Vocal Range Test — Per-Note Map, Score & Heatmap

How to use the Vocal Range Map

The strip is one MIDI window wide: each vertical band is a chromatic step between your chosen Low and High. Cyan and magenta vertical markers (centered in each column, slightly thicker than the gold/pink LIVE line) show sustained-range low and high extremes; greens and opacity encode intonation quality and how much time you spent near each pitch. Everything runs locally in the browser from your microphone or a recorded take.

Before the strip looks useful

• Turn on the microphone from the Controller strip and allow access. If cells barely fill in, raise Sensitivity in the Range Map settings row, sing a bit louder or closer to the mic, or narrow the Low–High window so energy concentrates in fewer columns.
• Only frames that pass the detector and amplitude gate contribute; long silence, whispering, or noisy room tone may leave gaps — that is expected.
• If the canvas looks clipped on a small window, widen the browser or collapse side UI; the detail layout gives the strip the main column width.

Range Map settings row (above the strip)

• Low / High — Sets the MIDI span for the heatmap. Values are stored separately from the Pitch Analyzer page so you can frame passaggio work here without changing your pitch-graph defaults.
• Accuracy — When on, hue comes from the lower quartile (25th percentile) of frame scores on that semitone among sustained vocal frames—wobbly or off-pitch moments drag the color toward yellow, orange, or red more readily than a simple average would.
• Coverage — When on, the same cells get an alpha (opacity) from relative use: your most-used chromatic step in the window is nearly opaque; quieter steps fade toward a light veil. That answers “which steps of the scale did I actually sing on?” without conflating it with volume.
• Accuracy on, Coverage off — Hue still shows intonation quality, but opacity is held high so differences in “how long you stayed” are de-emphasized.
• Coverage on, Accuracy off — Columns tint with a neutral cool gray; only opacity carries information so you read a pure “where did I dwell on the keyboard?” map.
• Both off — The colored overlay is hidden; you still see the column shading and RANGE/LIVE markers when data exists.
• LIVE line — When on, draws the gold/pink playhead line and the small note/score badge on the strip during record or playback. When off, those canvas elements are hidden; the LIVE chip in the stats row still updates.
• Sensitivity — 0–100% slider for how this panel reads history (see below). Not synced with Pitch Analyzer sensitivity.
• Panel choices save automatically in local storage and reload on your next visit to this page.

Range Map sensitivity (0–100%)

Same 0–100% control style as the pitch graph, but stored under a separate browser key. It does not change microphone capture or what Pitch Analyzer writes into history—it only changes how this strip interprets peaks already in the session.

• Linear mapping — Moving the slider shifts amplitude gates in straight proportion (0% strictest → 100% most receptive), so Coverage, Accuracy, RANGE, and LIVE respond clearly at each step.
• Three gates — Heatmap / Coverage uses the most permissive floor (0% ≈ 0.96, 100% ≈ 0.06 relative peak strength). Accuracy and session SCORE use the same sustained-frame path as the heatmap. RANGE markers use a stricter floor (0% ≈ 0.99, 100% ≈ 0.16) so brief noise is less likely to widen the span. LIVE during record/playback uses the display-style floor (0% ≈ 0.98, 100% ≈ 0.10).
• 0% — Quiet or short passages may disappear from the heatmap and RANGE even if Pitch Analyzer still logged them; LIVE may show “—” unless the current frame is very strong.
• 100% — Weaker relative peaks count toward column color, opacity, and range chips—useful for breathy or piano-dynamic practice, noisier at the cost of more ghost columns.
• After recording — Because gates apply at read time, drag Sensitivity on a finished take to widen or narrow Coverage and RANGE without touching the Pitch Analyzer slider or re-recording.
• Pitch Analyzer slider — Raising sensitivity on the pitch graph page affects new history from the mic; this panel’s slider then fine-tunes how that same data is summarized on the strip. Set both independently when you want a strict trace but a forgiving heatmap, or the reverse.

