What’s new in Noteflight this month? Oh, let’s just say we’ve been burning the midnight oil…
Reverb Effect
In the HTML5 version of Noteflight only, Noteflight now applies a reverb effect to make the sounds a little more “live”. This makes the overall mix sound less dry or flat, and adds a spacious sound to the music.
It’s there for all users, but adjusting the reverb setting in the Mixing Panel is a Crescendo/premium feature. The default setting for this reverb (always heard for scores in free accounts) is fairly subtle, and the effect is not intended to be obvious unless changed to a stronger setting. However, Crescendo/premium users can adjust the settings in a number of ways, making the sound wetter or dryer and choosing from one of three different reverb effects on the new Master tab within the Mixer Panel:
This is only one of a number of powerful mixing and audio features that will be added to Noteflight soon.
Sync scores with the SoundCloud Player or .MP4 Files (HTML5 only)
The HTML5 version of Noteflight now allows you to synchronize scores with any external track on Soundcloud.com using Soundcloud’s built-in HTML5 track player, which is the best way to integrate audio from their site. And it looks really nice:
We’ve also added the ability to sync with MP4 video files, allowing you to synchronize with the many video files on the Web that use this format, not just with YouTube videos.
Gift Cards
For a long time, you’ve been asking for a way to purchase gift cards directly from us. Now it’s easier than ever to buy a Crescendo subscription for someone else. When buying Crescendo as a gift, you can now use any credit card you like when checking out.
Miscellaneous Improvements
- Noteflight no longer displays posts or comments by blocked or deleted users.
- We’ve improved the harp instrument so that notes naturally ring, without the need for using a pedal notation.
- The Noteflight MIDI Adapter program (Midiflight) has been changed to avoid generating error messages when installing on Mac OS X Yosemite or Mountain Lion.
- Whenever you save the Sharing settings for any score, the music in the score will be saved at the same time.
Coming Soon…
Web MIDI Support (HTML5 Only). Use MIDI devices in Noteflight without the need for the separate Noteflight MIDI Adapter. (This is already possible in Google Chrome 38+ on Mac OS and Windows, if you enable the special experimental Chrome flag “Enable Web MIDI API” at the special URL chrome://flags. You’ll probably need to plug in your MIDI device, then restart Chrome — this is still experimental stuff.)
Real-time MIDI transcription. Play a part into Noteflight in rhythm on any MIDI controller, and have it directly turned into notation. Now being tested in the back room.
Playback of fermatas, ritardandos, accelerandos. Well underway, this is one of the most requested features of all time.
You may notice a trend: a number of new features are marked “HTML5 Only”. That’s because many of the best new features on the web work much better in HTML5 than in Flash. We know that our HTML5 Score Editor still has a way to go before it’s completely up to scratch, but it’s where we’re investing most of our energy now!