Hi everyone! We've got a quality of life patch out today that fixes some of the issues we've been tracking since our 2D Mode release and big UE5 update. The 2D mode users will especially be happy that we finally have keybinds available for all the drums! We're also releasing a we
Hi everyone! We've got a quality of life patch out today that fixes some of the issues we've been tracking since our 2D Mode release and big UE5 update. The 2D mode users will especially be happy that we finally have keybinds available for all the drums! We're also releasing a web version of our PD song converter, that's a lot more accessible than having to download the app on each platform. Keep reading for a full list of what's new and fixed:
Just like the standalone song converter, you can select your midi files, audio tracks, and midi to drum mapping file, and export songs in the .rlrr format.
The web converter includes a song timeline preview, where you can see all of song notes or your raw midi notes before export, and hear your audio tracks in sync with drum samples that play along with your notes. Just as a quick note, the standalone song converter also has a new song timeline since its last update.
Some other quality of features that are on the web version only: a 3d drum kit preview that's fun to look at, and the ability to change your midi to drum note mapping inside the converter itself.
One limitation to note: the web tool only handles song conversions. It does not support the midi input/output over the network functionality that the downloadable PDUtils app can - you'll still need the standalone app for that.
Let us know if you run into any issues or have suggestions for improvements!
2D Mode Updates
You can now rebind your keys in the controls menu to your keyboard, gamepad, or mouse keys.
Added keybinds for an additional crash and ride cymbal that are often used in songs.
Added a frame rate cap of 120 fps.
Multiplayer Fixes
Fixed the lighting being too dark in multiplayer rooms following the UE5 update.
Fixed unintentional debug spheres appearing at the tips of drum sticks in multiplayer sessions on PC.
Fixed DLC song artwork not showing up on the client side when the room host starts a song.
Fixed the cymbals of other players not animating on the room host's session.
Fixed the cymbal choke spheres being different sizes on different hands.
Other Fixes & Improvements
Fixed the LIV mixed reality plugin not working after our previous UE5 update. Let us know if you're still having issues!
Haptics on Quest headsets on PC: fixed Quest haptics not feeling as strong if you launch the app in OpenXR mode. Note that you'll still need to be using Meta Link as your active OpenXR runtime to take advantage of the higher quality haptics. We're currently investigating reports from some non-Meta headset users who seem to notice weaker haptics as well as having to hit drums harder to make loud hits.
The Paradiddle original soundtrack is back up on Spotify and other music streaming platforms - thanks to those of you who let us know!
Achievements: cleaned up all the extra achievements for songs that didn't have that difficulty level available.
King Gizzard pack gecko map: fixed the visualizer triangle sometimes getting initialized in a glitchy state.
Visual fixes to the newly added DLC pages in the songs tab.
Fixed some issues that could result in crashes in multiplayer sessions when players were starting a song, or hitting the first note. Let us know if you continue to have any issues during multiplayer sessions.
Fixed some issues that could result in crashes in multiplayer sessions when players were starting a song, or hitting the first note. Let us know if you continue to have any issues during multiplayer sessions.
Hi all, it's been a while! We're excited to finally release this big update that's been in the works for the majority of 2025. Because of some of the infrastructural changes, we initially had it in beta for the past couple of months as we worked out the issues you reported. The 2
Hi all, it's been a while!
We're excited to finally release this big update that's been in the works for the majority of 2025. Because of some of the infrastructural changes, we initially had it in beta for the past couple of months as we worked out the issues you reported. The 2 major new additions are modding support, and a new 2D/flat-screen mode on PC. The app has also gone through an engine upgrade to Unreal Engine 5, though you should ideally not notice much of a difference - in fact you might notice some of our performance optimizations. The engine upgrade will make it easier for us to keep updating the app with the latest XR platform features moving forward.
As always, you can switch back to the earlier version of the app if you run into any issues. To roll back to the previous version, right click Paradiddle -> Betas -> Select "previous" on Steam, or click the "..." icon on the app in your app library, go to Settings -> Release Channels and select "Previous Version" on Quest.
Modding Support
This has been a big task we've been working on for a while: we're excited to announce that mods are now supported both on Quest and Steam! You can drop them into sdcard/Paradiddle/Mods on Quest, or Documents/Paradiddle/Mods on PC.
You can make custom environments, drums, hook into core app events such as notes being played in songs or drums being hit, make UIs for your mod that users can interact with.
You'll need the Paradiddle Mod Kit to make mods using Unreal Engine 5.4. You can find the mod kit and instructions here: https://github.com/kasapoli/ParadiddleWorkshop. Keep in mind that we're still updating the documentation and will be clarifying more details as we take your questions about the process.
Here's a 'backrooms' inspired map that one of our community members, Moth, has been working on:
We're currently uploading some video content walking you through modding basics, and will be updating this post, as well as posting them on our Discord, as soon as they're up.
(Beta) 2D Mode
This has been another major undertaking that's now in beta state: when you launch the app, you can now select the "Launch Paradiddle in 2D Mode" option to launch into flat screen mode.
You should be able to launch songs, play with any of the app or song settings, and change drum settings by clicking on a drum on your kit. Midi input automatically will be enabled on all your drums, so if you have an e-kit all you need to do is to select your drum kit under Options -> Midi.
You can also use keyboard controls to trigger the different drums in the standard set, and play the app like a rhythm game just with your keyboard.
We're still working through some positioning and usability issues in 2D mode, and trying to get a better sense of what you'd like to see improved or fixed first. Feel free to give us your feedback on the #suggestions and #bug-reports forum channels on our Discord!
We've added new DLC specific song pages with info about our song packs, where you can now purchase the packs directly in the app on Quest.
The DLC songs will now display in their dedicated menu tabs after the download is finished.
We've also made DLC downloads more reliable overall on Quest, and added a % download progress bar in the dedicated DLC page.
