44. Future directions

The Kangas Sound Editor currently has a number of development tasks in the pipeline:

  1. Persistence of Sequences/Tracks. Although Graphs, Harmonics, Anti-harmonics, Anti-harmonic Bases and Variations can be persisted to the database, the Sequences and Tracks are not yet persisted. This functionality would allow a track to be worked on in multiple sessions, and is a high priority item. This has now been implemented (from version 2.0.0)
  2. Stereo. Some of the work has already been done for stereo, but there needs to be more work before this is available. Graphs would allow the amount by which any track is output on the left or right channel to vary over time, to get the effect of moving sounds. A time delay feature is also planned, so a track may be output to one channel, and at a slightly later time to the other. Multi-channel (upto 6) will come later. This (stereo) has now been implemented (from version 1.2.0)
  3. Combining of tracks. This will be coordinated with the stereo task (2), to allow the sound from multiple tracks to be combined into one stereo track. This has now been implemented (from version 1.2.0). This will also deal with allowing a combining of existing sound in .WAV files (for instance recorded) with the sound from this program.This has now been implemented (from version 1.3.0)
  4. Providing a mechanism to allow lyrics to be input, and then later displayed in a karaoke-style recording session.
  5. Providing a mechanism for Graphs, Harmonics, Anti-harmonics, Variations and Sequences to be exported to XML files, and also imported from them. This is to facilitate exchange with other users. Exporting a Sequence would be the trickiest to implement, due to it's dependence on Graphs, Harmonics and Anti-harmonics. Almost certainly these would need to be exported along with the Sequence. XML import/export has been implemented from version 3
  6. Population of the other track windows, such as Pitch, Amplitude and Wave (the tree nodes for these already exist). This could happen as the sound engine is doing it's computations, so you could see the sound engine at work.Version 2.5.0 computes all three of these views (Wave views have been available from version 2.3.0). The display happens after the computations are complete, however.
  7. Allowing a standard musical note/octave combination, e.g. A3, to be input, from which a start pitch on a sequence can be calculated. The Pitch Window could also show these notes on it's y-axis, as an alternative to the current pitch numbering system (1-16). Version 2.2.0 goes some way to addressing this, by allowing MIDI pitch numbers to be input as the start pitch of a sequence. Version 2.5.0 indicates a set of 'C' octaves on Pitch views based around middle 'C' by the use of coloured octave lines.
  8. Extended Repetition Group handling, to allow the duration and interval of children of a Repetition Group to change with each repetition, possibly under the control of a Graph. This has now been implemented (from version 1.1.0)
  9. Support for other languages, possibly starting with espaņol (Spanish).
  10. On-line help.Version 2.5.0 has a "Help on the web" menu function.
  11. Providing "skins" that determine how numeric properties in the Properties Panel are displayed and input. The current implementation would become the "classic" skin, alternative skins would provide various sliders, or sets of sliders, replacing each numeric edit field in the classic skin.