Thank you so much for supporting Paradiddle! If you're enjoying your VR jam sessions 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.

Hey everyone! The latest Paradiddle update introduces fixes to some major bugs that have been reported to me over the past few weeks, along with a few new features. To anyone who has reached out to me about these bugs, thank you so much for letting me know, and also for your patience. This is exactly why Paradiddle started out on Early Access, and I really appreciate your feedback and help in improving the quality and stability of the app!


Different MIDI Notes When Hi-Hat Is Open/Closed
I believe this was a widely anticipated addition and I’m happy to say it’s finally here! The hi-hat now has two MIDI notes associated with it, one sent when it’s open, and the other when it’s closed. You can modify either note in the drum options menu, under the MIDI tab. Just as a reminder, the left trigger will control the hi-hat opening/closing by default, and you can remap this under the Controls menu. You can set a button to either open the hi-hat, in which case the default hi-hat position will be closed, or to close the hi-hat, in which case the default hi-hat position will be open.

In addition to this, I’m also working on adding MIDI notes for different zones on certain drums (such as the cymbal edge vs the center/ride), and this will most likely be included in the next update.

Audio File Loading & Playback
It’s now possible to load your local audio files into Paradiddle, and control playback within the app! For those of you who are trying to drum along to a specific song, this should hopefully ease the pain of having to switch out of the app to a separate audio software or YouTube. You can load any audio file located under the Paradiddle\Saved\AudioFiles\ directory in your Paradiddle installation folder (for instance C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Paradiddle\Paradiddle\Saved\AudioFiles) by pulling up the Options tab in the app, and clicking on “Load Audio File”. I’ve added a few sample files in there to give everyone an idea of what playback looks like, but it’s likely that these samples might change in the future. The playback UI is pretty straightforward: you can freely play/pause, turn on/off looping, change the volume and also move the timestamp to pick where in the song you want to go. All common audio formats should work, but feel free to let me know if you run into any issues, and I’ll look into it.

Recording Playback Improvements
The recording playback UI now has a couple of new features that make it much more useful. Users are now able to change the volume of the recording, and mute it if they’d like to. Muting the recording won’t hide the expanding rings on the drums that tell the user when to hit the drum, so you can still follow along to the visual cues to practice how to play the recording. In addition to this, there is also a “Hide” button that will hide the visibility of all drums that belong to that recording. This was done to give users some more power in tidying up their space, in the case that they have multiple recordings in the scene.

• Fixed a major bug that made the Controls tab pretty much completely unusable. You should now be able to remap your controls freely, and have your changes take effect as expected.
  
• Fixed a major bug with MIDI Device saving/loading that stopped both MIDI input/output from working upon repeated use of the app. If you were resorting to creating a new MIDI port to get around this issue, you should no longer have to do that.
  
• Fixed an Oculus-only bug where loaded drums changed position based on where the user was when they started the app. No matter where you are when you start the app, saved/loaded drums should now always appear in the same exact spot.
  
• The mute state of drums are now properly saved in drum sets and recordings.
  
• Turning MIDI out off on a drum will now automatically unmute it if it was muted.

As I mentioned in the last Paradiddle announcement, I’m still hard at work on several new and exciting features. These include Mixed Reality recording/streaming support, preliminary Vive tracker support, Steam Workshop integration, and more. The Paradiddle VR drum cover contest will also be announced as soon as MR recording/streaming supported is added.

As always, feel free to let me know or post on the Steam Discussion Forums if you have any other comments or questions. And thanks again for supporting Paradiddle! If you're on Discord, you might want to join the Paradiddle Discord group as well. I'm always active on there, and others in the group are also always willing to help out with questions. Stay tuned for more updates, happy jamming!

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle

Hi everyone!

It’s been a little while since the last update for Paradiddle went online, so I just wanted to give you a sneak peek on what’s coming soon for the app.


Mixed Reality Recording Support
MR recording support will be functional very soon, thanks to LIV. If you’re wondering what this will get you, it’ll allow you to record videos similar to the R U Mine cover I recorded a while ago. LIV allows for a lot more tuning with your recording settings, and offers live streaming of MR content as well. I can’t wait to add this in the next update because I think MR videos are a truly fantastic way to showcase VR content, and especially Paradiddle.

Steam Workshop Integration
Users will soon be able to share their recordings and drum sets over Steam Workshop! Up until now, someone would have to send another user their saved recording or drum set, and the other person would have to make sure to place it in the right directory for it to show up in the app. The Workshop integration will get rid of all of this hassle, and more importantly, serve as a central location where users will be able to browse across recordings and drum sets the community has made. I’m incredibly excited to have this go online and see what sorts of recordings people end up sharing. There might also be other types of content that get Workshop support for Paradiddle in the future, but I’ll keep you updated as that becomes more clear. Special thanks to Mankiller_2 on Steam for suggesting this feature!

