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Asked: 2026-05-25T22:27:34+00:00

I am programming a small synthesizer application and I input musical notes by clicking

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I am programming a small synthesizer application and I input musical notes by clicking along the length of a bar. Now, the musical scale is logarithmic and my question is, how do I convert the position of the mouse to a relevant pitch. At the moment I calculate a ratio. It works, sort of, but I get a wide range of closely packed low notes, and at the far end I takes of with just a few pixels translating into multiple octaves.
Basically I want, if I click at the center of the bar (1/2), the frequency is doubled, and 1/4 is another double in freq. etc…
I’m being stupid here!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Frequencies of musical notes are indeed logarithmic. The frequency doubles when you go one octave higher, and halves when you go one octave lower. A standard A is exactly 440Hz.

    So, you need a power law to translate location into a frequency. Something like f*2.0^(x/w) where w is the width of an octave, f is a scale factor and ^ is the power operator.

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