Paradiddle July Update: Metronome and Camera Tools!
The Paradiddle July update is finally out, and it introduces two new features that will make your drumming and recording experience much easier!
The metronome tool has been a popular request by many users for a while now, and it will make the process of playing on time and learning how to play much easier, especially if you’re just getting started with drumming. It's super easy to set up: just click on Metronome in the Options tab, grab the metronome window to place it anywhere you want, and use the BPM and volume options to configure it to your own liking.
Quick customization tip: The “click” sounds used for the metronome sit under Program Files(x86)\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Paradiddle\Paradiddle\Content\Metronome\ (Click_High.wav and Click_Low.wav). If you have some audio samples you’d like to use for your metronome instead, simply place them (currently have to be .wav files) in there and rename them to Click_High and Click_Low, and you’ll be all set!
Here's a demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqUnIBcC1y0
This update also introduces the camera tool, which makes it easier to record
Great-looking footage from within the app. After clicking the Camera button in the Options tab, you can choose to enable the first person and third person cameras, either separately or together at the same time.
Here's how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IBYk0uGHDY
The first person camera settings allow you to specify the positional and rotational smoothing amounts, in order to eliminate possible shakiness caused by fast head movements (which are prone to happen in an intense drumming session!). It’s now possible to change the field of view of the first person view to fit more of the drum set in the view, which has been a widely requested feature as well.
The third person camera currently only has field of view controls, and can be placed within the scene with just a simple grab and drop. This makes it incredibly easy to capture your drum covers from any angle you'd like to record it from. If both the first person and third person cameras are enabled at the same time, you can position and resize the individual camera views on the preview window that combines the two, which in turn will be reflected on the desktop spectator view of Paradiddle.
Just a heads-up: Enabling either one of the cameras introduces extra performance overhead, because the scene has to be rendered from another camera again for each one enabled. This is pretty visible with the third-person camera since it’s showing a view from another perspective, but what might not be super obvious is that enabling the first person camera also essentially creates a new camera that smoothly follows your head around. Therefore I’d recommend only enabling these cameras when you know you need those views, such as recording footage, or demoing to friends etc. And if you’re having any performance problems, let me know and try disabling the cameras first to see if it helps!
There are also some smaller bug fixes and changes included with this update.
- The hi-hat now smoothly opens and closes rather than immediately opening/closing, which should make it look a bit more pleasing when in use.
- The default desktop window size is now set to be 1920x1080 windowed, it used to be smaller.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the drum particles to fly away really fast in a seemingly random direction.
- Fixed a MIDI bug that used to happen when loading certain drum sets or recordings, where the MIDI notes for the drums would never properly get set up and as a result would never work.
More changes coming soon! Next on the list are: proper Windows Mixed Reality support, Vive tracker support for pedals, driving pedal support, pedal support directly through the microphone jack, physically animated cymbals and more.
As always, suggestions for improvements, or any comments about Paradiddle are appreciated! The metronome and camera tools have been in the works for a while and they're still very new, so if you especially have any suggestions for improving either of these, I'd love to hear them.
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 even have to be long - any review helps in proving that Paradiddle is trying to be the most flexible, responsive and user-friendly VR drumming app out there.
- Emre
[email protected]
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
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
Metronome
The metronome tool has been a popular request by many users for a while now, and it will make the process of playing on time and learning how to play much easier, especially if you’re just getting started with drumming. It's super easy to set up: just click on Metronome in the Options tab, grab the metronome window to place it anywhere you want, and use the BPM and volume options to configure it to your own liking.
Quick customization tip: The “click” sounds used for the metronome sit under Program Files(x86)\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Paradiddle\Paradiddle\Content\Metronome\ (Click_High.wav and Click_Low.wav). If you have some audio samples you’d like to use for your metronome instead, simply place them (currently have to be .wav files) in there and rename them to Click_High and Click_Low, and you’ll be all set!
Here's a demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqUnIBcC1y0
Camera Tool
This update also introduces the camera tool, which makes it easier to record
Great-looking footage from within the app. After clicking the Camera button in the Options tab, you can choose to enable the first person and third person cameras, either separately or together at the same time.
Here's how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IBYk0uGHDY
The first person camera settings allow you to specify the positional and rotational smoothing amounts, in order to eliminate possible shakiness caused by fast head movements (which are prone to happen in an intense drumming session!). It’s now possible to change the field of view of the first person view to fit more of the drum set in the view, which has been a widely requested feature as well.
The third person camera currently only has field of view controls, and can be placed within the scene with just a simple grab and drop. This makes it incredibly easy to capture your drum covers from any angle you'd like to record it from. If both the first person and third person cameras are enabled at the same time, you can position and resize the individual camera views on the preview window that combines the two, which in turn will be reflected on the desktop spectator view of Paradiddle.
Just a heads-up: Enabling either one of the cameras introduces extra performance overhead, because the scene has to be rendered from another camera again for each one enabled. This is pretty visible with the third-person camera since it’s showing a view from another perspective, but what might not be super obvious is that enabling the first person camera also essentially creates a new camera that smoothly follows your head around. Therefore I’d recommend only enabling these cameras when you know you need those views, such as recording footage, or demoing to friends etc. And if you’re having any performance problems, let me know and try disabling the cameras first to see if it helps!
Bug Fixes/Small Changes
There are also some smaller bug fixes and changes included with this update.
- The hi-hat now smoothly opens and closes rather than immediately opening/closing, which should make it look a bit more pleasing when in use.
- The default desktop window size is now set to be 1920x1080 windowed, it used to be smaller.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the drum particles to fly away really fast in a seemingly random direction.
- Fixed a MIDI bug that used to happen when loading certain drum sets or recordings, where the MIDI notes for the drums would never properly get set up and as a result would never work.
What’s Next
More changes coming soon! Next on the list are: proper Windows Mixed Reality support, Vive tracker support for pedals, driving pedal support, pedal support directly through the microphone jack, physically animated cymbals and more.
As always, suggestions for improvements, or any comments about Paradiddle are appreciated! The metronome and camera tools have been in the works for a while and they're still very new, so if you especially have any suggestions for improving either of these, I'd love to hear them.
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 even have to be long - any review helps in proving that Paradiddle is trying to be the most flexible, responsive and user-friendly VR drumming app out there.
- Emre
[email protected]
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
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