Vive Tracker Support
Preliminary support for Vive Trackers will be added soon, to be used as hi-hat or kick pedal replacements. Users will be able to place them either on a real pedal, or simply on their feet. Again, I think this is another very exciting feature that allows people with Vive Trackers to get a lot more out of their hardware. It’s still very early but I’ve also started experimenting with using these to track drum sticks or similarly shaped objects. There’s still a lot of prototyping to be done, but I’m excited to see how that works out as well.

Local Audio File Loading & Playback
Users will soon be able to load audio files they have on their computer, and control it within the app through an interface similar to the recording playback interface. This will be useful for cases such as loading a song and playing along to it within the app, without having to switch over to Spotify/YouTube/etc. This feature will eventually be expanded to allow for the usage of audio samples as drum samples, so that users can create their custom drums in Paradiddle that make use of audio files on their system.

On top of these new features, various bug fixes and usability improvements will also be included in the next update.


The Paradiddle VR Drum Cover Contest
Start practicing with your favorite songs, because I’ll soon be announcing the details for the first Paradiddle VR Drum Cover Contest! Everyone will have 2-3 weeks to record a VR drum cover video and share it on YouTube, to compete for a whole bunch of prizes. These will include various drum pedal peripherals, drum sound packs, software licenses and more. The top drum covers will also be showcased and shared on pretty much every channel that Paradiddle has online.

XRLibraries
I’m delighted to let everyone know that Paradiddle will be made available in over 100 public libraries across California through the XRLibraries initiative. XRLibraries is attempting to make VR and AR technologies more accessible throughout the U.S., and I’m really excited to include Paradiddle in their curated software catalog. I’ll share more updates on this as it happens.

That’s all for now, thank you so much for your ongoing support, and stay tuned for all these updates! As always, feel free to let me know, post on the Steam Discussion Forums, or on Discord if you have any other comments or questions.

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle

Hi everyone!

It’s been a little while since the last update for Paradiddle went online, so I just wanted to give you a sneak peek on what’s coming soon for the app.


Mixed Reality Recording Support
MR recording support will be functional very soon, thanks to LIV. If you’re wondering what this will get you, it’ll allow you to record videos similar to the R U Mine cover I recorded a while ago. LIV allows for a lot more tuning with your recording settings, and offers live streaming of MR content as well. I can’t wait to add this in the next update because I think MR videos are a truly fantastic way to showcase VR content, and especially Paradiddle.

Steam Workshop Integration
Users will soon be able to share their recordings and drum sets over Steam Workshop! Up until now, someone would have to send another user their saved recording or drum set, and the other person would have to make sure to place it in the right directory for it to show up in the app. The Workshop integration will get rid of all of this hassle, and more importantly, serve as a central location where users will be able to browse across recordings and drum sets the community has made. I’m incredibly excited to have this go online and see what sorts of recordings people end up sharing. There might also be other types of content that get Workshop support for Paradiddle in the future, but I’ll keep you updated as that becomes more clear. Special thanks to Mankiller_2 on Steam for suggesting this feature!

Vive Tracker Support
Preliminary support for Vive Trackers will be added soon, to be used as hi-hat or kick pedal replacements. Users will be able to place them either on a real pedal, or simply on their feet. Again, I think this is another very exciting feature that allows people with Vive Trackers to get a lot more out of their hardware. It’s still very early but I’ve also started experimenting with using these to track drum sticks or similarly shaped objects. There’s still a lot of prototyping to be done, but I’m excited to see how that works out as well.

Local Audio File Loading & Playback
Users will soon be able to load audio files they have on their computer, and control it within the app through an interface similar to the recording playback interface. This will be useful for cases such as loading a song and playing along to it within the app, without having to switch over to Spotify/YouTube/etc. This feature will eventually be expanded to allow for the usage of audio samples as drum samples, so that users can create their custom drums in Paradiddle that make use of audio files on their system.

On top of these new features, various bug fixes and usability improvements will also be included in the next update.


The Paradiddle VR Drum Cover Contest
Start practicing with your favorite songs, because I’ll soon be announcing the details for the first Paradiddle VR Drum Cover Contest! Everyone will have 2-3 weeks to record a VR drum cover video and share it on YouTube, to compete for a whole bunch of prizes. These will include various drum pedal peripherals, drum sound packs, software licenses and more. The top drum covers will also be showcased and shared on pretty much every channel that Paradiddle has online.

XRLibraries
I’m delighted to let everyone know that Paradiddle will be made available in over 100 public libraries across California through the XRLibraries initiative. XRLibraries is attempting to make VR and AR technologies more accessible throughout the U.S., and I’m really excited to include Paradiddle in their curated software catalog. I’ll share more updates on this as it happens.

