Paradiddle · published
Hey everyone! It's been a little while since the last major update, and I'm super excited to finally release this one.
Here's what's new:
All of the drum samples in the app have been processed to sound less raw, and more mix-ready. The goal with this was to make sure the built-in sounds are ready to be recorded and shared without requiring additional processing or effects to make them sound better.
For those who'd like to know more about the actual processing done, all of the drums now have EQ's applied to them, with compression and reverb effects applied to certain drums. As a result the drums should sound fuller and louder overall. The panning of each sample was adjusted a bit to make sure all the samples sounded clearer when played at the same time. In addition, the snare and tom sounds were improved to have better dynamic range across velocities. The hi-hat open sounds were also made louder overall to differentiate it more than the closed sounds.
A lot of this work was done by none other than ElNeax, who was also behind the American Idiot and Bring Me to Life VR covers that were released recently! We're still trying to get more out of the audio samples and make sure all the drums sound great together within the app, so if you have any suggestions or comments on this, please make sure to let us know. Here's a quick comparison below between the old samples vs. the new: https://youtu.be/171n3vMBbV0
This update introduces two new cymbals: the 13" Crash Cymbal and 15" China Cymbal! These are the first instruments to be added to Paradiddle since early access launch. Here's a quick video showcasing the sounds you can get out of them: https://youtu.be/jARgtRIp0uc
I've recently licensed a lot more instrument samples so you can expect to see more instruments get added to the app over the next several months. Some of these new instruments will include: the bongos, triangle, cowbell, gong, tambourine, xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel. I can't wait to make these all available to the community!
Another addition I'm really excited about - you can now calibrate how your sticks are placed relative to your controllers! Simply click on Stick Calibration in the Options tab, and the calibration window will pop up. You can move and place the window anywhere you want, and hit and play on any of the drums in the environment while you're calibrating. When you're happy with the new calibration, simply hit "Apply" to make sure the new offsets take effect. These settings are automatically saved and loaded, so you won't have to change them every time you launch the app.
I've limited the positional and rotational offset ranges to specific amounts to make sure the sliders are easy to adjust while still offering a reasonable range, but feel free to let me know if you think any of these ranges are too limiting for your use case. Here's a quick demonstration: https://youtu.be/cN76OsVKcGM
Also, if you have any other ideas on how to improve this feature, I'd love to hear them! I'm going to expand the calibration settings further in the future by allowing users to scale the collision box of the sticks, but if there are any other stick settings you'd like to be able to tweak, let me know.
As existing Windows Mixed Reality users and any testers using the Index/Knuckles controllers probably noticed, up until now the app was still showing the Vive controller models on your hands even if you weren't using them. This is now fixed, so WMR and Index users should see their own controllers in Paradiddle. The default placement of the drum sticks were also adjusted to better suit these controller types, so you should have a more comfortable time playing now.
A couple of quick notes on what's still missing:
As always, more changes are coming! Here's a list of what's coming over the next few months:
As some of you probably already know, I was spending some of my development time over the past couple of months to get Paradiddle running on the Oculus Quest. If you have a Quest or know someone with one, feel free to forward them to the Discord or the release notes for the first testable version of Paradiddle on Quest! As the release notes will make clear, not all of the features from the PC version work on the Quest yet, and I'm mostly using this initial release as a way to get some early feedback as I prioritize tasks.
If you're enjoying your VR jam sessions in Paradiddle and excited about upcoming features and improvements, I would really appreciate it if you wrote a review on Steam. It doesn't have to be long - any review helps in showing that Paradiddle is trying to be the most flexible, responsive and user-friendly VR drumming app out there. The more we can get the word out, the more support I'll be able to get in realizing that goal.
- Emre
[email protected]
Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ParadidleVR
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle