Paradiddle News

Hey everyone! This patch includes some stability improvements and crucial bug fixes for a few issues that were introduced in the note highway update. Thanks to everyone who let us know of these bugs in the #bug-reports channel in our Discord! We also put out the 0.5.5 update for the Paradiddle Song Creator - you can always grab the latest release here: https://github.com/emretanirgan/ParadiddleUtilities/releases/latest.

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a MIDI bug that prevented MIDI messages for harder drum hits from going through. This was seriously affecting the MIDI out functionality in the latest update, but you should now be able to use the MIDI functionality as it was previously.
  
• Fixed a note highway bug where interacting with the highway UI or pressing the thumb sticks before the song audio was fully loaded would lead to a 'Fatal Error' message and crash.
  
• Fixed an issue where the drum autosave/autoload functionality wasn't working properly. This now works as intended, where the app will autosave your drums when you exit the app. The next time you launch the app and skip or finish the tutorial, your drums will be autoloaded.
  
• The autosave fix also means that you should now have an easier time using a modified kit with the highway. If you move a kit around while using the highway, exit the app and then relaunch it, you should see that same kit layout the next time you open a song or skip the tutorial.
  
• Fixed an issue where the kick samples weren't loaded in memory unless the kick drum model was in the scene. This could lead to kick latency issues in scenes where the kick drum wasn't dragged and dropped into the scene (more noticeable on Quest). The kick samples are loaded on app launch now and remain loaded until the app closes.
  
• Changed how the "Invert" button works for pedals that connect through mic input (such as Rock Band pedals). If you were previously having trouble with the pedal triggering the kick on release instead of a press, the new Invert button should work better.
  

[h3]Song Creator 0.5.5 Changes:[/h3]

• After selecting a midi file, any midi track with the word 'drum' in it will now get picked as the default midi track to convert.
  
• Fixed a bug that happened when converting multiple songs in the same Song Creator session, where the song length of a previous conversion could overwrite the song length values of new songs.
  
• Fixed a bug where the midi track list got longer when selecting a new midi file instead of the track list getting reset.
  

Hope everyone's enjoying their time on the note highway - more content updates to be announced soon! Make sure you're in the Discord to get some sneak previews of new songs, environments and more.

- 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

After months of hard work and iteration, we're really excited to finally release the Note Highway Update! Our goal with this update is to make it much more engaging and easier for anyone to get started with playing music in Paradiddle. The note highway system is a highly customizable and powerful rhythm game mode built into Paradiddle, with custom song support and much more. This is a huge step for the app, as we'll now be able to take anyone across the whole spectrum of learning -> practicing -> performing all in VR.

Some of you have been testing an early version of this already, but every part of the highway has undergone a rework since then. We have a whole new timing system, working customization options and improved visuals.

While I'll be putting out an announcement trailer for the update soon, here is one of our early sneak peek videos to give you a rough idea of how it works:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

UPDATE - March 18th Minor Highway Update
With this additional minor update, the Note Highway is now the default version of the app on Steam! In addition to all the major updates below, here are some additional fixes and changes:

• Added a restart song button to the highway UI.
  
• Fixed an issue where setting the Drum Track Volume below 70 would make it inaudible in the song.
  
• Closing the hi-hat (via a pedal or controller) now triggers hi-hat notes on the highway.
  
• Fixed a bug where the drum kit volume wasn't being loaded properly.
  
• Fixed a bug where some text would appear sideways at the end of a song, if the highway was in horizontal mode.
  

This is a huge update, so let's take a look at all of the Note Highway features!

[h3]Custom Song Support:[/h3]
We know that a big appeal to rhythm games is the ability to bring in your favorite music. We've built the Paradiddle Song Creator as a standalone tool that lets you import custom songs to Paradiddle by combining the audio tracks of a song with a MIDI file of the drum parts. This lets you bring in almost any song you want into the app, including songs you might find in other popular rhythm games. Check out the custom song guide for more info.

• Song Creator Link: Download ParadiddleUtilities.zip from https://github.com/emretanirgan/ParadiddleUtilities/releases/latest.
  
• Custom Song Guide: http://paradiddleapp.com/custom-song-guide

[h3]Music Lineup[/h3]
The current version of the highway ships with 6 incredible original songs, all created by our very own ElNeax from the Paradiddle community. Over the next few months we'll be expanding the music lineup with more originals from ElNeax, as well as some songs from various indie artists.