MIDI Input Over Network on Quest
The latest version of the companion app can send midi messages from your PC to your Quest. This should let you do things like connect your e-drum kit or other midi instrument to your PC, and send the midi messages to your Quest over the network without having to plug it in directly to your Quest.
PD Song Creator + Companion App Updates
The latest release of the song creator now has a song display feature that can show you what your raw midi notes look like, and what the result of the conversion will look like.
You can now select a preview audio track for your converted song.
Made quality of life improvements to make it easier to catch conversion issues before they happen, such as showing the number of midi notes in your selected midi file and track, as well as how many notes will be present in the converted song file.
The companion app will now let you know if there's a newer version available.
We're also considering making a web version of the song converter, so let us know if you'd find this useful or if you have any suggestions.
Unreal Engine 5 Upgrade
The app now supports OpenXR by default, which should in theory make it easier to support different types of headsets and controllers on Steam. Let us know if you notice any different/broken behavior on your headsets that you hadn't notice before, and we'll take a look.
Performance Optimizations
We've made several GPU & CPU optimizations across the board. Some of this work was offset by our upgrade to UE5, as certain cheaper to use engine features have been deprecated, however you should still see a net performance gain compared to the previous version of the app.
Decreased default CPU usage by about 20-30% in all scenes of the app.
Enabled dynamic resolution on Quest. This might give you better resolution than before in some cases, and will also help with temporary frame rate dips, especially in more complex songs.
Other Fixes
Fixed a bug where you couldn't grab and move the note highway in the Galaxy map.
Fixed a bug where the midi learn buttons on drums were listening to any midi event, rather than filtering by midi 'note on' events.
Fixed the recenter button not working on PC and brought it back to the toolbar under the menu.
Fixed an issue where some custom song album art would appear with wrong colors, or with a color tint.
Known Issues
If you play the new version, and switch back to the prev_version branch on Steam, there is a chance the older version won't be able to properly recognize your save file due to the engine upgrade. If you run into any unexpected behavior, you can try deleting your Saved folder under C:/User//AppData/Local/Paradiddle/Saved.
We released a patch today that fixes a few issues that have been brought up since the December updates: Fixed custom songs crashing due to special characters in the file/folder name. Improved how really long (over an hour) audio files are handled when loading an audio file from t
We released a patch today that fixes a few issues that have been brought up since the December updates:
Fixed custom songs crashing due to special characters in the file/folder name.
Improved how really long (over an hour) audio files are handled when loading an audio file from the file menu. This issue didn't impact songs on the note highway, but only the ones loaded from the file menu. Any app freezes or crashes caused by this issue should now be fixed.
(Quest hand tracking branch only) Fixed recentering messing up the hand ray position and orientation.
(Quest hand tracking branch only) Fixed the menu getting stuck to the hand when closing the app and relaunching it with hand tracking on.
Happy Holidays everyone! As some of you may have already seen, we launched a new song pack and a regular update for Paradiddle last week, so here's a more detailed look at what's new. We're beyond excited to announce the launch of the Avenged Sevenfold Song Pack for Paradiddle on
Happy Holidays everyone! As some of you may have already seen, we launched a new song pack and a regular update for Paradiddle last week, so here's a more detailed look at what's new.
We're beyond excited to announce the launch of the Avenged Sevenfold Song Pack for Paradiddle on Meta Quest and Steam! Known for blending metalcore, hard rock, and progressive elements with their powerful melodies and intricate guitar work, the legendary Avenged Sevenfold arrives to Paradiddle as its 2nd song pack, following the King Gizzard song pack we had earlier this year.
Take a tour through Avenged Sevenfold's discography with 6 songs in multiple difficulty levels, and a variety of exclusive content: a new environment, 2 new drum skins and a new pair of sticks. Lose yourself in the cosmos and dive into the band's ever-evolving sound as your surroundings react differently to each of the 6 songs.
🎶 (Beta Release) Notation Updates: Sheet music view for highway songs:
You can now play any song by following drum notation instead of seeing the highway! You can activate the notation view from the song settings, in the Highway Layout section.
The system includes options such as separating hand and feet hits, or separating drum and cymbal hits. You can have the note colors match your drum colors to enhance readability or disable it for more realism.
Since we don’t have the actual sheet music for any given song, the system does its best to figure out what the notation representation should look like. If you have any suggestions on improvements or can point us to examples in songs where a given section doesn’t seem to make sense, that’d be a huge help for us in improving this system.
🥽 (Quest-Only) New E-Kit Toggle and MR Drum Improvements:
We have completely reworked the MR drum mode where you can connect your electronic and/or acoustic kits to play Paradiddle.
Instead of individual MR toggles for each drum, there's now a global "E-Kit" toggle you can find in the menu toolbar.
MR drums are now compatible with lessons.
We also have a new drum substitution system for MR kits: if a song uses a drum your real kit doesn't have, the app will do its best to substitute it with one that's close enough (so a missing Floor Tom might be mapped to your existing Tom 2, for instance).
We're still looking for ways to improve our MR drum system, so please let us know if you're running into any frustrations with setup.
🤏 (Quest-Only) Hand Tracking UI Branch
On Quest, you can now switch to the "Hand Tracking" release channel to enable hand tracking for UI interactions. This is mostly useful for those of you using the app with a real drum kit, as you now won't have to constantly switch between your real sticks and controllers. We didn't want this to be on a separate release channel, however had to go with this approach to minimize accidental controller -> hand switching for players using virtual drums as there's no way for apps to turn hand tracking on/off as they're running. The controls are similar to standard hand tracking controls you'd see on Quest: you can click by pinching, and bring up the menu by doing the system gesture (look at your palm, touch your index finger and thumb) on your left hand.
Feedback, reviews and artist suggestions appreciated!
Please let us know if you have any feedback on the new song pack and updates, either good or bad. Do you have any suggestions for artists we should collab with? Let us know!
If you're able to leave a review on the either the app or song pack, that would also be greatly appreciated. We want to make sure we can get the word out about the song packs to as many people as possible!
