Riffboard

Capture musical ideas as movable notation.

Riffboard is a desktop music workspace that turns short performances into movable notation cards called Rifflets.

How it works

Four words, one workspace

RiffCatch

Capture a short performance.

Rifflet

See the idea as notation and tablature.

Riffboard

Move, connect, and arrange musical thoughts.

Music View

Read and play selected Rifflets and sequences.

From instrument to readable music

  1. Instrument
  2. RiffCatch
  3. Transcription
  4. Rifflet
  5. Riffboard
  6. Music View

Point of view

Principles

Capture before editing.
The performance comes first. Refinement can wait.
Audio is evidence.
Every Rifflet keeps its recording as the record of what was played.
Notation is the musical artifact.
The card you keep and arrange is written music, not a waveform.
Ideas are spatial.
Musical thoughts live on a board, where placement carries meaning.
Playback follows authored connections.
Sequences play in the order you draw, not the order you recorded.
Simplicity outranks completeness.
Riffboard would rather do less, clearly.

Status

Where Riffboard is today

Working now

  • Desktop application
  • Microphone capture
  • Standard notation
  • Guitar tablature
  • Movable Rifflets
  • Spatial composition
  • Connected playback
  • Multiple Riffboards

Current focus

  • Real-guitar calibration
  • Music View
  • Interaction refinement
  • UI polish

Real-guitar transcription quality is still being tested.

Development journal

Recent Field Notes

All Field Notes