That’s all for now, thank you so much for your ongoing support, and stay tuned for all these updates! As always, feel free to let me know, post on the Steam Discussion Forums, or on Discord if you have any other comments or questions.

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle

Thank you so much for supporting Paradiddle! If you're enjoying your VR jam sessions 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.

The third Paradiddle update is out! This one has a lot of usability fixes and improvements, as well as a few new minor features. Edit: This update was introduced as a beta at first, just like last time, but is now the new default version of the app.

This update builds on some of the features introduced by the previous update, so you might want to read the previous update notes as well if you haven’t done so. Here's what's new in this update:

• Tutorial Skipping: It’s now possible to skip the tutorial! Simply press and hold both of your triggers, and you should see a bar that fills up above the tutorial sign. The tutorial signs and the starting snare drum will go away once the bar fills up.
  
• Global Volume Slider: Added a global volume slider under the Audio tab under Options.
  
• Master Kick Drum System: Introduced a system where there is now a ‘master kick drum’ in every scene. Pressing your trigger (or whichever button you’ve mapped your Trigger Kick action to) will play the sound through that drum. This essentially lets users tweak the sound that plays when they use their trigger; there was no way to do this in previous versions. If there is no kick drum in the scene, pressing your trigger will still play a kick sound, but it’ll just use default drum settings. The master kick drum is the first kick drum that was placed in your environment, if you delete it it’ll be appointed to the next kick drum. You can see it by placing multiple kick drums in the scene, and pressing the trigger to observe which drum is actually triggered.
  
• More Advanced Graphics Settings: Pressing the Graphics button under Options will now pop up a new and more capable Graphics menu. It’s possible to turn on/off certain effects in the app through these new controls, such as the drum hit particle effects, the floating environment particles, and stick trails. If you’re having performance issues with Paradiddle, it’s recommended to play with these to see if you can get a combination that helps. Turning off the drum hit particle effects and lowering the resolution should help with low frame rate in pretty much every situation. If you’d like to see additional or more granular options in here, feel free to let me know!
  
• Fixed a bug where the drum stick trails would disappear on a random drum stick, and wouldn’t re-appear throughout the rest of the play session.
  
• The flying particles in the environment are now hidden if they get too close to the user. No more being freaked out by colorful orbs jumping in front of you while you’re playing!
  
• Fixed a bug where Vive controller buttons weren’t being properly highlighted during the tutorial. The highlights show what button you should press during the different steps of the tutorial.
  
• Fixed a MIDI bug where MIDI notes played by the drums never stopped playing. All MIDI notes triggered by the drums now end after about 2 seconds. I might revisit this to make it configurable by the user somehow, or have a special toggle that’ll let you keep playing the MIDI note you triggered as long as you keep your drum stick inside the drum. Let me know if you have any other ideas on this.
  
• Fixed a MIDI bug where using the trigger to play a MIDI note through the bass drum played both the in-game kick drum sample, and the MIDI note at the same time. The in-game drum audio is now muted automatically when you enable MIDI out on that drum. You can still unmute the drum audio to have the in-app sound play on top of the MIDI note.
  
• Audio output and driver settings, as well as MIDI in/out device settings are now saved and loaded automatically. If the system can’t detect your last used MIDI in/out device when launching, it’ll default to no device.
  
• Made some improvements to how the drum options are positioned on top of the different drums. In addition, scaling a drum will no longer scale your drum options UI up or down.
  
• Separated the in-app audio settings and MIDI settings into their own tabs in the drum options menu. More settings will be added on here in the future!

Those are all the changes introduced by this update! I’d just like to reiterate that I listen to every suggestion or comment that comes my way, and I still have a long list of improvements and new features in front of me. I’m also going to make an exciting new announcement soon, so stay tuned for that!

As always, feel free to let me know or post on the Steam Discussion Forums if you have any other comments or questions. And thanks again for supporting Paradiddle! The user base has already grown a lot and the app has improved considerably since the beginning of Early Access, and this definitely wouldn’t have happened without all your suggestions and help. If you're on Discord, you might want to join the Paradiddle Discord group as well. I'm always active on there, and others in the group are also always willing to help out with questions.

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle

Thank you so much for supporting Paradiddle! If you're enjoying your VR jam sessions 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.

The third Paradiddle update is out! This one has a lot of usability fixes and improvements, as well as a few new minor features. Edit: This update was introduced as a beta at first, just like last time, but is now the new default version of the app.

This update builds on some of the features introduced by the previous update, so you might want to read the previous update notes as well if you haven’t done so. Here's what's new in this update:

• Tutorial Skipping: It’s now possible to skip the tutorial! Simply press and hold both of your triggers, and you should see a bar that fills up above the tutorial sign. The tutorial signs and the starting snare drum will go away once the bar fills up.
  
• Global Volume Slider: Added a global volume slider under the Audio tab under Options.
  
• Master Kick Drum System: Introduced a system where there is now a ‘master kick drum’ in every scene. Pressing your trigger (or whichever button you’ve mapped your Trigger Kick action to) will play the sound through that drum. This essentially lets users tweak the sound that plays when they use their trigger; there was no way to do this in previous versions. If there is no kick drum in the scene, pressing your trigger will still play a kick sound, but it’ll just use default drum settings. The master kick drum is the first kick drum that was placed in your environment, if you delete it it’ll be appointed to the next kick drum. You can see it by placing multiple kick drums in the scene, and pressing the trigger to observe which drum is actually triggered.
  
• More Advanced Graphics Settings: Pressing the Graphics button under Options will now pop up a new and more capable Graphics menu. It’s possible to turn on/off certain effects in the app through these new controls, such as the drum hit particle effects, the floating environment particles, and stick trails. If you’re having performance issues with Paradiddle, it’s recommended to play with these to see if you can get a combination that helps. Turning off the drum hit particle effects and lowering the resolution should help with low frame rate in pretty much every situation. If you’d like to see additional or more granular options in here, feel free to let me know!
  
• Fixed a bug where the drum stick trails would disappear on a random drum stick, and wouldn’t re-appear throughout the rest of the play session.
  
• The flying particles in the environment are now hidden if they get too close to the user. No more being freaked out by colorful orbs jumping in front of you while you’re playing!
  
• Fixed a bug where Vive controller buttons weren’t being properly highlighted during the tutorial. The highlights show what button you should press during the different steps of the tutorial.
  
• Fixed a MIDI bug where MIDI notes played by the drums never stopped playing. All MIDI notes triggered by the drums now end after about 2 seconds. I might revisit this to make it configurable by the user somehow, or have a special toggle that’ll let you keep playing the MIDI note you triggered as long as you keep your drum stick inside the drum. Let me know if you have any other ideas on this.
  
• Fixed a MIDI bug where using the trigger to play a MIDI note through the bass drum played both the in-game kick drum sample, and the MIDI note at the same time. The in-game drum audio is now muted automatically when you enable MIDI out on that drum. You can still unmute the drum audio to have the in-app sound play on top of the MIDI note.
  
• Audio output and driver settings, as well as MIDI in/out device settings are now saved and loaded automatically. If the system can’t detect your last used MIDI in/out device when launching, it’ll default to no device.
  
• Made some improvements to how the drum options are positioned on top of the different drums. In addition, scaling a drum will no longer scale your drum options UI up or down.
  
• Separated the in-app audio settings and MIDI settings into their own tabs in the drum options menu. More settings will be added on here in the future!

Those are all the changes introduced by this update! I’d just like to reiterate that I listen to every suggestion or comment that comes my way, and I still have a long list of improvements and new features in front of me. I’m also going to make an exciting new announcement soon, so stay tuned for that!

As always, feel free to let me know or post on the Steam Discussion Forums if you have any other comments or questions. And thanks again for supporting Paradiddle! The user base has already grown a lot and the app has improved considerably since the beginning of Early Access, and this definitely wouldn’t have happened without all your suggestions and help. If you're on Discord, you might want to join the Paradiddle Discord group as well. I'm always active on there, and others in the group are also always willing to help out with questions.

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle

Thank you so much for supporting Paradiddle! If you're enjoying your time with the app and excited about what's to come, 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.

The second update to Paradiddle is out, and it's a big one! Here's what's new in this update:


This is an exciting new change that'll let you get more out of your drums moving forward in Paradiddle. You'll notice that if you're in the menu mode, every drum now has a button hovering on top of it. Clicking this will reveal the drum sound options, which currently let you change these settings:

• Max Volume
  
• Pitch
  
• MIDI In/Out On/Off Toggle
  
• MIDI Note
  
• MIDI Channel

These settings are saved and loaded with your recordings and drum sets,so you won't have to change them all over again every time you load your sets. Just a heads-up: it's very likely that there'll be visual changes to these buttons (such as how they're positioned), this is just a first-pass at this concept that will be improved upon.


It's finally here! Paradiddle now has support for MIDI in/out.

MIDI Out: MIDI out support lets you send MIDI signals to any audio software that can take in MIDI, letting you use your own samples and apply your own effects to turn Paradiddle into a much more powerful audio creation tool. Each drum has its own default MIDI note and channel that can be customized, and will send proper velocity information based on how hard the drum is hit. Here's how you can set up Paradiddle to send MIDI out and communicate with a digital audio workstation (DAW) like Ableton:

• First, create a loopback MIDI port using something like loopMIDI.
  
• Open your DAW and set it up to accept MIDI and play back your samples.
  
• Now launch Paradiddle, and in the app, go to the Options tab. Under MIDI, select your MIDI output to be the loopback MIDI port you just created.
  