How Accuracy and Coverage look on the canvas

• Under the hood, every gated frame votes for the nearest MIDI semitone inside Low–High; counts and score sums accumulate per column for the session (until you start a new recording).
• Accuracy drives RGB: each column uses the 25th-percentile frame score on that semitone (not the mean), so shaky or flat moments pull the hue toward orange and red even when the average looked acceptable. Bands: green 70+, yellow 58–69, orange 46–57, red 45 and below.
• Coverage scales alpha between about 0.22 and 0.94 from that column’s count divided by the largest count in the window — a compact picture of where you placed the voice most often across the chromatic grid.
• When both are enabled, hue and transparency multiply: you can spot a rarely touched but very in-tune step (bright but faint) versus a busy but rough step (darker green or splotchy).

RANGE and LIVE markers on the canvas

Two kinds of vertical lines can appear on the chromatic strip. They are drawn through the full height of the note bands (not along the bottom edge of a column).

• RANGE (session span) — Cyan (#2ee6d6) for the lowest sustained note in the session and magenta (#e879f9) for the highest (when they differ). Lines are centered in the semitone column, not on the column border. Stroke is 4px—slightly thicker than LIVE so you can tell them apart at a glance. A compact pill above each line shows the note name (e.g. C4) in the same accent color.
• LIVE (current pitch) — Gold while a take is playing back, hot pink while you are recording or monitoring live input. Centered in the active column, 3px stroke. A small badge under the line can show note name and instant score. Toggle LIVE line in the settings row to hide only these canvas elements; the stats-row LIVE chip is unaffected.
• RANGE comes from longer, stricter sustained-passage logic (see Sensitivity gates above); LIVE follows the current frame only.
• The RANGE chip in the stats row echoes the same low/high note names as the cyan and magenta lines.

Stats row: SCORE, LIVE, RANGE, VOICE

• SCORE — Session-wide average intonation (0–100) on the Accuracy curve (±12¢ excellent; steeper past 25¢ / 44¢ / 68¢).
• LIVE — Instant readout on a slightly more forgiving curve while you sing; during playback it follows the playhead without rewriting the heatmap.
• RANGE — Text summary of the cyan/magenta span (low–high note names); same sustained-passage rules as the vertical markers.
• VOICE — Rough hint from that span against typical overlaps in voice-pedagogy literature; use it for curiosity or lesson planning, not diagnosis.

Recording vs playback

• While recording, new hits keep updating the heatmap, markers, and SCORE as long as audio meets the gate.
• Stopping recording freezes the accumulated map for inspection; starting a new recording clears the visualization for the next pass (same idea as freezing the pitch graph between takes).
• During playback, scrub or play continuously: LIVE (and playback-time scoring) track the transport while the heatmap stays as the summary of what you already sang into the session.

Reading the strip

• With Accuracy on, favor green-dominant columns for notes you tended to sing in tune; drift toward amber/red flags steps where even your lower-quartile frames sat wide of the tempered target.
• With Coverage on, favor tall, solid-looking columns for steps that carried most of your musical time; faint ghosts are steps you only brushed.
• Cyan and magenta vertical lines mark the lowest and highest sustained steps in the session (centered in each column); faint columns you only brushed may not get a RANGE line even if LIVE passed through them once.

Pairing with other MusicalBoard tools

• Use the Controller for gain, monitoring, export, scrubbing, and ±10 second skip beside Play — identical workflow on the Pitch Analyzer and this page.
• Switch to Pitch Analyzer when you need a time-scrolling trace, vibrato width, highlight overlays, or browser fullscreen on the graph.
• Use Scale Generator or Virtual Piano when you want reference pitches while you fill the map across keys.

Good use cases

• Warmups and range checks: see which steps you actually hit in a drill versus which you avoid.
• Repertoire phrases: compare average intonation on difficult vowels or bridge notes after deliberate repetitions.
• Lesson prep: export audio from the Controller, then send both a clip and a screenshot mental model from the strip to a coach.

Vocal practice ideas

• Sing a five-note pattern slowly up and down; aim for even opacity across target steps and even green depth on sustained tones.
• Record a song section twice with different vowels; compare which lyric placements darken the heatmap on problem pitches.
• Narrow Low–High around your passaggio and repeat long tones; watch LIVE settle while SCORE climbs as you stabilize.
• Playback a take while watching LIVE jump at phrase corners — mark where support or consonants throw you sharp or flat, then re-record.

References (voice-type overlap)

Typical-range hints use overlap with broad pedagogical spans; see Richard Miller, The Structure of Singing, and Johan Sundberg, The Science of the Singing Voice, among others — not a substitute for a teacher or clinician.