Paradiddle · published
Hey everyone!
The April update is out, bringing a few big additions and a bunch of bug fixes. As always, if you find yourself running into any new issues that you weren't seeing before, you can always roll back to the early_version branch on Steam. Here's what's new:
You can now map a controller button to perform a Cymbal Choke. For those who might not be familiar with the term, it basically lets you choke out the sound of a drum that's playing when you hold down the button and touch that drum. The action is currently not mapped to any button by default, so you'll have to go into the Controls tab and choose what button you want to use for it. For those who use the app with MIDI out, the drum choke also sends a proper MIDI polyphonic aftertouch event for that drum, so it should also work fine through other audio software.
If you get around to trying this out, I'd appreciate any feedback with respect to the placement of the cymbal choke sphere (it's currently at the drum stick tip, but I was suggested on top of the hand might be preferable), and whether you'd want to see it as a default mapped action or you're happy with it remaining as an opt-in one.
There were two improvements made to the hi-hat:
The two ride cymbals in the app actually have two hit zones that make different sounds: the center (also called the bell), and the edge. You can now adjust the size of the center zone by clicking "Show Center" under the "Drum" tab of the ride cymbal options. This will display a ring that you can grab and move to tweak this center zone. In future updates, I'm also planning on adding a visual cue for this zone on the drum itself so that you can better see where the center and where the edge is when playing in the app.
As some of you might have heard, Paradiddle was selected to be one of the 5 finalists in this year's 2019 SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards in the Music & Audio Innovation Category, going up against some big names like Google! We got to showcase the app with the rest of the finalists, and the feedback from the demos was incredibly helpful in shaping the app's future.
I prepared some additional drum sets and recordings to help showcase the app during SXSW, and those have now been added to the app. I might eventually move these to Steam Workshop instead if people would rather not have them come bundled with the app, but let me know if you have any thoughts. The drum sets added were: Ringo Starr, John Bonham and Neil Peart sets, while the recordings added were a Basic Rock Beat, Basic Swing Beat and a Basic Punk Beat. Enjoy!
As always, more changes are coming! Here's a list of what's coming over the next few months:
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 and resources I'll be able to get in realizing that goal. Thank you for your support so far!
- 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