• So now we've set up Paradiddle to send MIDI, but we also need to enable MIDI output for the specific drums we want. Expand the drum sound options by clicking the button hovering over the drum, and click on 'MIDI Out Off' to toggle it to On.
  
• That's it! Now if you play on this drum, it shouldn't create a sound within the app, but should send a MIDI signal (and play a sound through your DAW) instead! You can also change the MIDI note on your drum to change what note gets played on your DAW when that drum is hit.

MIDI In: MIDI in support lets you integrate any peripheral that can send MIDI signals to Paradiddle. This lets you do things like use electronic drum pedals that can send MIDI, and the drum in Paradiddle will sound different based on the incoming velocity. Here's how you can set up Paradiddle to accept MIDI messages from a peripheral like e-drum pedals. For my own testing, I was using the Roland KT-10 Kick Trigger Pedal plugged into the Yamaha DTX502 Drum Module. The drum module was then connected to my PC via USB, and sending MIDI signals to it:

• Launch Paradiddle and go to the Options tab. Under MIDI, select your MIDI Input device to be your peripheral (in the example case above, this would be the DTX502 Drum Module.)
  
• Now Paradiddle will be listening to MIDI input, but we need to set up a drum to accept these messages. For this you need to know what MIDI note your peripheral will be sending. Here's a handy chart that shows these for percussion instruments. From here we see that our drum module will be sending a MIDI note of 36 when we use our pedal to trigger the bass drum.
  
• All of the drums in Paradiddle are already set up to accept MIDI notes that correspond to their type, so the bass drum will already have its MIDI note set to 36. Let's say we want to play the bass drum in Paradiddle using our e-drum pedal. Place a bass drum in your scene, click on the button over the drum to expand the drum sound options. Click on 'MIDI In Off' to toggle it to On.
  
• That's it! You should notice that now when you press on your e-drum pedal, the bass drum will play, properly making use of the velocity information as well. If you wanted another type of drum to play when you hit your pedal, you can do this by enabling MIDI in on that drum, as well as setting its MIDI note to be the incoming MIDI note (36 in our example.)

As I mentioned earlier, the drum options (including the MIDI settings for each drum) are saved/loaded with drum sets and recordings, so you won't have to go through setting the drum options to enable MIDI in/out every time you launch the app. Just create your set the way you want and save that, and load that back whenever.

Limitations: With all of that being said, the current MIDI feature has a few small limitations and I just wanted to give you a heads-up. But don’t worry, all of these will be addressed in additional patches/updates in the near future:

• Global MIDI settings (the MIDI Out/In Device settings) currently aren’t saved, so you’ll currently have to select your MIDI Out/In Device each time you launch Paradiddle. This will be saved in a future update.
  
• There’s currently only one MIDI note per drum, so things like hi-hat openness or hitting the center versus the edges on a ride cymbal won’t change what note gets sent. Again, I’ll fix this in an upcoming update so you can get more note variation out of those drums.
  
• It’s not possible yet to open/close the hi-hat through incoming MIDI messages, but this will also get addressed in a future update.
  
• Right now Paradiddle is set up to accept incoming MIDI signals from all channels.
  
• Outgoing MIDI signals are only sent through one channel, which is the MIDI channel that’s specified on that drum’s settings.

You can now choose the Audio Output Device and Driver that's used by the system. If you go to the Options tab, you’ll see that under Audio, you can set your Output Device and Driver. Currently the two choices for the Audio Output Device are WASAPI (the default for Windows when using Paradiddle) and ASIO, but feel free to let me know if you'd want to see support for any other options as well. I’ve tested this using ASIO and ASIO4All specifically as my output driver, and there might be a slight improvement on latency if you switch over to it. I’d be interested to hear what other benefits you’re all observing or getting, if you prefer to switch over to ASIO.

I also wanted to say another thanks to the community, because I became aware of ASIO and ASIO4All through your posts in the Discussion Forums, and that’s what led to this feature being added. So thanks for being supportive and helping me improve the app even further!

Limitations: The only limitation with this is that the Audio Output Device and Driver settings currently aren’t saved, so you’ll have to set it up again the next time you launch the app. But this will be addressed and fixed in an update soon.


This was another feature that was requested by multiple people on the Discussion Forums. In the Options tab, there’s now a Haptics button that’ll let you tune your haptics intensity. It’s possible to dial it all the way down to 0 if you don’t want any vibrations at all. This setting will get saved, so you won’t have to set it up again the next time you launch Paradiddle. Another slight change that’s related is that the default haptics intensity for the Vive was tuned to be smaller.


Those are all the changes introduced by this update! I’ll share another post soon about what changes you can expect to see soon. Over the next month and a half, I’ll be shifting my focus a little from adding new features, to improving upon existing ones and making some design/quality of life improvements.

