ScaleGen vs Tapko Harmony

ScaleGen - the ultimate scale generator and editor! Generate and manipulate musical scales in any way you can imagine. You think you know what a scale is - think again. In ScaleGen you can do all that you would traditionally imagine when it comes to scales and pitch organisation, and then much, much more. Define or change scales in the most detailed and intricate way. Audition the scales you make from within the app or export it as a MIDI file or to our app Gestrument - the revolutionary gesture-instrument. This is the tool for anyone who wants to go beyond the traditional tonalities in whichever genre. ScaleGen comes with predefined scales of all kinds - from the traditional western scales and early music (Baroque/Renaissance) scales to asian scales from India, Indonesia and elsewhere as well as more conceptual scales based in the classical contemporary music. This is the ultimate tool for experimental composers in any genre as well as for musicians who want to explore new ways of thinking about music. The educational aspects of how pitches can be organised makes ScaleGen a must have for serious music students. But the directness of the app makes the learning both fun and artistically developing. What is a scale? For most people it is a collection of pitches within one octave, with equal temperament (all half tone steps equally long) or with microtonal intonation. That kind of scales are of course possible to make and edit in ScaleGen which gives you a keyboard with complete control of up to 24 pitches within one octave. But the most interesting things with ScaleGen is when you start to think of a scale as something more open. Consider these questions: What if your scale was different in every octave? Why must a scale always go from down to up? What if you could use a variation of the overtone series as a scale? How does it sound if you divide the octave in five steps instead of twelve? In ScaleGen we define a scale as any list of MIDI pitches that you can manipulate in many ways. You can start with a keyboard to input pitches, you can use the concept of the overtone series with multiplication of frequencies, you can define the number and size of the steps in the scale or you can import MIDI files and use them as scales. Then you can fine-tune your scale in a matrix with a number of tools. You can then try and play your scale directly in the app, using built-in sounds or control your favorite external synthesizer/app through MIDI. If you want to try and play on your newly created scales in another way we recommend you open them in the app Gestrument - the revolutionary gesture-instrument. But you can also save the scales as text, Scala, or MIDI files and open them in another program.

Tapko Harmony does what a guitar-driven vocal harmony pedal does, right inside your iPad or iPhone. It turns your guitar chords into live vocal harmonies. Play and sing as you always do: the harmony follows every chord change, with no MIDI programming and no key to set. It comes as two AUv3 plug-ins that work together in your favorite host (AUM, Loopy Pro, GarageBand and others): • Tapko Harmony – Guitar listens to your guitar and recognizes the chords you play. • Tapko Harmony – Voice listens to your voice and sings harmonies that fit those chords. The two plug-ins find each other on their own. No cables, no routing, no setup. TWO HARMONY VOICES • Harmony 1 sings above you by default, always on a note of the current chord. • Harmony 2 adds a second voice, below you by default. • Volume and pan for each harmony, so you can place them left and right around your lead. • Dry + Harmony: keep your voice in the mix, or output only the harmonies to mix them on their own channel. MAKE THE HARMONY YOURS (EXPERIMENTAL) Harmony rules let you choose which notes your harmonies sing: • Follow your guitar, lock the harmony to your song's key, or enter your song's own chords. • Pick a style: third or fifth above, third or sixth below, or a fixed interval. • Write rule cards for your chords to get exactly the harmony you hear in your head. • Harmony 2 has its own picker and its own rule cards. Tapko Standard, the automatic harmony, is always one tap away. START FROM A PRESET Five ready-made sounds in the Voice plug-in: Natural, Tight, Ballad, Choir and Pure. Pick one and play, or use it as a starting point for your own. MADE FOR LIVE PLAYING • Low latency, so the harmony lands with you, not after you. • A natural-sounding pitch shifter that keeps the character of your own voice. • Steady harmonies that stay put when your pitch wavers or you slide between notes. • The song key is found automatically. • Tuned down, or slightly off A = 440? The harmonies follow your guitar's own tuning. • No guitar? Send chords over MIDI from a keyboard or your host instead. • MIDI out (experimental): send the harmony notes to another synth or pitch shifter. SHAPE THE SOUND The Advanced tab lets you fine-tune how the harmony feels: how closely it follows your pitch, how it glides between notes, vibrato and tone. Make it human adds the touches of a real backing singer: a slightly late entry, a small scoop, gentle drift and a doubled voice. SAVES WITH YOUR SONGS Every setting, your chords and rule cards included, is saved with your host project and in host presets, so each song comes back exactly as you left it. BUILT WITH YOU Tapko Harmony is ready for the stage today and actively developed, with its direction set by the people who use it. The Support tab in both plug-ins lets you: • Send feedback in seconds. The report includes the plug-in settings and a short technical log, and the screen shows exactly what is sent. • See the roadmap: what is planned, in progress and just shipped. • Read the how-to for setup and quick fixes. TYPICAL SETUP 1. Load Tapko Harmony – Guitar on your guitar channel. 2. Load Tapko Harmony – Voice on your vocal channel. 3. Play and sing. The harmony follows your chords. GREAT FOR • Solo singer-songwriters playing live. • Duos and small acts who want a bigger vocal sound. • Songwriters sketching harmony ideas. • Anyone recording vocals on iPad or iPhone in an AUv3 host. GOOD TO KNOW • Real-time chord detection and harmony take real processing power. Tapko Harmony is very CPU efficient, but a recent iPad or iPhone gives the best live experience. • Clean, direct guitar and vocal signals on separate inputs give the best results. FROM TAPKO Tapko Harmony joins Tapko, Tapko Komp and Pitchli on the App Store, and more Tapko plug-ins for live musicians are on the way.