24 - musical scales(Thaats) and 48 - Ragas on swarmandal.

For an advanced ad free version go for "SwarMandal Pro" by the same group.

The promo video although prepared for "Swarmandal Pro", will clarify many working aspects of Swarmandal also.

PRESETS FOR 48 RAGAS ARE AVIALABLE. USE THEM THROUGH Menu->Ragas. While not playing tap at LOAD RAGA.

On the Raga Page select a Raga and tap at "Load Raga".

IMPORTANT:

User Scale applies on thaats. For User Sequences/Raagas you can optionally apply it on Aroh and Avroh by checking/ unchecking Aroh Shrutis and Avroh Shrutis checkboxes in the corresponding Dialog box..

The software deals with 24 thaats/scales.

There are two modes available namely AUTO and MANUAL . In the AUTO mode it plays by it self and in the manual mode the user can play from his finger. Tap on the "ON" button to start playing and tap "OFF" button to enable the EXIT option.

Select thaat from the dropdown list and LOAD it.

Change the pattern through the Pattern+ and Pattern- buttons and then SELECT it.

The first 10 belong to Sri Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande ji

and the other 14 are due to Sri Chaitanya Kunte ji.

For each one of them you can select one from the 32 patterns. The patterns after 19 use laykari also. "Lk" stands for Laykari.

The Base Key of the swarmandal can be tuned accurately at the Cents level.

The tempo can be varied . Both the variation are possible while it is playing by pressing the Auto Settings button. This is possible in both Auto and Manual modes.

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IMPORTANT FEATURE:

One can also change the pitches of all the notes except for "Sa" and "Pa", store and use them by checking the checkbox "User Scale".

As an example the "komal re","komal ga" and "komal dha" of Todi ,while ascending ,are slightly lowered and "Tivra Ma" is a little sharpened compared to their equal tempered counter part. While descending they are normal.

Similarly in some other Ragas also "Ati Komal re" is used.

The software can address all these situations.

You can also view the notations of the patterns while it is not playing..

One can select notes through "select notes" and custom swara mandal will provide you three octaves of these notes.

You can select one from 48 ragas and even play your customized sequence by selecting from the Menu. A dialog box will appear. Press the Compose Aroh button. Now you will see two sets of swaras. The upper set will have the aroh sequence (initially Sa Sa....). Now select the first swar in the upper set. It will turn blue. Now from the lower set ,which has all the required notes ,tap at your desired aroh swaras . They will be printed in the upper set and the selection will move ahead. After having completed your entry use the cells- button to reduce the cells so that they contain only your swaras.

Go back and repeat the same for avroh. Fix the gap in seconds between successive repeated sequences sequences using Gap+ and Gap-. Now you can press the play button.

In order to edit aroh/aroh select the swara in the upper set and press the required swara in the lower set.

TO EXIT FROM THE USER SEQUENCE / RAGAS DIALOG BOX THE PLAYING SHOULD BE STOPPED.

WHILE STARTING TO COMPOSE AROH/AROH IT IS A GOOD PRACTICE TO MAKE THE NUMBER OF CELLS IN THE UPPER SET TO MAXIMUM USING Cells+ . AFTER HAVING COMPOSED REDUCE THE NUMBER OF CELLS USING Cells- SO THAT IT CONTAINS ONLY YOUR COMPOSITION.

FOR FILLERS IN SINGING THE DAMP LEVEL SHOULD BE 2/3 .

WHERE AS FOR PRACTICING AN INSTRUMENT WITH PATTERNS THIS SHOULD BE >= 5.

To play sequence once only in "User Sequence" uncheck the looping checkbox. Keep the Gap > 10 sec. Tap on the "one shot" button when you need the sequence. If looping checkbox is checked the said button will be disabled.

VERY IMPORTANT:

Do not forget to tap at stop button even when you are in the "one shot" mode and no sound is coming else you will not be able to come out of the dialog box.

In all the MANUAL MODES tap on "ON" to start and tap on "OFF" to enable the "EXIT" button.