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    1. Intuitive music composition software

      For a class I have to compose soundtracks and music, and I have no experience whatsoever. Okay, I played classical guitar for a decade but I never was good at music theory and can barely read...

      For a class I have to compose soundtracks and music, and I have no experience whatsoever.
      Okay, I played classical guitar for a decade but I never was good at music theory and can barely read notes.

      My issue is that I come up with a tune, and I need to dump that information to a recording medium as soon as possible. Translating that tune into a short term memory and playing it out on my guitar doesn't work, as I'll end up forgetting it nearly instantly. The one instrument that I can play is whistling, but that's kinda hard to do for long.

      I'm looking for a more intuitive way to input notes into a computer.
      I was thinking of some kind of pitch slider that continuously plays a note (limited to notes, no microtones) that I can control with an external input device like a knob or potmeter / by moving my mouse up and down, and then hit a button to input that sound, moving on to the next note. No delays inbetween, just immediately starts playing a new note.

      Like the computer whistling a note for me, and me adjusting the pitch and length.

      I can move my mouse quite precisely & can adjust pitch pretty easily when whistling, it's just that translating music from head to an instrument will never be as intuitive as something like whistling.

      It's not supposed to be perfect, on-point music, just enough to record the vague idea and process it later. It also should be super minimalistic, I'd preferably only have the slider, the play/pause button, the confirm note button and a "save to file" button.

      I'm not sure where I can even start finding something remotely related to this. I've looked around and tried a bunch of music software, but it's all either complicated or unintuitive.

      Anyone know something like this?

      Edit: As this website puts it;

      Intuitive music composition requires that you hear the musicality of the music as you are composing it. Which means that you have no choice but to compose by playing.

      and

      You cannot intuitively compose music by entering note data into a software application.

      13 votes
    2. Is there a website to propose/join open source groups?

      I'm interested in working on an open source project from scratch with a group of like minded people and curious how to get something like that started. Does anyone know of any websites that...

      I'm interested in working on an open source project from scratch with a group of like minded people and curious how to get something like that started. Does anyone know of any websites that facilitate that kind of thing? Like where people might propose an project and others can tentatively join?

      12 votes
    3. What have you been listening to this week?

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as...

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

      Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

      You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

      http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

      Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

      6 votes
    4. Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of September 21

      This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the...

      This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

      9 votes
    5. What did you do this week?

      As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do...

      As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

      6 votes
    6. Are there any aspects of your mental life that you know/suspect to be idiosyncratic?

      As it is only possible to know what it is like to be yourself, it could be that you perceive the world in a completely different way than is typical and have no idea that that is the case. Hence...

      As it is only possible to know what it is like to be yourself, it could be that you perceive the world in a completely different way than is typical and have no idea that that is the case. Hence the existence of invisible disabilities such as face blindness or double vision, conditions such as synesthesia and aphantasia, etc. I am curious if anyone here experiences any such mental/perceptual phenomenon that could possibly be unique to you/atypical. Or if you experience one of the above it would be very interesting to hear about as well!

      Some examples of what I'm going for:

      • a YouTuber/blogger I follow claims their internal monologue takes the form of a humming or buzzing following the cadence and intonation, but not the sounds, of speech.
      • my personal inner monologue is usually more of a "dialogue", as in a discussion between me and 1+ imaginary participants (usually someone I know IRL or a character from a book). Although I don't perceive "them" as a separate entity I can't really predict what "they" will say. (feel free to comment if you experience this as well! I only suspect this is weird because mental vocalization is typically referred to as monologue but maybe this is totally normal?)
      • I'm pretty sure I experience emotions at a much shallower level than most. When I was very young I actually considered the possibility that I was a robot constructed by my parents, based on some Twilight Zone episode. I would say 95% of the time I don't really feel any emotion and when I do, it feels much less intense than it seems to be for most people judging by their behavior.
      • When I'm reading particularly dense text or have spent some time memorizing things, there is sometimes a certain sensation in my head, which, while I wouldn't really call it tiredness or exhaustion, does compel me to stop studying or whatever I'm doing. It's almost analogous to muscle soreness?
      22 votes
    7. Distinguish "voted" state better?