Enjoy, and thanks for your continued support throughout 2024!
Hey everyone! While we’re actively working on offering more features inside Paradiddle such as a more improved notation system and a 2-D mode, we’ve also been working on adding different types of content to the app that we hope the community will enjoy. We’ll be launching several
Hey everyone! While we’re actively working on offering more features inside Paradiddle such as a more improved notation system and a 2-D mode, we’ve also been working on adding different types of content to the app that we hope the community will enjoy.
We’ll be launching several artist pack DLCs throughout 2024 that bundle songs from some of our favorite artists with exclusive visuals (typically environments, drum skins and sticks) inspired by the band’s sound and style. I'm super excited to announce our first one: Known for their prolific output and genre-defying sound, the Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is the first artist to arrive to Paradiddle in a song pack! The pack is now available for purchase on Steam and the Quest Store (in the add-ons section of the store page).
We hope that you'll enjoy the long and awesome 5 new songs in our newest Gecko Ruins environment, and show off your new drum and stick skins to your friends in multiplayer. We’re excited to watch the leaderboard spots get heated as these new songs surely test your drumming endurance!
Feedback, reviews and artist suggestions appreciated!
Please let us know if you have any feedback on the new content - good or bad. This is our first song pack and we already have a few more in the works, so any feedback will help us make sure the upcoming song packs are as good as they can be. Do you have any suggestions for artists we should collab with? Let us know!
If you're able to leave a review on the DLC's Steam page or the main app on Quest, that would also be greatly appreciated. We want to make sure we can get the word out about the DLC to as many people as possible!
DLC Patch Soon
The song pack is currently in a stable state, but we are working on a patch right now where we'll fix some impossible, incorrect or missing notes in a few songs that we noticed. You've probably noticed that The Dripping Tap currently only has Expert, and a 2 of the songs are missing the Easy difficulty. On this upcoming patch we'll add the remaining difficulties for all songs so that all 5 songs have Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert difficulties. We'll also be making some visual adjustments to the new map and UI based on the feedback we've received.
Hey everyone! Hope everyone's been enjoying the latest update with custom songs in multiplayer and our recently added loopable song checkpoints. We just pushed a quick hotfix to address a few issues that popped up since our May update last week. Now that things are a bit more sta
Hey everyone! Hope everyone's been enjoying the latest update with custom songs in multiplayer and our recently added loopable song checkpoints. We just pushed a quick hotfix to address a few issues that popped up since our May update last week. Now that things are a bit more stable with this update, we've also closed the beta branch and moved everything new to be the default/live version.
Here's what's fixed:
Fixed the app crashing when loading any recording from File -> Load Recording.
Fixed a long-standing bug with the Right Grip button that prevented it from being used for the kick/hi-hat if a song was open.
Fixed non-hi-hat e-drum pads not registering as successful hits on the note highway, even though they're detected in the app.
Fixed a slider bug where the +/- buttons could be used to get to slider values beyond the minimum and maximum defined.
Fixed the song speed being adjusted to 100x the value that was set, if it was set using the +/- buttons.
Fixed the song speed slider not resetting properly across songs.
Thanks for catching these and reporting them on the Discord, we were able to get them fixed quickly thanks to your help.
Hey everyone! It's been a little while since our last update, but rest assured that we've been busy working on various feature requests and content additions that will be released throughout the rest of 2024. This May update finally adds some highly requested features to the app,
Hey everyone!
It's been a little while since our last update, but rest assured that we've been busy working on various feature requests and content additions that will be released throughout the rest of 2024. This May update finally adds some highly requested features to the app, so we're excited to finally get it out there!
Here's what's new:
Custom Song Support in Multiplayer
You've all been asking about this since we first launched multiplayer support, so we finally delivered! Get ready to rock out with your friends to your favorite songs. You'll now be able to play custom songs with others in a multiplayer room if you all have the same custom songs preinstalled on your system.
Note: If you switch to the beta branch to test this, you won't be able to join multiplayer sessions with players who aren't on the beta yet.
Looping Checkpoints in Songs
Practice makes perfect! Set checkpoints in your songs and loop between them to hone your skills on specific sections. This was another highly requested feature that we're excited to finally release to you all. You can simply grab the checkpoint handles under the song timeline to set start and end times for your practice section.
Timeline Section Support in Songs
The song UI can now display predefined sections that you can easily navigate to, making practicing a challenging chorus or verse easier. While the built-in Paradiddle tracks currently don't have sections defined, you'll start seeing these pop up on some of the upcoming songs we'll be releasing as part of our DLCs. If you're a custom song creator, you can use the "bookmarks" field in the song format to define these sections in your songs by giving it a timestamp and name. Here's an example: "bookmarks": [ { "name": "Chorus", "jumpPoint": true, "time": 70.0 } ]
Other Changes
Thumbstick Swipe Navigation Toggle:If you have thumbstick drift issues on your VR controllers, we have you covered! We've added a toggle to turn off thumbstick swipe navigation in the Controls tab.
VR-Mirror Window Jitter Fix: We've finally addressed a nasty VR-mirror window jitter problem that some PC VR players encountered.
Extended Song Length Support: We've increased the maximum supported song length to a whopping 10 hours from 30 minutes, so you can drum to your heart's content.
What's Next
This update is just part of what we've been working on throughout 2024. We're planning on releasing another update by the end of May focused on a completely new music notation system. In addition, we'll also be announcing our first DLC artist pack at the beginning of June. (We'll most likely drop some teasers soon, but if you can guess the artist ahead of time, we'll send you some Paradiddle merch!)
We're committed to delivering the best VR/AR drumming experience possible, and your feedback plays a crucial role in shaping Paradiddle's future. Share your thoughts with us on Discord, Reddit, or use our Canny board to submit, see and vote on bug reports and suggestions for the app. We're always listening!
And if you're enjoying Paradiddle, please consider taking a few minutes to leave a rating or review on Steam or the Quest Store. Your reviews go a long way in proving the app's capabilities to the rest of the VR community.