As always, feel free to let me know or post on the Steam Discussion Forums if you have any other comments or questions. And thanks for supporting Paradiddle! I'm incredibly excited to see that the Paradiddle community is already rapidly growing, and to see how you're all using the app. If you're on Discord, you might want to join the Paradiddle Discord group as well. I'm always active on there, and others in the group are also always really helpful.

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)

Thank you so much for supporting Paradiddle! If you're enjoying your time with the app and excited about what's to come, 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.

The second update to Paradiddle is out, and it's a big one! Here's what's new in this update:


This is an exciting new change that'll let you get more out of your drums moving forward in Paradiddle. You'll notice that if you're in the menu mode, every drum now has a button hovering on top of it. Clicking this will reveal the drum sound options, which currently let you change these settings:

• Max Volume
  
• Pitch
  
• MIDI In/Out On/Off Toggle
  
• MIDI Note
  
• MIDI Channel

These settings are saved and loaded with your recordings and drum sets,so you won't have to change them all over again every time you load your sets. Just a heads-up: it's very likely that there'll be visual changes to these buttons (such as how they're positioned), this is just a first-pass at this concept that will be improved upon.


It's finally here! Paradiddle now has support for MIDI in/out.

MIDI Out: MIDI out support lets you send MIDI signals to any audio software that can take in MIDI, letting you use your own samples and apply your own effects to turn Paradiddle into a much more powerful audio creation tool. Each drum has its own default MIDI note and channel that can be customized, and will send proper velocity information based on how hard the drum is hit. Here's how you can set up Paradiddle to send MIDI out and communicate with a digital audio workstation (DAW) like Ableton:

• First, create a loopback MIDI port using something like loopMIDI.
  
• Open your DAW and set it up to accept MIDI and play back your samples.
  
• Now launch Paradiddle, and in the app, go to the Options tab. Under MIDI, select your MIDI output to be the loopback MIDI port you just created.
  
• So now we've set up Paradiddle to send MIDI, but we also need to enable MIDI output for the specific drums we want. Expand the drum sound options by clicking the button hovering over the drum, and click on 'MIDI Out Off' to toggle it to On.
  
• That's it! Now if you play on this drum, it shouldn't create a sound within the app, but should send a MIDI signal (and play a sound through your DAW) instead! You can also change the MIDI note on your drum to change what note gets played on your DAW when that drum is hit.

MIDI In: MIDI in support lets you integrate any peripheral that can send MIDI signals to Paradiddle. This lets you do things like use electronic drum pedals that can send MIDI, and the drum in Paradiddle will sound different based on the incoming velocity. Here's how you can set up Paradiddle to accept MIDI messages from a peripheral like e-drum pedals. For my own testing, I was using the Roland KT-10 Kick Trigger Pedal plugged into the Yamaha DTX502 Drum Module. The drum module was then connected to my PC via USB, and sending MIDI signals to it:

• Launch Paradiddle and go to the Options tab. Under MIDI, select your MIDI Input device to be your peripheral (in the example case above, this would be the DTX502 Drum Module.)
  
• Now Paradiddle will be listening to MIDI input, but we need to set up a drum to accept these messages. For this you need to know what MIDI note your peripheral will be sending. Here's a handy chart that shows these for percussion instruments. From here we see that our drum module will be sending a MIDI note of 36 when we use our pedal to trigger the bass drum.
  
• All of the drums in Paradiddle are already set up to accept MIDI notes that correspond to their type, so the bass drum will already have its MIDI note set to 36. Let's say we want to play the bass drum in Paradiddle using our e-drum pedal. Place a bass drum in your scene, click on the button over the drum to expand the drum sound options. Click on 'MIDI In Off' to toggle it to On.
  
• That's it! You should notice that now when you press on your e-drum pedal, the bass drum will play, properly making use of the velocity information as well. If you wanted another type of drum to play when you hit your pedal, you can do this by enabling MIDI in on that drum, as well as setting its MIDI note to be the incoming MIDI note (36 in our example.)

As I mentioned earlier, the drum options (including the MIDI settings for each drum) are saved/loaded with drum sets and recordings, so you won't have to go through setting the drum options to enable MIDI in/out every time you launch the app. Just create your set the way you want and save that, and load that back whenever.

Limitations: With all of that being said, the current MIDI feature has a few small limitations and I just wanted to give you a heads-up. But don’t worry, all of these will be addressed in additional patches/updates in the near future:

• Global MIDI settings (the MIDI Out/In Device settings) currently aren’t saved, so you’ll currently have to select your MIDI Out/In Device each time you launch Paradiddle. This will be saved in a future update.
  
• There’s currently only one MIDI note per drum, so things like hi-hat openness or hitting the center versus the edges on a ride cymbal won’t change what note gets sent. Again, I’ll fix this in an upcoming update so you can get more note variation out of those drums.
  
