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Guitar Engineer Manual

Introduction

Note Boxes

Controls

Menu

Settings

Custom samples

Introduction

Guitar Engineer helps you composing guitar riffs and solos. No matter if you are a professional musician or just music enthusiast it will help you think out of the box and unlock your creativity.
Using the app you can create your own riffs and solos, hear them over the harmony chords and easily tweak them. The melodies can be saved in midi and text format.

Note boxes

In the right side of the screen are the note boxes. Every box represents one musical note. You can choose note using upper drop down box and choose chord using lower drop down box. You can change note articulation (muted,accented) using the drop down menu on the bottom of the note box. Also you can select note using the check box.

Controls

On left side of the screen are the app controls:

Mode – select if you want to compose guitar riff or guitar solo.
Note type – select note type per note box – full/half/quarter/eight…
Tempo – select tempo in beats per minute
Scale – select root scale note and scale type. When scale is selected the possible notes in note box scroll are changed with notes of this scale
Composer – select the type of Auto Composer.
Button [Compose notes] – if no note is selected composes new melody from scratch. If some notes are checked composes only selected notes..
Button PLAY – plays/stops the melody. In the mix melody, harmony and rhythm is included depending if corresponding check boxes are checked.
Here is a video demo of play controls – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94EJzS3xmkM


Here is a video demo of edit controls – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BypNdXy3Jso

To open the menu click on three points button in upper right corner.

COMPOSE ALL – creates new melody and accompanying harmony from scratch.
COMPOSE NOTES – if no note is selected composes new melody from scratch. If some notes are checked composes only selected notes.
COMPOSE CHORDS– if no note is selected composes new harmonyfrom scratch. If some notes are checked composes only selected chords.
Start AUTO MODE – starts auto mode for automatic melody/harmony composition
Open melody – open melody text file. When you select to open a song a file browser is opened. Browse to app folder and select song xml file to open. The app folder is sdcard/Guitar_Engineer. For android devices with Android>Android 10 the app folder is sdcard/Android/data/com.gyokovsolutions.guitarengineer/files/Guitar_Engineer
Save as – saves melody as file with specified name
Transpose up – transposes checked notes one step up on selected scale
Transpose down – transposes checked notes one step down on selected scale
Settings – opens Settings page
Manual – opens the manual on website

Settings

– Notes number – number of notes in melody.
– Notes number in row – the number of notes per row on the screen.
– Keep screen on – keeps the screen on while the app is in foreground.

Custom samples

You can use custom samples and create your custom instruments. In order to do this you have to create your own samples for each note and articulation and put it into app folder Guitar_Engineer/samples. On devices with android 10 and more the samples folder is Android\data\com.gyokovsolutions.guitarengineer\files\Guitar_Engineer\samples

Sample files must be in mono wav format.

Naming of sample files is:

[note][octave]_[instrument number]_[articulation]

[note] – c, cs, d, ds, e, f, fs, g, gs, a, as, b – “s” means sharp. For example A=a, A# = as, G=g, G#=gs
[octave] – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
[instrument number] – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
[articulation] – m(muted), s(slide), nh(natural harmonic)

For example files for sixth open E string are:

e2_1.wav- normal sound
e2_1_m.wav- muted sound
e2_1_s.wav- slide sound
e2_1_nh.wav- natural harmonics sound

and for F#3 – fourth fret on D string:

fs3_1.wav- normal sound
fs3_1_m.wav- muted sound
fs3_1_s.wav- slide sound
fs3_1_nh.wav- natural harmonics sound

For chords the file names are like this:

[chord][instrument number][articulation]

[chord] – chord_c, chord_cs, chord_d, chord_ds, chord_e, chord_f, chord_fs, chord_g, chord_gs, chord_a, chord_as, chord_b – “s” means sharp. For example A=a, A# = as, G=g, G#=gs.

For minor chords – chord_c_m, chord_cs_m, chord_d_m, chord_ds_m, chord_e_m, chord_f_m, chord_fs_m, chord_g_m, chord_gs_m, chord_a_m, chord_as_m, chord_b_m

For 5th chords – chord_c_5, chord_cs_5, chord_d_5, chord_ds_5, chord_e_5, chord_f_5, chord_fs_5, chord_g_5, chord_gs_5, chord_a_5, chord_as_5, chord_b_5


[instrument number] – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
[articulation] – m(muted), s(slide)

For example for F chord:

chord_f_1.wav- normal sound
chord_f_1_m.wav- muted sound
chord_f_1_s.wav- slide sound

and for Fm chord:

chord_f_m_1.wav- normal sound
chord_f_m_1_m.wav- muted sound
chord_f_m_1_s.wav- slide sound

and for F5 chord:

chord_f_5_1.wav- normal sound
chord_f_5_1_m.wav- muted sound
chord_f_5_1_s.wav- slide sound

You can download custom samples here.

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