Hi everyone! It has now been a month since our November 'big update' & official Quest Store launch and first of all, a huge thank you for all of your feedback and warm reception so far. We're excited to release the first update for Paradiddle post the November release, which
Hi everyone! It has now been a month since our November 'big update' & official Quest Store launch and first of all, a huge thank you for all of your feedback and warm reception so far. We're excited to release the first update for Paradiddle post the November release, which brings various major quality of life improvements and fixes:
Haptics improvements for Quest headsets (on both PC and standalone Quest versions): We thought the haptic effects on Quest headsets were too weak until now, so we completely reworked them. You should feel the clearest difference on Quest 3, however you'll feel stronger haptics on other Quest headsets as well. As always, you can tune the intensity of the haptics under Options -> General -> Haptics Intensity. Let us know how you think they compare to the haptics before this update!
Fixed multiplayer cross-play issues where Steam and standalone Quest users would be kicked out when joining each others' rooms. This should now be fixed, however let us know on the #multiplayer channel on the Discord if you still run into issues.
While using the Fixed Menu Mode setting, your menu will now remain where you placed it until you switch maps or quit the app.
Tweaked some cymbal volume levels so they're a bit louder relative to the other instruments - we might keep tuning these in future updates.
Fixed Friend Leaderboards not showing any entries from friends.
Fixed a UI bug that was always showing player local high scores as 0 in the song menus. These were actually being saved all along, so you shouldn't have lost any of your locally saved high scores.
Fixed Rock Band pedal input not working in the app.
Fixed an issue where the correct audio output device wasn't loaded properly in a new session if the user had switched it in a previous session.
Quest Standalone Version Only:
These changes only affect the Quest Store version of the app, however we're including them here just in case for any Quest players who own the app both on Steam and Quest.
Graphics improvements on Quest 3: Increased default render resolution and made the foveated rendering level less aggressive. If you were used to the Low-Medium-High VR resolution options in the previous versions of the app, we're now essentially running the app on the High mode by default on Quest 3.
Brought back access to the sdcard/Paradiddle folder for custom songs, audio files, PDF files and recordings. The first time you launch the app, you'll now see a "Manage All Files" permission dialog pop up. This is an Android system-level change that we now have to accommodate - you'll need to enable this permission for the app to be able to use the sdcard/Paradiddle folder again. If you skip it the first time, you can always access this permission again under Options -> File -> Manage Folder Permissions. Note: Paradiddle will only access the sdcard/Paradiddle folder as it did before. If you don't want to give this permission, the sdcard/Android/data/com.tanirganemre.paradiddle/files/Songs/ path will continue working as before.
MR mode improvements: If you're using a kit with MR features turned on (to use them with a real life kit), they'll now be autosaved/autoloaded in the same spot in the real world. Added some notifications to let users know their drums will be locked to the real world if they enable MR on a drum.
Fixed PDFs not being loaded properly on Quest.
We're always listening to your feedback on Discord, our Canny Board, Reddit, and over email. We have lots of exciting developments planned for next year that we'll share more about within the next few weeks. Until then, happy holidays and happy drumming!
And finally, if you're enjoying your time in the app and wouldn't mind spending a few minutes to leave a rating or review, that would be greatly appreciated :)
Big update day! We couldn't be happier to finally bring Paradiddle to the official Meta Quest Store , with a huge new update on both PC and Quest. Let's take a look at what's new: Multiplayer You can now play Paradiddle with your friends, with up to 4 players in a room! Joining i
Big update day! We couldn't be happier to finally bring Paradiddle to the official Meta Quest Store, with a huge new update on both PC and Quest. Let's take a look at what's new:
Multiplayer
You can now play Paradiddle with your friends, with up to 4 players in a room! Joining is by room code only right now, but we'll make this easier in future updates with improvements such as direct invites on Quest.
Each room automatically has voice chat enabled, with voice controls for each player. The main 2 ways of playing are:
Co-op Note Highway Play
You can play any built-in song in-sync with other players, and compare your scores at the end. Time to settle who's the best drummer in the group!
Custom songs not supported right now, but we're working on it. Let us know if you'd be excited about having custom songs supported in multiplayer :)
Free Play
When not playing a song on the highway, each person in the room can hear the others' drums freely. We're hoping this'll pave the way for some fun virtual performances, remote teaching sessions, or just the best type of absolute chaos where everyone is banging on their drum fortresses.
Keep in mind that networked audio latency isn't quite good enough to play in sync with others freely, so it's tricky get a 4 person jam session going where everyone's playing at the same time. However as you'll find out, it's still quite fun to show off your skills freely to the others in the room!
MIDI improvements and MIDI Input/Output Support on Native Quest Version
MIDI Monitor: We added a MIDI Monitor under the MIDI tab in Options where you can see the last MIDI message that was received by the app. This should make it easier to spot any MIDI connection or message issues without having to rely on another program to inspect incoming messages.
MIDI Learn Button: Each drum now has a "Learn" button under its MIDI settings. Simply click the button, and hit the MIDI e-drum pad or pedal you'd like to use for that drum, and its MIDI settings will be automatically set.
(Quest native version only) Midi input on Quest over USB: You can now plug in your MIDI device and have it be detected automatically by the app on Quest. Easy!
(Quest native version only) Midi output over network: Using our updated Paradiddle Companion App, you can now have your Quest send MIDI messages over the network to your PC. After quite a bit of testing, we can confirm that in most cases you'll get lower audio latency with this setup compared to the default audio latency of the Quest. So if you wish your drums were just a bit more responsive in terms of the audio delay, and have a PC, give this a try! You can also change the sounds of all your drums this way, since it's now possible to connect the Quest version to a DAW such as Ableton or Superior Drummer.
New Songs
We've almost doubled the number of songs in the app, bringing it to a total of 30! Out of the new 14 songs, we have 7 new original songs from the one and only ElNeax, as well as 7 new licensed indie songs belonging to a variety of genres. Let us know what your favorites are out of the new songs!
