I use SM mostly for practicing arrangements and improvising (and for printing clear charts) but when improvising I don’t always know when it is time to return to the head for the final pass. It would be nice to hear a signal… a beep or something… to let us know when we are beginning the last pass. I currently add diamonds to the first bar of the last pass as a workaround but sometimes if I am too focused in what I am playing or do not want SM at high volume I don’t hear the diamonds. Also, if I am recording I may not want to hear the diamond(s) on the recording. In the code, just associate it with the “outro” command when it is activated.
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Can’t say I’d want to add odd sounds to backing I’m using though an interesting idea. Can you tell us how diamonds work?
A diamond is a symbol studio musicians use on charts to indicate a “play and hold”…play the chord on the first beat of the measure and let it ring… do not play any strums on the other three beats of that measure. On a chart they draw a diamond enclosure around the chord symbol. In SM there is a gray diamond shape next to the chord ( to create a diamond select the chord and hit X three times when in edit mode). For a “stop” you strum and immediately mute (on the chord chart it would be a diamond with a dot above it… the standard notation for a staccato).
It would be an option. You would not have to activate it.
I really wish the SM diamond would be bold black and enclose the chord symbol for printing charts. I usually have to take a pen and draw the traditional diamond around the chord symbol because musicians not a familiar with SM always miss the small, gray diamond. I’d like to see an option to get rid of ALL gray chord symbols and notations. Old guys like me just can’t see them on a printout.
Where I get a bit lost is I’m ending up with 2 strums per bar. My fix is to halve the tempo but that might not be the most elegant way to use SM.
I agree, that would be a nice option to have. It’s been requested before and is on my big list.
I plan to do that eventually. Getting it to look right with CSS was difficult so I ended up with what you see now.
Yup, especially on printouts. I will eventually have a “print settings” menu for customizing the printouts in various ways.
Each bar should be “boom-chuck boom-chuck” in standard time. Not sure if that’s what you mean by 2 strums.
I was trying out the diamond feature trying to get one strum per bar. But seemed to end up with 2 strums so had to halve the tempo to get one bar. Sounds fine but messes up the count in.
Ah yes, for a four-beat “diamond” (as the term is usually used) you’ll need to put a rest in the second half of the measure:
Luke, that works well nicely giving one long strum for a bar.
Next I tried to get a strum on just one beat using stop. A bit abrupt but works.