WinGridStrument

A MIDI instrument inspired by the LinnStrument and Madrona Labs SoundPlane.

WinGridStrument is a Windows (win32) reimplementation of my GridStrument and requires a touchscreen to work. Developed on a Surface Pro 7.

Status

Let me know if it works for you. Send feedback on twitter or file an Issue.

You can get pre-built binaries at this link. Click the build status button and look for the WinGridStrument_VERSION.zip file under the Artifacts menu.

Building

Depends on FluidSynth. It was simple to install this via vcpkg and following vcpkg instructions for working with Visual Studio.

vcpkg install fluidsynth

Usage

Press anywhere on the grid to strike a note. Press down using multiple fingers to create chords. Notes are arranged in horizontal rows where each grid is separated by a semitone (A, A#, B, C, C#, ... ) and vertical columns are separated by musical fourths or 5 semitones (A, D, G, C, F, ... ).

The grid shows all C's as blue. All other chromatic notes (D, E, F, G, A, B) are green. After striking a note, the same note is drawn as yellow.

When a note is struck, notice a purple square showing the area of your finger's touch. Velocity and after-pressure are sent depending on this area.

Once you strike a note, slide your finger left or right to control the pitch bend of the note. The pitch bend range setting controls how far you must move to reach a full effect.

Slide your finger vertically to control the modulation of the note. Sliding up or down one note gets the full effect.

To use Sountfonts, download them and put the full path to the file into the preferences dialog box. You will need to download your own files. For example: https://www.zanderjaz.com/downloads/soundfonts/guitars/

To use MIDI:

1. Start loopMIDI
2. Connect your MIDI software synthesizer to listen to the LoopMIDI port.
3. Start app & set preferences to connect to LoopMIDI port.
4. Enjoy!

If you do not have a DAW, or just want to quickly try GridStrument MIDI out, you can use the internal Microsoft GS synthesizer, but it isn't that responsive.

Preference Controls

• Guitar Mode: change notes vertically by fourths, except for the "B string" and above. Like a standard guitar tuning.
• Pitch Bend Range: Match this to your MIDI Patch controls. Typical values are 2 and 12. Pitch bend adjusts when you move your finger left and right.
• Pitch Bend Mask: AND with this value before sending in order to quantize.
• Midi Output Device: Select the MIDI device you will send to.
• Modulation MIDI Controller: Select the controller to use when your finger moves up and down.
• MIDI Channel Min/Max: Each finger press gets a new MIDI channel so controls can try be per-note. Use this to constrain the channels used.
• Grid Size: the width & height of one grid on the screen. (Default is 90)
• Per Row MIDI Channel Mode: each row gets its own midi channel (within min/max bounds)
• Color Theme:
  • LinnStrument - dark theme with green & blue highlights
  • Tufte - light theme with tan & black highlights.
• Hex Grid Mode: a Harmonic Table Note Layout

License

Copyright (c) 2020, Roger Allen.

Distributed under the GPL3 License. See the LICENSE.md file.

Appendix

• Edit on 12/11/2023 to attempt to force a build. Again.