      I've been on Tildes for several months now, but, to this day, I still have trouble discerning from the UI that I've already voted on something. I end up clicking, which makes it unvote, and I have...

      I've been on Tildes for several months now, but, to this day, I still have trouble discerning from the UI that I've already voted on something. I end up clicking, which makes it unvote, and I have to click to vote again.

      This is less of a problem in the feed, because a voted post stands out more, but when you click through to a post page, that context is gone, and the problem is very pronounced.

      I don't have any great solutions top of mind, but you could explore colour changes, wording changes, or extra wording.

      14 votes
    8. I can't make it any clearer. Any advice?

      Last Thursday, at my workplace, we rolled out a software upgrade across the company. The server side was upgraded overnight to ensure there was minimal downtime, and we had instructions for users...

      Last Thursday, at my workplace, we rolled out a software upgrade across the company. The server side was upgraded overnight to ensure there was minimal downtime, and we had instructions for users posted on our Intranet (pinned to the top for the next 4 days), on exactly what they needed to do to run the upgrade on their PCs and ensure everything was working correctly.

      The instructions were written with the help of my 4-year-old to ensure it was clear enough for anyone to read and follow along.

      I still received at least 40 messages and emails from people complaining the upgrade didn't work or that certain Outlook plugins are now missing (which was covered in the instructions).

      My question is, has anyone found a good way to ensure people follow instructions, or the best way to ensure that your instructions are easy to understand and follow along with?

      It is very frustrating to take the time to ensure things go smoothly and write what even my 4-year-old thought was clear instruction, and still have a third of the company not be able to figure it out?

      This is not meant to be mean hearted in any way, I genuinely would like some advice or tips on how I can improve on this the next time around.

      Thanks.

      16 votes
    9. Fitness Weekly Discussion

      What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started...

      What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

      7 votes
    10. Testing a new method (CSS custom properties) for the site themes - please report any issues you notice

      In his never-ending quest to keep improving Tildes's theme system, @Bauke has reworked a major portion of it again, this time making it use CSS custom properties (instead of pre-generating a lot...

      In his never-ending quest to keep improving Tildes's theme system, @Bauke has reworked a major portion of it again, this time making it use CSS custom properties (instead of pre-generating a lot of theme-specific rules using Sass).

      This new method has a lot of benefits, including reducing the size of Tildes's CSS file to less than half of what it was before. It will also make it much simpler for people to override certain site colors or create their own themes using local CSS changes (e.g. through extensions like Stylus). (Note: please don't invest a lot of time into using it to customize yet, since it may still need to have further changes or even reverted)

      This is a relatively modern CSS feature that should have good support at this point, but it's possible there will still be some issues, or things that were missed during the conversion. If you notice any colors being wrong or other appearance changes (even minor ones), please leave a comment (including which theme you're using) so that I can fix them up.

      Thanks yet again, @Bauke!

      And I haven't done it in a while now, but I've topped everyone back up to 10 invites, accessible on the invite page.

      54 votes
    11. Minor bug: Can't collapse linked comments

      The CSS selectors that determine whether or not to apply the display: none rule to comment text sections use the pseudo-class rule :not(:target). While this is great for keeping a comment in a...

      The CSS selectors that determine whether or not to apply the display: none rule to comment text sections use the pseudo-class rule :not(:target). While this is great for keeping a comment in a non-collapsed state, it's a bit too effective as it prevents user-initiated collapsing of the comment. This can be problematic when you visit a direct link to a comment with an extensive reply tree beneath it and want to collapse it so that you can view the surrounding reply trees. As it stands, you can't do this without needing to either a) collapse the parent (prevents viewing sibling comments), b) collapse the children (requires collapsing potentially multiple child comments), or c) remove the fragment portion of the URL (requires reloading the page and possibly losing your place on the page).

      Reproducing should be as simple as clicking Link in a comment's header, then trying to collapse the comment after being redirected.

      9 votes