Penta Band is a standalone, open-source desktop application designed as a dedicated workspace for music composition. It serves as a complementary project to "Penta," a web-based social music network, aiming to provide composers with a comprehensive toolset for their creative process, from initial ideas to finished pieces. The long-term vision includes deep integration with the Penta social platform, allowing seamless sharing and collaboration.

Project Vision

The core idea behind Penta Band is to offer a robust and lightweight environment where musicians can:

• Write Music: Create and edit musical scores.
• Write Lyrics: Develop and organize lyrical content.
• Integrate with DAWs: (Future) Connect with Digital Audio Workstations for advanced production.
• Connect with Penta: (Future) Seamlessly interact with the Penta social music network.

It's built with the composer's needs in mind, providing all the essential tools required for the creative journey.

Key Features (Planned Roadmap)

Phase 1: Core Design & Tool Selection

• Minimal Functionality & Workflow Definition: Outline essential features and user flow (e.g., "New Project / Song / Album").
• Text Editor for Lyrics: Implement a Markdown-based text editor.
• Chord/Note Annotation: Ability to add chords and musical notes over lyrics.
• Simple Score Editor: A basic editor with export capabilities to PDF/SVG via LilyPond.
• UI Framework Selection (Qt): Create a very basic layout prototype using Qt.

Phase 2: Core Implementation

• Markdown Lyric Editor: Develop a custom widget for Markdown-based lyric editing with chord integration.
• Score Export Integration: Implement functionality to export scores using LilyPond as a textual backend.
• Basic Playback Engine: Integrate a basic audio playback engine (e.g., using RtAudio/FluidSynth for MIDI playback from generated scores).
• File Import/Export: Enable import and export of relevant files (lyrics, PDF scores, MIDI files).

Phase 3: Integrations & Improvements

• Open-Source DAW Integration: Explore import/export of MIDI and audio with open-source DAWs.
• Enhanced Score Editing/Visualization: Improve score editing and visualization (consider Musescore, Verovio, or custom Qt widgets).
• Project/Album Management: Add features for structuring projects and albums with metadata.

Phase 4: Future Online Preparation

• Modular Architecture: Maintain a highly modular and well-documented codebase.
• Backend/UI Separation: Consider separating backend processing/storage from the UI to facilitate future migration to a web platform.

Technologies

Penta Band is committed to leveraging open-source tools to ensure a collaborative and accessible development environment.

• Graphical Framework: Qt (for a robust, cross-platform user interface).
• Audio & MIDI: RtAudio / RtMidi (for low-latency audio input/output and MIDI communication).
• Text/Music Processing: LilyPond (for high-quality musical notation engraving and export).
• Language: C++ (for performance and system-level control).
• Build System: CMake (for cross-platform build process management).
• Version Control: Git (for collaborative development).

Key Development Advice

• Desktop-First Development: Develop and thoroughly test the core functionalities on a powerful desktop environment.
• Laptop Usability: Continuously test on a laptop to ensure the software remains usable and lightweight on hardware-limited systems.
• Modular Architecture: Segment the application into distinct modules to allow loading only necessary components, optimizing performance on less powerful machines.
• CLI & Cross-Platform Tools: Prioritize the use of Command Line Interface (CLI) and cross-platform tools (like CMake, Git, LilyPond) for broader compatibility and ease of development.

Contributing

As an open-source project, contributions are highly welcome! Please refer to the CONTRIBUTING.md (to be created) for guidelines on how to get involved.