Melody Engineer – manual

Introduction

Note Boxes

Controls

Menu

Settings

Custom samples

Introduction

Melody Engineer helps you composing melodies. 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 melodies, 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. Also you can select note using the check box.

Controls

On left side of the screen are the app controls:

Sound – select the sound. Wait till all sounds are loaded in the app before start playing. Usually loading sounds takes about 1 minute.
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

Menu

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

COMPOSE ALL – creates new melody and accompanying harmony from scratch – video demo
COMPOSE NOTES – if no note is selected composes new melody from scratch. If some notes are checked composes only selected notes – video demo
COMPOSE CHORDS – if no chord is checked a new harmony is composed. If some chords are checked then only selected chords are composed – video demo
Open melody – open melody text file. When you select to open a melody a file browser is opened. Browse to app folder and select song xml file to open. The app folder is sdcard/Melody_Engineer. For android devices with Android>Android 10 the app folder is sdcard/Android/data/com.gyokovsolutions.melodyengineer/files/Melody_Engineer
Start AUTO MODE – when active the melody is autocomposed every 4 (changeable in Settings) cycles. During playing you can save the composed melody via Save button – video demo
Three types of AUTO MODE are available:
1. When AUTO MODE is active and COMPOSE ALL is selected then both melody and harmony will be autocomposed every 4 cycles. The text below button PLAY will show “AUTO ALL”.
2. When AUTO MODE is active and COMPOSE NOTES is selected then melody only will be autocomposed every 4 cycles. The text below button PLAY will show “AUTO NOTES”.
3. When AUTO MODE is active and COMPOSE CHORDS is selected then harmony only will be autocomposed every 4 cycles. The text below button PLAY will show “AUTO CHORDS”.
Transpose up – transposes checked notes one step up on selected scale
Transpose down – transposes checked notes one step down on selected scale
Expand – expands twice the melody
Shrink – shrinks twice the melody
Settings – opens Settings page
Manual – opens the manual on website

Settings

– Notes number – number of notes in melody. Requires app restart.
– Notes number in row – the number of notes per row on the screen. Requires app restart.
– Keep screen on – keeps the screen on while the app is in foreground.
– Auto compose chords – when it is on the in [Surprise Me!] mode also the chords are composed. When it is off only new melody is composed.
– Number of cycles in AUTO MODE – number of times the melody is played in AUTO MODE. After reaching this number a new melody is composed and played.

CHORDS
– Select what type of chords can be used in app – major, minor, dominant, diminished, suspended etc…

COMPOSER SETTINGS
– Root factor [0-10] – set number between 0 and 10. The bigger number will promote usage of root note of chord in a melody.
– 3rd factor [0-10] – set number between 0 and 10. The bigger number will promote usage of 3rd note of chord in a melody.
– 5th factor [0-10] – set number between 0 and 10. The bigger number will promote usage of 5th note of chord in a melody.

MIDI OUT
– Enable midi out – enables midi out feature for connecting midi synth to the appin order to listen to melody and harmony on the synth
– Mute app on midi out – mutes app sound while playing midi out on connected midi device
– Melody channel – channel ID for melody
– Harmony channel – channel ID for harmony

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 put it into app folder Melody_Engineer/samples. On devices with android 10 and more the samples folder is Android\data\com.gyokovsolutions.guitarengineer\files\Melody_Engineer\samples

Sample files must be in mono wav format.

Naming of sample files is:

[note][octave]_[instrument number]

[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

For example file for E fourth octave for first instrument – E4 is e4_1.wav. For E fourth octave for second instrument – E4 is e4_2.wav. For F# fourth octave for first instrument – F#4 is fs4_1.wav. For F# fourth octave for second instrument – F#4 is fs4_2.wav.

You can download custom samples here.