New Instruments
We've added several new instruments:
New mallet instruments like the steel drum, hand pans (hapi drums) - these were actually started from community requests!
Players on the native Quest Store version can now see the note highway represented on top of their real, physical drums in mixed reality. Electronic drums are preferred for the best type of integration where the app can also detect when your real drums were hit, however acoustic drums will also work for a visual overlay.
Paradiddle Companion App
https://github.com/emretanirgan/ParadiddleUtilities/releases/latest We're now renaming the Paradiddle Song Converter as the Paradiddle Companion App since it does more than converting songs now! The MIDI companion allows you to connect to your Quest and send MIDI messages to your PC over the network.
We're looking into Mac and Linux builds for the companion app.
The MIDI messages are one-way currently (from Quest to PC) however we already have the other way working, so we'll have an update soon that makes the MIDI traffic two-way.
Big thanks to Primitive for their help in refactoring the companion app repository on GitHub!
Song Format Updates
We've updated the Paradiddle song format to be lighterweight and more flexible when it comes to different types of music.
New metadata file: Each song can now have a lighterweight "info.rlrr" metadata file that only contains meta information such as the title, and the file names for the different difficulties.
Time signatures are now supported in song files.
Song-mapper defined bookmarks and jump points are now supported in song files. We'll add a visual representation of these on the app side soon, where players will be able to jump to predefined or self-defined points on the song timeline easily.
Thanks a lot to CANADan and anonymousthing for the feedback on this!
Other Updates and Improvements
Kit rotation: While grabbing your whole kit, you can now rotate it by using your right thumbstick left-right axis.
Added a zoom setting to the camera menu.
Added individual audio level controls for Environment and UI sounds.
Added more accessibility options for the note highway under General:
Latency slider: You can now change the visual latency of the notes on the highway relative to the audio.
Auto kick: The song will trigger the kick notes automatically without affecting your score.
Mute drums on miss: By default, a missed note lowers the drum track audio for a song if it has one. You can now turn this off if you'd like.
Removed some settings on the menu that were PC-specific.
Fixes to various bugs reported on our Canny board.
Various performance improvements to particle effects, menu rendering optimizations.
More Coming!
Long time supporters of the app already know, but we're always listening for your feedback and we have no plans to stop improving Paradiddle further. We'll do a follow-up post in a few days that goes over some of our future roadmap, as well as any currently known issues that pop up with the new release.
You can use our Canny board to submit, see and vote on bug reports and suggestions for the app! https://paradiddle.canny.io/
And finally, if you're enjoying your time in the app and wouldn't mind spending a few minutes to leave a rating or review, that would be greatly appreciated :)
Happy Holidays everyone! While we're working on some new features and content updates (including some fun new instruments we're going to be teasing on the Discord soon!), we wanted to release a patch that addresses some of your most important bug reports and complaints, along wit
Happy Holidays everyone!
While we're working on some new features and content updates (including some fun new instruments we're going to be teasing on the Discord soon!), we wanted to release a patch that addresses some of your most important bug reports and complaints, along with some other minor fixes.
Just a reminder that if you run into any issues on this patch, you can always roll back to the previous version of the app by right clicking Paradiddle, going to Properties -> Betas and selecting prev_version.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where users could accidentally start a lesson even without the lesson menu visible.
Fixed a scary bug where the sticks would become unresponsive and would not register any drum hits until deleting the save file.
Fixed the lesson text getting hidden behind the full drum kit in the 2 drum fill lessons (drum fill intro & drum fill exercises).
Fixed a drum material bug where certain song and kit files would load with drums that looked inside out/see-through.
Fixed a bug where the song speed setting would not take effect if it was adjusted prior to starting the song.
Fixed the song tempo lines getting off-sync in certain edge cases that involved pausing/rewinding/fast forwarding or frequent tempo changes that could happen in the middle of a beat.
Fixed a bug where the kick drum wouldn't make any sounds when a previous kick's default velocity was set to 0, even if that previous kick was deleted from the scene.
Fixed a bug where after playing the song at a lower song speed, song achievements wouldn't get unlocked even when the player replayed the song at normal or faster speed.
Fixed an issue where the position of the in-game windows and the camera tool wouldn't stay the same upon switching scenes.
Fixed the tutorial text not mentioning the correct buttons (trackpad vs thumbsticks) on certain headsets like the Valve Index.
Fixed a bug where the drum kit anchor wouldn't get detached if the user clicked the menu/thumbstick button while grabbing the anchor.
Fixed certain drum types not playing the drum deletion sound.
Feature Updates
If the "Keep Only Required Drums" option is not selected, starting a song no longer deletes any extra drums that were already in the scene. In order to prevent performance issues in edge cases where going from song to song could keep creating more and more drums, we've put a limit of 25 drums to this behavior. Feel free to let us know if you could see this being a problem for you.
The behavior is the same as before if the "Keep Only Required Drums" option is selected - all drums except the ones which have note/hit events in the song will be deleted.
Custom songs are now sorted based on artist name.
Recordings and custom songs now support drums with override data. (e.g Crocell Snare instead of default Snare)
The custom song page will now refresh automatically if new songs are added while the app is running. If you're going to be adding and removing lots of custom songs, we still recommend relaunching the app to make sure all of the data is loaded properly on start.
The PDF window now loads files in the background, and will no longer freeze the app while loading a file.
Added a timeout while logging in which disables online features if the app is taking too long to log in. This was added to prevent getting stuck at the loading screen.
A huge thank you to everyone who sent a bug report or suggestion on our Discord or the Steam Forums, as your feedback allows us to keep improving the app with each update. If you're enjoying your time with Paradiddle V1, Steam reviews are always appreciated - especially during holiday season where we'll have lots of eyes checking out our Steam page!