• It’s not possible yet to open/close the hi-hat through incoming MIDI messages, but this will also get addressed in a future update.
  
• Right now Paradiddle is set up to accept incoming MIDI signals from all channels.
  
• Outgoing MIDI signals are only sent through one channel, which is the MIDI channel that’s specified on that drum’s settings.

You can now choose the Audio Output Device and Driver that's used by the system. If you go to the Options tab, you’ll see that under Audio, you can set your Output Device and Driver. Currently the two choices for the Audio Output Device are WASAPI (the default for Windows when using Paradiddle) and ASIO, but feel free to let me know if you'd want to see support for any other options as well. I’ve tested this using ASIO and ASIO4All specifically as my output driver, and there might be a slight improvement on latency if you switch over to it. I’d be interested to hear what other benefits you’re all observing or getting, if you prefer to switch over to ASIO.

I also wanted to say another thanks to the community, because I became aware of ASIO and ASIO4All through your posts in the Discussion Forums, and that’s what led to this feature being added. So thanks for being supportive and helping me improve the app even further!

Limitations: The only limitation with this is that the Audio Output Device and Driver settings currently aren’t saved, so you’ll have to set it up again the next time you launch the app. But this will be addressed and fixed in an update soon.


This was another feature that was requested by multiple people on the Discussion Forums. In the Options tab, there’s now a Haptics button that’ll let you tune your haptics intensity. It’s possible to dial it all the way down to 0 if you don’t want any vibrations at all. This setting will get saved, so you won’t have to set it up again the next time you launch Paradiddle. Another slight change that’s related is that the default haptics intensity for the Vive was tuned to be smaller.


Those are all the changes introduced by this update! I’ll share another post soon about what changes you can expect to see soon. Over the next month and a half, I’ll be shifting my focus a little from adding new features, to improving upon existing ones and making some design/quality of life improvements.

As always, feel free to let me know or post on the Steam Discussion Forums if you have any other comments or questions. And thanks for supporting Paradiddle! I'm incredibly excited to see that the Paradiddle community is already rapidly growing, and to see how you're all using the app. If you're on Discord, you might want to join the Paradiddle Discord group as well. I'm always active on there, and others in the group are also always really helpful.

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle
Join us on Discord!: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)

Here's an update on what's coming next to Paradiddle. Some of these were slated for a late November release, but as features kept getting added this ended up taking a lot more time overall to manage the new complexity. Hopefully you won't mind hanging in there for a little longer - I've already implemented all of this, but am just doing additional testing until I can make sure it's ready to be released. This update will be going out some time in January.


I'm extremely excited to announce that MIDI In/Out support will be in the next update for Paradiddle! MIDI out support lets you send MIDI signals to any audio software that can take in MIDI, letting them use your own samples and apply your own effects to turn Paradiddle into a much more powerful audio creation tool. Each drum will have its own default MIDI note and channel that can be customized, and will send proper velocity information based on how hard the drum is hit.

MIDI in support will let you integrate any peripheral that can send MIDI signals to Paradiddle. This lets you do things like use electronic drum pedals that can send MIDI, and the drum will sound different based on the incoming velocity.

This has already been implemented, but I'm currently doing more testing to make sure I iron out some of the kinks. However based on my testing so far, it's been very satisfying to finally use Paradiddle with an e-drum kick pedal and trigger some fun samples in Ableton!


Several of you have asked for ASIO support on the Discussion forums, and this will be in the next update as well. Users will be able to choose the Audio Output Device and Driver that's used by the system. Currently the two choices for the Audio Output Device are WASAPI (the default for Windows when using Paradiddle) and ASIO, but feel free to let me know if you'd want to see support for any other options as well.

I've done some preliminary testing with this, and I haven't seen a noticeable difference in latency between WASAPI and ASIO, but I understand that the ASIO settings can be tuned even further on the user's end. So after the next update it'll be interesting to hear how many of you can hear a noticeable difference in latency.


As I mentioned earlier, users will now be able to use additional pedals such as e-drum pedals through MIDI in. The way I'm currently doing this is by having an e-drum kick pedal going to a drum module, which is then connected to the PC. However, I've seen a few of you ask whether you could directly connect your pedal to the PC, or through an audio interface. Support for this will also be in the next release.


On top of these big features, the next update will also introduce some basic drum sound controls, such as controlling the max volume and the pitch of a drum. If you have any requests for what additional controls you'd like to see for drum sounds, feel free to let me know!

As always, if you have any comments, requests or feedback, you can post in the discussion forums or email hello@paradiddleapp.com.

- Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)

Here's an update on what's coming next to Paradiddle. Some of these were slated for a late November release, but as features kept getting added this ended up taking a lot more time overall to manage the new complexity. Hopefully you won't mind hanging in there for a little longer - I've already implemented all of this, but am just doing additional testing until I can make sure it's ready to be released. This update will be going out some time in January.


I'm extremely excited to announce that MIDI In/Out support will be in the next update for Paradiddle! MIDI out support lets you send MIDI signals to any audio software that can take in MIDI, letting them use your own samples and apply your own effects to turn Paradiddle into a much more powerful audio creation tool. Each drum will have its own default MIDI note and channel that can be customized, and will send proper velocity information based on how hard the drum is hit.

MIDI in support will let you integrate any peripheral that can send MIDI signals to Paradiddle. This lets you do things like use electronic drum pedals that can send MIDI, and the drum will sound different based on the incoming velocity.

This has already been implemented, but I'm currently doing more testing to make sure I iron out some of the kinks. However based on my testing so far, it's been very satisfying to finally use Paradiddle with an e-drum kick pedal and trigger some fun samples in Ableton!


Several of you have asked for ASIO support on the Discussion forums, and this will be in the next update as well. Users will be able to choose the Audio Output Device and Driver that's used by the system. Currently the two choices for the Audio Output Device are WASAPI (the default for Windows when using Paradiddle) and ASIO, but feel free to let me know if you'd want to see support for any other options as well.

I've done some preliminary testing with this, and I haven't seen a noticeable difference in latency between WASAPI and ASIO, but I understand that the ASIO settings can be tuned even further on the user's end. So after the next update it'll be interesting to hear how many of you can hear a noticeable difference in latency.


As I mentioned earlier, users will now be able to use additional pedals such as e-drum pedals through MIDI in. The way I'm currently doing this is by having an e-drum kick pedal going to a drum module, which is then connected to the PC. However, I've seen a few of you ask whether you could directly connect your pedal to the PC, or through an audio interface. Support for this will also be in the next release.


On top of these big features, the next update will also introduce some basic drum sound controls, such as controlling the max volume and the pitch of a drum. If you have any requests for what additional controls you'd like to see for drum sounds, feel free to let me know!

As always, if you have any comments, requests or feedback, you can post in the discussion forums or email hello@paradiddleapp.com.

- Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)

The first update to Paradiddle is out! Here's what's new:

It's finally here! You can now customize your controls to your own liking in Paradiddle. Simply click on the Controls button in the Options tab to pull up the controls menu. This will show you all the buttons you can remap and what action they're currently mapped to.

Here are all the buttons you can remap:

• Right Trigger
  
• Left Trigger
  
• Right Grip
  
• Left Grip
  
• (Oculus Touch only) A, B, X and Y buttons
  
• Keyboard, or peripheral emulating keyboard: Ctrl and Space

To customize an input, click on the teal button under the name of the input and bring up the actions you can remap to. These are currently:

• Trigger Kick
  
• Open Hi-Hat: Pressing the button will open the hi-hat, and releasing it will close it. The hi-hat will stay closed in its resting state.
  
• Close Hi-Hat: The exact opposite of the open action. The hi-hat will stay open in its resting state.

Your input mappings will be saved automatically as soon as you change them, and will be loaded back the next time you launch Paradiddle. If you want to reset to the default input mapping, you can simply use the Reset Defaults button in the Controls menu. If you have any suggestions on what other actions you'd like to be able to perform using your buttons (such as a record/stop recording action), I'm always happy to hear suggestions!

• Fixed an audio format bug that played back the drum samples in a surround sound format instead of stereo. This should lead to better sounding audio samples overall.
  
• Fixed a bug where the app launched in full screen mode on the Vive, even though it wasn't supposed to. When you launch the app on Vive you might notice a brief flicker where the app goes from full screen to windowed. Hopefully this isn't too distracting right now, this should probably get fixed soon.
  
• Fixed a bug where the graphics setting wasn't getting saved and loaded back across sessions. I'm looking into a separate issue where it seems like the graphics setting isn't making much of a difference on the Oculus.

• A popular community request seems to be support for more professional pedals such as e-drum pedals, so over the upcoming weeks I'll be experimenting with these and adding support for them.
  
• The current plan for November also includes MIDI out support, and individual drum controls (such adjusting pitch, max volume, MIDI out note).

Thank you so much for your support so far! I'm really happy to hear that people have been enjoying their time in Paradiddle during this first week, and I'm very excited to shape the future of this app throughout Early Access with the help of your feedback. If you have the time, reviewing the app would be extremely helpful on the path to grow the Paradiddle community, and to let people know that my goal is to make the most user-friendly, flexible and responsive VR drumming tool out there for first time drummers and drumming enthusiasts alike.

As always, feel free to let me know if you have any other comments or questions.

Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Reddit: http://reddit.com/r/paradiddle
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/wjHnTVr
Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!)