[h3]Highway Customization Options[/h3]

• Multiple Layouts: We currently have 2 highway layouts: perspective and horizontal. We'll be introducing a 3rd layout in the future, the immersive layout, where the notes will be flying directly to your instruments.
  
• Song speed: Adjust the song speed (without changing its pitch) to slow down tough songs, or speed it up to gain ultimate mastery.
  
• Highway speed: The note speed can be adjusted to your liking.
  
• Control drum track and drum kit volume separately:
  
  
  • Turn down the song's drum track to just hear your drum sounds coming out of Paradiddle.
    
  • Turn down your drum kit if you just want to hear the song's drum track and nothing else.
• Auto-rearranging highway layout: The highway lanes will always reflect your current drum layout. Try moving your drums around to see what this looks like!
  
• Highway placement: Move the highway around to your ideal spot.
  

[h3]Local High Scores[/h3]
High scores and star ratings for song performances are currently local, meaning that you'll only be able to see your own personal best and not global high scores. We'll be introducing global leaderboards in a future update.

[h3]New Recenter Headset Button[/h3]
Found in the Options tab. This has been long overdue, but you can now use this button to make sure the highway is right in front of you.

• Quick note: If you're not using an Oculus headset, this button currently does not work properly. This will be fixed in a future update, however you can use the "Reset Seated Position" button in the SteamVR dashboard to get the same result in the meantime.
  

[h3]Known Bugs[/h3]

• The notes in the first few seconds of the song all get stacked into one spot (most noticeable in the lower note speeds). If you're making custom songs, try not to have any notes within the first few seconds of the song. This will be fixed in a future release.
  
• Intermittent crashes when closing the app: there have been a couple of users who reported crashes while trying out the note highway. If you run into similar issues, please let me know! What's most helpful is if you send me a zip of your whole logs folder (under your Paradiddle installation folder, in Paradiddle/Saved/Logs) so I can take a closer look at what might have gone wrong.
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed hi-hat pedal close sounds not playing properly.
  
• Fixed a bug where MIDI in/out enabled and mute options were not saved in kit save files.
  

[h3]Upcoming Highway Improvements[/h3]
This is just the beginning! We'll be improving the highway system over the next few upcoming months. Here are some developments you can expect to see:

• Immersive layout, where notes come towards your instruments.
  
• Global Leaderboards for all built-in songs.
  
• More songs!
  
• More visual polish.
  

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

Hey everyone!

We got 26 submissions for this year's contest (more than double from last year's number!) from 14 different drummers. To all of you who have submitted a drum cover - thank you so much! With your help, we're able to showcase Paradiddle's capabilities and share it with the rest of the VR community. We got some fantastic submissions this year, so I'd highly recommend checking out the full playlist of submissions, as well as the top 10.

We decided to change things up a bit and get a panel of judges to pick our Top 3 this year. The full judge lineup includes some big VR personalities like Cas and Chary and Kent Bye from Voices of VR. They were all very impressed by the quality of the submissions and had a tough time making their picks, but after some deliberation, here's the top 3:

1) In Regards to Myself - Underoath | Cover by SHartwell (ShartWell on the PD Discord):
https://youtu.be/akvBZerIAD4
2) Diamond Heart - Alan Walker | Cover by SyLaDoRe (bub92 on Discord):
https://youtu.be/1ruG41BDSXQ
3) Clocks - Coldplay | Cover by HowDoesOneEven (caravan3511 on Discord):
https://youtu.be/D1wxjL6Xvww

Congratulations! Once again, a huge thank you to all of our performers this year, to everyone who voted, and our wonderful judges. As I mentioned with the Top 10 announcement, every submission is going to get some prize this year, and I'll be contacting all of the performers shortly about their prize choices. I hope you all record more songs/covers in Paradiddle in the future as well - thanks to you all we're able to really showcase how powerful this app can be for music creation and creativity.

Thanks!

- 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

Hey everyone! I'm excited to announce that following the success from last year's drum cover contest, we're back this year with another one.

The contest has now become a tradition for us to celebrate how far Paradiddle has come since its first release, and for the community to show off and celebrate their drumming skills. It's also my way of thanking you for all your support so far.

All skill levels are more than welcome - even if you’re just getting started with VR drumming, you’re still highly encouraged to share your cover with the rest of the community. You’ll get to be part of something that’s never been done before, by taking part in the only VR drum cover contest in the world!