Hi everyone! The Steam Awards are now open for nominations, and we've come to ask you for a favor. While we're working on additional features and fixes that are going to come out soon, we'd be very grateful if you would consider nominating us for VR Game of the Year in the Steam
Hi everyone! The Steam Awards are now open for nominations, and we've come to ask you for a favor.
While we're working on additional features and fixes that are going to come out soon, we'd be very grateful if you would consider nominating us for VR Game of the Year in the Steam Awards. Paradiddle V1 was the result of 5 years of work as we built the best drumming app in VR with the help of our fantastic community. Your nomination can help us show the magic of VR drumming to the rest of the VR community.
The VR Game of the Year award calls for an experience that "improves on reality, taking advantage of the medium of VR and pushing the boundaries of the virtual realm" - which we believe Paradiddle fits perfectly as an app where you can learn a new skill in VR.
You can easily nominate us right here at the top of this announcement. However for those of you who are interested in unlocking Steam badges and earning some Steam XP, you can also go to the to the Steam Awards Nominations page at: https://store.steampowered.com/steamawards/nominations, and pick Paradiddle in the VR Game of the Year section. Nominating a game in every category and writing a review for one of your nominations unlocks a special badge.
We appreciate the support, and we will be back soon with a lot more fixes and improvements to the app!
In case you missed it, we also recently released a note highway overview to spread the word about our highly flexible rhythm game mode:
Thanks, - Emre Lead Developer [email protected] Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle Twitter: @ParadidleVR Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!) Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Like last week's patch, this is another small patch that addresses some urgent bugs as well as some easy fixes. Here's what's fixed: MIDI bug fix: Fixed a bug with the + - buttons on the MIDI sliders that would cause them to change the MIDI note by 2 instead of 1. If you were hav
Like last week's patch, this is another small patch that addresses some urgent bugs as well as some easy fixes. Here's what's fixed:
MIDI bug fix: Fixed a bug with the + - buttons on the MIDI sliders that would cause them to change the MIDI note by 2 instead of 1. If you were having issues where your MIDI devices weren't triggering the drums in the app, or your VR drums weren't corresponding to the right instruments in your DAW, there's a good change it was related to this.
We're now hiding the HMD model when using LIV for mixed reality/avatar recordings.
Removed some unintentional double notes on some songs: The Lull Before The Storm, The Wave, Subspatial (triple note on this one).
Fixed an issue where finishing a lesson wouldn't immediately refresh the lessons page and show the next lesson as unlocked, even though it got unlocked.
Fixed an issue on the last page of the Lessons tab where going to page 4, switching to another main menu tab and then switching back to Lessons would cause two extra lesson buttons to appear.
Fixed an issue where the autosave kit wasn't getting loaded automatically after skipping the tutorial on standalone Quest.
Fixed an issue where loading a kit from the Load Drum Kit button wouldn't end the tutorial when it was supposed to.
Fixed an issue with Lesson 4 that prevented it from being completed. We're still looking into a few visual issues with the rest of the lessons where some of the lesson text might show up behind your kit based on the player's height. We'll be addressing this issue and make some mo
Fixed an issue with Lesson 4 that prevented it from being completed. We're still looking into a few visual issues with the rest of the lessons where some of the lesson text might show up behind your kit based on the player's height. We'll be addressing this issue and make some more improvements to the lesson system in our next patch.
Fixed an issue that prevented the favoriting functionality from working on some drums.
Added support back for the old Saved/Songs folder on PC for custom songs, in addition to our new Documents/Paradiddle/Songs path. If you're not seeing your songs from the Saved folder show up after this patch, let us know!
Closing the hi-hat pedal now triggers the hi-hat notes on the highway again, like it used to.
Fixed the song stats window at the end of a song always displaying "Easy" as the song difficulty.
Fixed a few buggy achievements: Go Your Own Way, Subspatial - Medium, as well as a hidden achievement.
Fixed the highway ready button not adjusting to the horizontal highway layout if the player changes it after loading a song.
Fixed some camera tool issues that caused wrong grabbing behavior when trying to grab the third person camera. We'll be making a few more fixes on the camera tool in our next patch.
Adjusted some lesson beat that weren't lined up with the metronome.
Fixed a coloration issue on the highway when triggering fire mode.
Simplified the Rock Beat Variations lesson to only use one variation on the rock beat, instead of combining multiple. In our next lesson improvement patch, we'll be adding mini numbered exercises into certain lessons to allow people to practice more variations in an easier way.
It is here! After 5 years of Early Access, we're so excited to finally release Paradiddle V1 out into the world. A huge, huge thank you to everyone who has supported us during our early access years, gave us feedback and reported bugs patiently as we continually fixed and improve
It is here! After 5 years of Early Access, we're so excited to finally release Paradiddle V1 out into the world. A huge, huge thank you to everyone who has supported us during our early access years, gave us feedback and reported bugs patiently as we continually fixed and improved the app. Paradiddle would be nowhere near where it is now without all of your help.
Along with Steam, we launched V1 on Quest App Lab. If you have or know someone with a Quest, tell them to check us out!
Version 1 is a big milestone in our complete vision of Paradiddle as a music sandbox, learning tool and rhythm game all bundled in one. It's content packed with 50+ velocity-sensitive freely playable instruments, 16, songs, 10 lessons, MIDI + pedal support and a whole new look. It's also a first step in our move into mixed reality with Passthrough support on Quest (App Lab version only).
This is a massive update, so let's take a look at what's new and changed:
Overhauled UI and UX
We've redesigned the whole UI so that all of the options and features packed into the app have more sensible places in our various menus.
Placed a new toolbar under the menu for some options you might want to access quickly, such as recentering, or the camera tool.
Switched to a laser pointer based interaction mechanism to make it easier when placing/grabbing content at a distance such as the note highway or various app windows.
Other improvements include some fun new UI sounds, as well as a rounder, more polished look overall for all our UI elements.
New Environments
We have 3 new intricate environments built in collaboration with Studio Syro:
Dojo: The perfect place to unwind and play some lo-fi hop hop beats as you watch the birds flying through the swaying trees. Comes with a sleepy animal companion who'll listen to your music.
