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View Full Version : Scale Generator Increases Number of Frets



karmar
05-22-2019, 12:14 PM
OK... This is a tiny issue - not really a big deal -but here is what happens...

I have a blank MANDOLIN NECK set up displaying frets 1-12

I open the scale generator and select a scale

I select "BETWEEN FRETS 1-12"

It generates the scale, but now with TWO BLANK FRETS ABOVE THE 12TH FRET!!

Likewise, the fretboard inspector now displays 1-14, instead of 1-12 as it was previously set...

It then takes me ALMOST 3 SECONDS to go into the inspector and reset it to 12 frets!!!

This lost time may seem trivial, but over the years, those 3 seconds will add up. For example, lets say I live another 20 years. And, on average I loose 3 seconds a day to this bug... That adds up to over 6 hours of life (21,900 seconds) lost to resetting the fretboard neck to 12 frets. Now, lets say that a tiny fraction of the Neck Diagram users have the same issue I had... If there are only 10 million users, and only 1% have this issue, then we have about 100,000 users loosing 6 hours over the course of 20 years. That adds up to 69 years of lost time. Therefore, as you can plainly see, this bug could be responsible for murdering 1 person every 20 years!

Yet, on balance, we must also consider all the lives that have been saved by Neck Diagrams. I was probably spending about 10 hours a year making my own diagrams before I found Neck Diagrams. I can now do the same amount of diagrams in less than 10 minutes. So that adds up to 590 minutes saved per year. Over the course of 20 years, that is a savings of 11,800 minutes- or roughly 8.2 days. Now if we consider all of the 10 million Neck Diagram users saving on average the same amount of time I do, we end up with 224,505 years of time saved every 20 years. This is roughly equivalent 3,253 lives saved every 20 years!!!

In conclusion, weighing the 1 life lost against the 3,253 lives saved over 20 years - on balance the extra time it takes to resize the number of frets bug seems rather trivial after all... That said, I have yet to calculate the amount of aggravation that this small bug could cause in 20 years - but without doing the calculation, I can reasonable estimate that it is probably still worth fixing the bug when you get some extra time.... Thanks again for this fantastic program!

Justin
05-22-2019, 12:54 PM
Hi karmar,

Not a bug - all you need to do is uncheck the option Adjust visible fretboard area so all notes show which is towards the bottom of the 2nd page on the Scale Generator wizard ("Position" page).

That option sets the visible range of the fretboard to where the notes created are and adds a 2-fret padding either side (obviously not beyond the nut!). Unchecking this option won't modify the visible fretboard range in any way - so if you told it to create notes between frets 3 to 9 but only had e.g. 1 to 7 showing on the fretboard then you wouldn't see all the notes, you'd need to adjust the fretboard range manually.

karmar
05-23-2019, 02:15 AM
Thanks for the quick response! I tested your suggestion and it works as advertised - those extra seconds I am now saving will come in handy...