1. Record yourself playing a drum cover of a song in Paradiddle.
   
2. Upload it to YouTube as a public video, mentioning the Paradiddle drum cover contest in the description.
   
3. Post your video on the vr-drum-covers channel on the Paradiddle Discord. Feel free to add any other info you'd like for us to know in your Discord post, or in the video description itself.
   

You’ll have until October 25th midnight (11:59 PM / 23:59) PST to send in your submission.

Also note that by sending in a submission, you’re allowing your video being shared online on the Paradiddle website or on any of the social media pages of the app. These cover videos help me showcase how powerful and useful Paradiddle can be as a music creation tool, and I want to make sure I can share that with the rest of the VR community. If you’re a streamer or YouTuber, you might want to take a look at some of the previous Paradiddle drum covers- because VR drum covers are a new concept and so much fun to watch, it’s quite possible that you could end up getting lots of views on your covers!


The exact way voting and judging will be done depends on the number of submissions we get. We might have a panel of judges this year, or do judging internally within the Discord like the past years. While there is no exact criteria on the voting or judging process, the panel will be looking at the overall appeal of the video, which includes technical skill, as well as creativity and originality.


Feel free to get creative and have fun with it if you'd like to! You can use the MIDI out functionality from Paradiddle to play and process your own samples if you prefer. Peripherals such as USB or electronic drum pedals are also allowed. You're also free to use LIV to record a mixed reality video, or use their new avatar integration feature to bring your avatar into the app.

Remember that we added 13 new instruments last month with The Percussive Update, including orchestral percussion and mallet percussion instruments like the xylophone and marimba! This means that you can now record the melodies of a lot of songs in Paradiddle too. I'm hoping this will open up the variety of the song submissions we'll get this year.


Here are the prizes that will be given out to the top submissions!

First Place:
Choose 1 between:

• Oculus Quest 2
• 2 Vive Trackers (Can be used as pedal replacements)
  
• Addictive Drums 2 + 2 USB Pedals
  
• EZDrummer 2 + 2 USB Pedals
  
• DDrum DDTi Trigger Interface + Yamaha KU100 Electronic Kick Drum Pedal + Electronic Hi-Hat Pedal (velocity sensitive electronic drum pedals that can be used in Paradiddle through MIDI input)
  

2nd and 3rd Place:
Choose 1 between:

• 2 Vive Trackers (Can be used as pedal replacements)
  
• Addictive Drums 2 + 2 USB Pedals
  
• EZDrummer 2 + 2 USB Pedals
  
• DDrum DDTi Trigger Interface + Yamaha KU100 Electronic Kick Drum Pedal (velocity sensitive electronic drum pedal that can be used in Paradiddle through MIDI input)
  

Rest of the Top 10 (Place 4th through 10th):
Choose 1 between:

• 2 USB Pedals
• 1 Rock Band pedal
  
• GetGood Drums
• $25 Amazon Gift Card
  
• Drum practice pad with drum sticks (always good to pair your VR drumming with some real life stick practice!)
  

Can I submit a cover I've recorded in the past?
To be fair and give the same amount of time to everyone participating, your cover needs to be recorded during the contest period (Sept 22 - Oct 25).

Can I submit more than one cover?
Multiple submissions are permitted as long as they’re different songs, and each submission will be judged separately. But you’ll only be able to vote once, even if you submit multiple covers. To give everyone a chance of receiving prizes, you'll also only receive the prize for the higher rated submission at the end of the voting process.

Are there any examples of covers played with Paradiddle?
Feel free to take a look at this YouTube playlist for inspiration on some of the songs that have been played in Paradiddle. And for reference, here were last year's submissions for the cover contest.

Can I enter the contest with a cover on my Quest?
Absolutely!

What software would you recommend to record my cover?
On PC, I've always used OBS Studio to record my covers and it has always worked great. If you're a Quest user, you can use the built-in video capture button on the menu.

Am I allowed to use the MIDI functionality in Paradiddle to connect the app to a different audio software?
You're welcome to use Paradiddle's features in any way you want, including MIDI input and output. The MIDI Guide is a helpful resource if you're planning on doing this.

Am I allowed to layer multiple audio tracks?
Yes, you're free to record multiple instrument tracks and play them over each other as long as you make it clear that's the method you used.

Am I allowed to use post production methods on the video/audio/MIDI I've recorded?
Yes, you're welcome to edit and polish up the video or audio you've recorded if you believe it'll improve the quality of the end result.

