A few reasons Theorytabs sometimes sound absurd:
- Hookpad’s computed voicing causes the melody note to sound like a chord tone, and another chord starts on the same beat, so both tracks have the same volume. If the chord track plays E2 - B3 - E4 - G4 (simply iii) and the melody track plays G4, that note will be twice as loud than the rest of the melody notes.
- Similarly, if the chord track plays E3 - G3 - B3 - E4 (from ii - iii) and the melody track plays G4, that note will sound as if it is softer since it is also part of the chord at the same volume.
- The piano samples do not have the identical volume across different sample ranges, i.e. they are not normalized.
- Various polyphonic Theorytabs clip the sound output.
There is no quick fix to this problem for all situations in Flash, but I believe it should be a quick fix to include volume control sliders, replacing the current checkboxes that toggle the melody / chord track output.