## Overview of 'harpwise samples'

The wise needs a set of audio-samples; these are the sounds-files (recorded or generated) of each of the holes of your harmonica; blow, draw, bend.

The samples are used to:

- Play a series of holes, e.g. for modes play or quiz
- Judge the frequencies of your playing against the frequencies of the samples to find out, which note you are actually playing

You may either record those samples under the guidance of this mode, or you may let the wise generate them for you; adding some helper functions, this gives the following choice of extra arguments:

- record: harpwise assists while you play the holes for the given type and key of harmonica. After each recording you may hear back and trim.

  These samples capture your style of playing and the specific sound of your harmonica as far as possible and brings them into harpwise. This way of creating samples gives more interesting results than 'generate' but requires some work from your side; consider recording the most important keys (or even holes) first and use 'generate' for the others. Even 'generate all', as your recordings would not be overwritten.

  To redo the recording for a single hole, give it as an argument on the commandline.

  You may even combine this method of recording hole-samples with 'generate', as your recorded samples will be kept and preferred over generated samples unless you explicitly use the extra-command 'delete'.

- generate: as a faster alternative to 'record', you may let harpwise generate samples for each hole. This gives fast results, that, however lack the typical harmonica sound. You may try different waveforms (e.g. 'sine') with option –wave (with a default of 'pluck').

  To generate samples for all keys in one pass, you may give 'all' as an additional argument; otherwise samples are created for the current key only.

  'generate' never overwrites samples that you play during 'record'; use 'delete' for this, if required.

- check: For the current type and key of harmonica, check out and summarize available samples; especially show, which samples have been recorded and which ones generated. Use 'all' to get a summary for each and every key.

- delete: For the current key, ask for confirmation to delete your recorded samples, if any. As these recorded samples had precedence over any generated samples, this might be necessary to make harpwise use the generated samples (or maybe suggest to use 'generate' first).

  This can be useful, if you prefer the (maybe) more precise samples that harpwise generates.

  By giving the argument 'all' you may delete all samples for all keys.

The samples need to be generated for each key, but only once in the lifetime of your harp; you may start with the key of c only. After that you are ready to use the other modes of the wise.

Samples that have been recorded will not be overwritten with samples, that the wise generates. Moreover, recorded samples are always preferred over generated samples, when harpwise has to play holes; remove recorded samples, if (for the moment) you prefer generated samples.

By its nature, this mode only accepts arguments for type and key, but not for scale.

## Usage by Examples

Record samples to teach the wise abut the frequencies of the harp you are using:

    harpwise samples c record

this will ask you to play notes on your harp (key of c). The samples will be stored in the folder harpwise within your home directory; frequencies will be extracted to the file frequencies.yaml.

You may cancel the process of recording samples after any hole whle still keeping the samples recorded so far (but you may 'delete' them, if you choose). If later, you want to continue recording from where you left, simply give the respective hole as an argument, e.g.

    harpwise samples c record +4

If at a later time, you just want to review the samples, you have created, simply use play, e.g.:

    harpwise play +4

or even:

    harpwise play full

Compared with the process of recording samples, the alternative of generating samples automatically is the quickest way to get started. The wise may create all the audio samples for you (using sox); however, this cannot match the characteristics of your own harp and your own playing style, but it gives a good quick start. For auto-generation, type:

    harpwise samples a generate

Or, to generate everything, all holes, all keys, in a single run:

    harpwise samples generate all

With this, only when first changing the type of harmonica, e.g. from richter (default) to chromatic, you will need to create samples again.

If later, you want to remove some samples, that you have recorded previously, try (for the key of d):

    harpwise samples d delete

this applies to recorded samples only; there is no need to delete generated samples, as they can allways be generated and overwritten or shadowed by recorded samples.