I’m more than happy to answer any other questions, and I’ll make sure to update the FAQ as more questions come in. As a quick note, make sure you join the conversation on our Discord too if you already haven't done so!

- Emre
[email protected]
Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ParadidleVR
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle

We're back with a major update! If you run into any issues, you can always roll back to the previous version of the app by switching to the "prev_version" branch on Steam by right clicking Paradiddle in your Steam Library, and going to Properties->Betas.

Here's what's new:



The Percussive Update introduces a total of 13 new percussion instruments to Paradiddle, more than doubling the number of instruments in the app from 12 to 25. Our goal is to keep expanding our percussion library and eventually move into non-percussion instruments as well, and this is a major step in this direction. To support this massive change, we've created a whole new instrument asset creation workflow in order to add more instruments even easier in the future.

The new instruments and features introduced are:

[h3]Auxiliary Percussion:[/h3]

2 Bongos (High and Low)
2 Tambourines
Cowbell (finally!)
3 Timpanis
Gong
Triangle

[h3]Mallet Percussion:[/h3]

Xylophone
Marimba
Glockenspiel

In addition, the mallet percussion instruments come with some fun settings as well. Go to the drum settings menu for any mallet percussion instrument to tweak:

• Key Size: You can change the key size of the whole instrument live in front of you!
  
• # of Octaves: Is your marimba too big? No problem! Simply change the number of octaves to change the size of your instrument in real-time.
  
• First Octave: You can shift the first (left-most) octave that gets played on your instrument as well.
  

Any recording that includes a mallet instrument will also come with its own visual feedback system similar to apps like Synthesia, where you'll be able to see each note flying towards your keys as you try to hit them.

Let us know what you think or if you spot any issues! A lot of the app had to be reworked to support all these new types of instruments, so you might notice some bugs. Any and all feedback is always welcome.

• Started compressing audio assets used to support the number of new instruments and audio samples being added. As a result, reduced the disk space and memory (RAM) usage of all audio samples by 90%.
  
• We now load audio samples as they're needed, meaning only when an instrument is added to the scene. Up until now, all audio samples were loaded immediately on application launch. This smart loading/unloading leads to major performance benefits in CPU and RAM usage, especially in scenes with few types of instruments.
  
• Added 3D audio spatialization. Before this update, every type of drum sound came from its own direction no matter where it was positioned around you. You can finally enjoy a higher degree of realism in Paradiddle with positional audio!
  
• Improved audio playback latency on some setups, with the cost of some additional CPU usage. Let me know if your system seems to be struggling at all with the new update so I can take a look at any potential issues.
  

• Added an Invert button for the Rock Band pedal controls. If you were running into issues were your pedal was triggering on release rather than press, the Invert button should help. Let me know if you're still having issues despite using the new button.
  
• Fixed a bug where Vive trackers were not being properly detected in the app.
  
• Improved stick collision robustness, preventing some extra accidental hits when dragging a stick out of a drum after it went inside.
  
• To support the increasing number of instruments, the Drums menu now has some shiny new tabs! You'll see 3 tabs for : Kit Drums, Aux Percussion and Mallet Percussion. The menu has some new icons as well.
  
• Major performance improvements in most UI interactions.
  
• Fixed issues that intermittently caused the colored drum rings to disappear beneath the drum surface.
  
• Raised the volume level of the metronome by 10dB.
  
• Fixed a bug where some controls menu options stayed open even after closing the menu.
  
• If a recording is actively ongoing and the app is exited, the recording will now be saved properly first instead of disappearing.
  

• "Note highway" system (think Guitar Hero or Rock Band, except with any instrument you can use in Paradiddle) alpha release within the next month, with tools to import any song from other rhythm game formats such as Clone Hero, Phase Shift etc.
  
• An update to the Quest beta with all changes from this Steam update, as well as a release of the beta on SideQuest.
  

I'm aware that there was a long period of time without any updates up until this update. I wanted to thank you all on your patience, and let you know that I'm fully committed to adding onto Paradiddle and making it the #1 music creation app in the VR & AR space. Up until last month, I was working on Paradiddle in my free time while working at a big AR company full-time, due to issues with my visa preventing me from focusing on the app full-time. I'm happy to say that I was finally able to get my green card and recently quit my job, making Paradiddle my top and only priority. I'm incredibly thankful for the community's continued support of the app so far, and just as excited to finally have time to execute my future plans for Paradiddle. What this means for you is that there will be a lot more regular updates, as well as bigger features and content being added to the app soon.



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