Jazz Club: Step into our moody jazz club and perform on stage for a small and intimate audience.
Galaxy: Transport yourself to a planet once inhabited by an ancient alien civilization, where music affects the land itself.
New Instruments & Improved Default Drums
You'll notice that your Drums tab has some new additions! We now have 5 full drum kits (including a jazz kit with brushes), mallet instruments like the xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel, and auxiliary percussion such as bongos, tambourines and timpanis. The default kit has also been updated to use some of the new drums, you should notice a difference especially with the hi-hat and snare.
Favorites Tab: We've added a favorites tab at the top to organize any instruments you might want to have quick access to. You can click the heart icon in any given drum's options menu to add them to your favorites.
Note Highway Improvements with 16 Total Songs
TImeline controls: Go to any point in the song and easily practice a section you might be stuck on.
Metronome toggle:Turn on a metronome to get some help while trying to nail down the timing of a song.
Playthrough stats: At the end of a song, you'll now see a breakdown of your performance which shows how many notes you missed, or played early/late/perfect.
Highway Tilting: While grabbing the highway, you can now use your left controller thumbstick to tilt the highway up/down.
Load only required drums setting: Added a new toggle under Options -> General to have the song system only load the kits that are required by the song being played. For instance, if you load an Easy difficulty song that only uses 3 different drums, it won't load the rest of the kit drums for you.
Fire mode: You'll notice the fire mode kick in when you're on a combo streak, lighting everything on the highway on fire.
In order to make Paradiddle as user-friendly and accessible as possible, V1 introduces an initial lineup of 10 drumming lessons. The lessons will teach you some of the fundamental concepts of drumming, while letting you practice certain beats and variations in a pressure-free environment.
An example: In the Rock Beat lesson, you'll first learn how to place your snare and hi-hat, and then practice the individual parts of the beat before bringing it together. A lot of the lessons are based on this idea of progressive repetition, where each repetition gets a bit more complex. So a typical lesson teaching a pattern might look like:
Play the beat with the notes waiting for you until you hit them.
Play the same beat, in a slow, steady tempo.
Play the beat in the regular, steady tempo.
We already have some big improvements planned for the lesson system, but we'd also love to hear your feedback in the process. Let us know if you've found the lessons useful, what you liked/disliked and what improvements you'd like to see. We're listening!
Cross Platform Leaderboards
Our built-in songs are now all connected to cross-platform leaderboards that you can view using the trophy icon in the song details tab. If you're in our Discord, you can also check out our leaderboards channel that posts whenever some ranks in the top 10 of any song difficulty, and show off to everyone in the server!
Drum Anchor for Kit Repositioning
You'll now see a Drum Anchor button under your kit which lets you reposition your whole kit without grabbing them one by one. It's hard to miss - it's the circular button with arrows on it under the kit.
While grabbing the anchor, you can use your thumbstick up/down buttons to adjust your kit height. This had been a widely requested feature and rightly so - it's now much, much easier to quickly readjust your kit.
Improved Stick Mechanics and Options
We've reworked much of the stick interaction mechanics to make the drumming experience more responsive and robust, and prevent issues such as double hits.
Added a widely requested hit-through prevention feature, which prevents you from accidentally triggering a drum that was under the first one you hit. Hit-through prevention is enabled by default, and you can turn it off in the Sticks tab under Options.
Added a hitbox size slider for adjusting how much of the stick can interact with the drums.
PDF Import
You can now import PDFs into the app to open up uses such as loading in sheet music. The PDF window can be repositioned to your liking, and we're planning on adding a resize functionality in the future as well.
Other Quality of Life Improvements
We've switched over to a new folder for custom songs, saved kits/recordings, audio files and PDFs: Documents/Paradiddle/. For instance, custom songs should now go under Documents/Paradiddle/Songs. The directory will be automatically created for you when you first run V1, so no need to make it yourself. This was done for ease of use (the path is easier to remember and mention), as well as to prevent issues with accidentally deleting saved content while uninstalling and reinstalling the app.
Show tutorial on start toggle:Added a toggle under Options -> General to control whether the tutorial should start automatically when the app launches.
3rd Custom Key Binding: Added a 3rd keyboard key binding in addition to Space and Ctrl, with the default being set to Enter. It's not mapped to an in-app action by default. This was added to give some more flexibility to users who are playing with a triple pedal setup.
Camera tool rotation: Added a way to have the third person camera rotating at a speed set by the user.
Green Screen
Under Options -> Graphics, you can now enable a green screen mode that'll turn off any visuals other than your drums, the UI and the note highway. We're excited to see the cool and wacky videos everyone will make with this feature!
Passthrough (on Quest App Lab only)
Similar to the green screen mode, Passthrough AR on Quest allows you to turn off any environments in Paradiddle to instead show your physical surroundings. You can finally get some musician friends in the same room as you and accompany them better in a jam session. We have a lot more enhanced AR features planned in the future, so stay tuned!
ParEdit - A custom song editor made for Paradiddle
One of our community members, [CANA]Dan, has created a fantastic program for Paradiddle custom song mappers who might want to make a custom song from scratch or edit one. You can grab the latest version here: https://github.com/CANA-Dan/ParEdit/releases/latest, and ping him on our Discord for any questions you might have. ParEdit shows the notes on the same highway layout as the app. You can also to the song at the same time while working on the map, and see an audio spectrogram to better lay out your notes.
This is a great option over our existing PD Song Creator tool for those who might not have a pre-existing midi file to work with, or have any experience working in DAW/midi software to make customs.
Known issues:
We're currently investigating or have internally already fixed some of these issues, and will have a patch up as soon as possible to address them. Thanks for reporting them to us over the past few days!
By switching to the new Documents/Paradiddle folder, we broke backwards compatibility with the old custom songs folder. We recommend people to use the new Documents path, but our first patch will also add support back to the Saved/Songs path on PC so your custom songs don't suddenly disappear.
