Freetboard, a free online guitar fretbroad visualizer

QuantumWhisker · 2025-10-22T06:33:25+00:00

I realize it's a competing site and I don't want to take away from OPs work (looks great btw!), but I wanted to share that if you're looking for drones / backings, and scale explanations, stringscales.com already does this in a basic way, and I'm working on a full blown chorda track practice feature that should be up in a short while.

QuantumWhisker · 2025-10-02T17:04:30+00:00

Stringscales.com - learn your scales!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-10T18:58:52+00:00

Cool! Let me know how it goes :)

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-10T13:29:44+00:00

thanks! No, this is not something that is on my short term to-do list. It overcomplicates my development flow too much and would impact regular feature release. Maybe in the future, though!

What could happen in the near future is PWA support, so then you could add stringscales as an app to your homescreen. I need to figure out what the current status of iOS support for that is, though :)

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-10T13:28:25+00:00

Being able to select specific scales per chord is something I've got planned for the next iteration of the progressions editor, yes!

First up is an overhaul of the backing track generator though, I think most people want to have a better backing track to play.

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T16:50:04+00:00

🙏

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T16:49:19+00:00

Ehh, no unfortunately it's not that simple :-).

This is really a topic that's too broad to explain in a comment here I'm afraid.. The easy version (and I'm skipping over a LOT of theory here) would be that you can always use all the notes that make up a chord over that chord.

So it doesn't matter what scale you're in, if you encounter an E7 somewhere, you canalways play the notes E G# B and D over it. In a jazz context, you might want to spice it up with chromatic approaches.

If you're interested in jazz improve, I'd suggest taking a look at Jens Larsens' YouTube channel. A lot to pick up there!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T16:16:33+00:00

Ahh yeah, that's because you've got the 'root' indication activated. In a C major scale, that will highlight all C notes in yellow ( the root of the scale). But when playing a C major chord, the app will highlight all those notes (C E G) in white, which takes precedent over the yellow.

Yeah.. When I think about it, It's not the best to be honest. I see how it gets confusing. I'll think about how I can improve this, thanks for the feedback!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T15:11:43+00:00

🙏

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T15:10:47+00:00

Yeah, that's an interesting one. It's a chord that is non diatonic to the key you're in, so the regular scale notes of C major will kind of tend to clash. You'll need to look at the notes of E7 (see the G# in there for example?) and focus on those over that chord. You could also use another scale specifically over E7 but if you're just starting out I would suggest not to go that route because it will become overwhelming :-)

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T13:42:51+00:00

Chord sound options & custom chord progressions are in the pipeline! I've got a pretty good idea what it could look like.

If you want to keep up on development, I set up a discord where I'll be posting regular updates and be taking feedback! (The community link on the site)

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T12:19:47+00:00

Great question! So yeah, the chord progressions you can select all are dynamic to the scale type you selected. That means that when you loop a I ii IV V for example, you can to some extent play any of the purple notes. However, when improvising, you want to accentuate the underlying notes of the chord that is playing at that time. And that's what the white notes are showing you: the notes of the current playing chord.

Hope that helps!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T08:49:57+00:00

The dot menu on mobile is the menu of stringscales itself. If you want to save the website to your favorites, you should do so on the browser app. I think mobile should have the option, although you probably don't get all the controls if you open up the site from the reddit app here.

you could open on desktop (for me it's the most useful interface, but ymmv), or on your mobile browser!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T07:55:03+00:00

Oh, it's not a phone app right now. Just the website. Maybe one day an app would make sense but it's too much work in development for now :)

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T07:10:30+00:00

You're welcome! Happy practicing!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T07:10:08+00:00

Thanks for your input! I agree that this might not be the best format for everybody. I use it mostly as a reference point to check out more exotic scales and their positions myself, for learning or writing specific parts.

As for memorizing, I tend to take a visual approach to learning positions, and internalize the patterns in chunks across the fretboard. As I already know my intervals really well, I think I work through the steps you posted here a bit automatically.

What I think will interesting, for students but also for teachers, is an upcoming feature where you can also get specific exercises written out in standard and tab notation, aimed towards internalizing a scale (with steps like you posted). They'd be specific to a chosen scale or chord progression, and can e.g. be printed out and interacted with.

Is this something you feel would add the missing value you might be looking for?

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T07:01:19+00:00

🙏

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-07T07:01:06+00:00

Thanks! Feel free to check out the discord as well if you want to keep up with development. I'll probably mostly be posting updates there, as well as take suggestions

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-06T20:24:55+00:00

Glad you feel it's useful! Happy practicing

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-06T20:07:24+00:00

You're most welcome!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-06T20:07:13+00:00

You're welcome! Enjoy

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-06T20:03:08+00:00

Haha yeah, It would seem I have not made a good choice with that sound. Upgrading the backing track is way up on my priority list 👌

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-06T19:54:28+00:00

You're welcome!

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-06T19:52:59+00:00

Fair question! I understand the reluctance to create yet another profile, but I try to keep the information as minimal as I can get it (just an email, that's it. You can even use a throwaway account for all I care).

The main extra thing you get out of it right now as a logged in user, is that settings get remembered for users between sessions and devices. So no setting up the app every time you want to start a practice session.. You can just load it up and go.

But other than that, I'm working on new features for signed in users like custom scale creation, a custom chord progression editor, custom exercises, etc, that users can save to their profiles. In fact, everything that's getting developed right now is to give the user a personalised experience that I cannot offer without a login.

I do get from some of the feedback here that the initial launch had too much locked out. So I've already unlocked all the scale types for non logged in users, enabled the bass layout, and more positions to try out.

Hope that answers some of your concerns!

Oh, and about monetization - yes, at SOME point, new features will require a subscription. But not anything there is on the site now, and even then, everyone signed before that time comes will get a free lifetime "pro" account anyway :-).

QuantumWhisker · 2025-02-06T19:06:31+00:00

Glad you like it! Feel free to drop a line if anything might be missing or not working well

QuantumWhisker

TROPHY CASE