domain> and we'll work it out.