Lesson 4 gets stuck in one of the steps - the OK button won't proceed.
PDF loader crashes on standalone Quest (App Lab) version.
The custom song achievement triggers in other scenarios where the note highway opens, such as lessons.
Spectator window flickers on high refresh rate displays - a current workaround is to turn on either the smooth first person or third person cameras in the Camera tool. With one of the camera tool cameras enabled, the flickering will go away.
The song ending menu says "Song Name - Easy" regardless of difficulty.
Coming Soon:
Scoring improvements (accuracy and fire mode based scoring changes) and additional highway visual polish. Get ready for those leaderboards to get shaken up!
Tutorial videos on our YouTube explaining various app features such as making custom songs, MIDI integration, low latency audio with ASIO.
Lesson improvements: Multiple clickable mini exercises built into one lesson.
MIDI support on Quest.
Roadmap Post V1
V1 was a big milestone for us, but we're by no means done with improving Paradiddle and adding more content. We're planning to share a more detailed look at our future roadmap over the upcoming weeks.
Help us get to the Quest Store!
If you have a Quest and would like to see Paradiddle approved to the official store, the best thing you can do is to buy the V1 release on App Lab and leave a rating/review. With V1 coming out, we think the app deserves its place on the official store, and you can help us get there.
Once again, thanks from the whole team for supporting us and joining us on this journey over the past 5 years,
- Emre, Tristan & Cem [email protected] Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle Twitter: @ParadidleVR Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!) Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
50+ percussion instruments, 16 songs, 10 lessons, 3 new environments and a whole new look - with unlimited replay value. Paradiddle V1.0 arrives on Steam and Quest App Lab November 1st, 2022. A huge thank you to all of our supporters on Steam whose feedback and continued encourag
50+ percussion instruments, 16 songs, 10 lessons, 3 new environments and a whole new look - with unlimited replay value. Paradiddle V1.0 arrives on Steam and Quest App Lab November 1st, 2022. A huge thank you to all of our supporters on Steam whose feedback and continued encouragement allowed us to get to this milestone.
Make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube and join our Discord (https://discord.gg/paradiddle) to be notified when V1 is live, and start your VR drumming journey!
With V1, we'll finally be exiting early access after 5 years, and increasing the base price of the app to $25. So if you're following us on on Steam but haven't jumped on board yet, buy the app until Nov 1st to get in with the discounted price!
- Emre [email protected] Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle Twitter: @ParadidleVR Paradiddle drum covers Youtube playlist (your cover could be on here too!) Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Hi everyone! It's been a while since we last posted an announcement on here. In case you're not aware, we've been posting regular sneak peeks and announcements in our Discord. We've now unlocked the V1 test branch for Steam users who'd like to test out an early V1 beta and give u
Hi everyone! It's been a while since we last posted an announcement on here. In case you're not aware, we've been posting regular sneak peeks and announcements in our Discord.
We've now unlocked the V1 test branch for Steam users who'd like to test out an early V1 beta and give us feedback! Over the past year and a half we’ve pretty much updated or reworked every single part of Paradiddle, which is why this test week is important for us to make sure we catch any bugs we weren’t already aware of and get feedback on some of the major changes. Keep in mind: nothing is final, we're still actively adding/changing more stuff and there will be bugs. If you're on our Discord, you can use the v1-demo-feedback and v1-demo-bugs channels to let us know what you think. Alternatively feel free to post on the Steam Discussion Forums with any v1 demo feedback you have or bugs you may have found.
To enroll in the V1 demo, right click Paradiddle on Steam, go to Properties -> Betas and select v1-demoweek.
Specific areas we’d like to hear about are:
Different VR Headsets: We’d like to hear from all different PC VR headset users, including Index, WMR, Reverb, Rift S, Quest via Link, Vive. Any issues with remapping your inputs? Any controls that don’t feel good on your headset?
Peripherals and pedals: If you were already using Paradiddle with a peripheral, give it a try on V1 and let us know if you run into any issues.
Performance: Any performance issues in any of the new maps?
Leaderboards: Your score should be written to the global leaderboards as long as you don’t pause during a song and don’t change any of the default song speed type settings. Let us know if you’re not seeing your scores posted and we’ll look into it.
Any other general thoughts you have about how the app feels, the new UI, lessons, new drums, environments etc. Let us know what you think!
Known issues:
When loading a recording, pressing Play/Pause will cause a crash.
Certain menus haven’t been 100% updated to the new UI yet. We’re still tweaking the look of certain menus and UI elements.
Important to know:
The actual update notes when V1 comes out will be massive, but for now here are some changes to be aware of:
You'll have to be logged into Steam and online to play the demo (don't worry, this won't be the case for the actual release). The beta branch will be closed at midnight PT on October 5th so we can get back to development based on your valuable feedback!
Incredibly brief summary of the changes/additions: overhauled UI, new environments, new instruments, more songs, lessons, more robust stick mechanics, major performance improvements, more settings and quality of life features.
In V1, the directory used for custom songs, saved kits, recordings and audio files has changed to Documents/Paradiddle/. If you’re not seeing your custom songs show up, you can move them under Documents/Paradiddle/Songs/ and they should show up again. In the future we’ll try and still check the old directory so that it’s not as jarring for people transitioning to V1.
We’re going to change how the highway scoring works so don’t take that as final. Leaderboards will be reset when V1 launches as well.
There’s still some new content coming up in V1 that isn’t included in this demo yet, so there’s more to look forward to end of October!
Excited to see all of the feedback! 🤘🤘
- 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! 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
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.
Fixes:
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.
Song Creator 0.5.5 Changes:
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 customiz
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:
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!
Custom Song Support:
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.
Custom Song Guide:http://paradiddleapp.com/custom-song-guide
Music Lineup
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.
Highway Customization Options
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.
Local High Scores
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.
New Recenter Headset Button
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.
Known Bugs
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.
Bug Fixes
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.
Upcoming Highway Improvements
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 wit
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
