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.
Enjoy! - Emre
Avenged Sevenfold Song Pack + December Update!
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.
Full song list:
Cosmic (7:31)
Hail to the King (5:06)
Shepherd of Fire (5:24)
A Little Piece of Heaven (8:01)
Nightmare (6:14)
Bat Country (5:12)
A new environment - Cosmic:
1 new pair of sticks
2 new drum skins
🎶 (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!
- Emre emre@paradiddleapp.com
Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
Paradiddle - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard DLC Song Pack - Available now!
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.
Enjoy! - Emre emre@paradiddleapp.com
Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
May Update Hotfix
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.
Happy drumming, Emre
May Update: Custom Songs in Multiplayer, Loopable Song Checkpoints and More!
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!
Note: The update will be on the public "beta" branch of the app for the next few days (you can access it by right clicking the app in your library, then clicking Properties -> Betas) until we confirm there aren't any major issues we missed in our testing. Once it becomes the default version in a few days, you can always still roll back to the previous version by selecting the "prev_version" branch on Steam.
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.
Happy drumming! Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
December Quality of Life Update
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 :)
- Emre, Lead Developer emre@paradiddleapp.com
Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle
Make suggestions and bug reports on our Canny board: https://paradiddle.canny.io/
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
The Big Multiplayer Update
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 :)
Emre
emre@paradiddleapp.com
Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle
Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com
FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq
December Stability Update Notes
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. This patch is currently on the beta branch on Steam for a few days to allow people to give it a quick try, and will become the default version of the app in a few days. You can see the beta branch by right clicking Paradiddle, then clicking Properties -> Betas.
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!
Nominate Paradiddle as VR Game of the Year in the Steam Awards!
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 emre@paradiddleapp.com 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
Nov 13 Patch Notes
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.
