• 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.
  

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

• 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.
  

Brand New Lesson System with 10 Lessons

1. Play the beat with the notes waiting for you until you hit them.
   
2. Play the same beat, in a slow, steady tempo.
   
3. Play the beat in the regular, steady tempo.
   

Cross Platform Leaderboards

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

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

Passthrough (on Quest App Lab only)

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:

• 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

Help us get to the Quest Store!

• 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:

• 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!
  

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.
  

• 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.
  

Custom Song Support:

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

Music Lineup

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

New Recenter Headset Button

• 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

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

How To Participate

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

Judging

Some Tips

Prizes

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

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

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

FAQ

New Instruments

Auxiliary Percussion:

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

Mallet Percussion:

<*> Xylophone
<*> Marimba
<*> Glockenspiel

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

Audio Improvements

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

Other Improvements and Fixes

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

What's Next

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

A Personal Note

Controls Improvements

• Reworked Controls Window: The controls window has been reworked into a multi-tabbed window, to separate out some of the different input methods like controllers, keyboard buttons and Rock Band pedal settings into their own views.
  
• Keyboard Key Binding: You can now rebind the Space and Ctrl keys used by default by the app to use any key you want! On the Keyboard tab of the Controls menu, click the "Rebind" button under the key you'd like to rebind, and then press on the key you'd like to rebind to. The settings will be saved and loaded back automatically, and you can always reset them to their defaults if you'd like to. For anyone purchasing a new USB pedal, this effectively means that you don't necessarily have to remap your pedal to the Space or Ctrl key - you can instead have Paradiddle accept whatever key the pedal is mapped to by default.
  
• Touch Controller Menu Button: The Oculus Touch controller menu button on the left controller now also works as the menu/stick toggle button for Oculus users, in addition to the thumbstick press.
  

Audio Improvements

• Master Volume Slider Past 100: The master volume level slider in the audio settings can now be moved past 100 to get your audio to be even louder. You might still want to be careful with this, as it's more likely to run into issues like audio distortion as you bump this value closer to 200.
  
• Louder Drum Samples: Audio samples have been made louder across the board for all drums. The levels of the hi-hat were bumped even higher on top of these changes.
  
• Audio Distortion Fixes: Got rid of distortion and hissing type sounds affecting the kick, snare and toms, that were especially audible in higher volumes. If you're still hearing weird trailing distortions after hitting a single drum, post on the Steam Forums or the Discord, and let me know what headset you're on!
  

New Guides & Existing Guide Updates

• MIDI Guide (paradiddleapp.com/midi-guide): The MIDI guide serves as the central resource that goes over how to use the MIDI input/output features of Paradiddle to connect audio peripherals to the app, or connect the app to other audio software. As the app moves into platforms other than Steam, there was a larger need to keep this information in a central place, and this guide now replaces and expands upon the MIDI integration notes that were on Steam. The Default MIDI Info section in particular was a new addition for those who'd like to better understand the internals of the MIDI support, such as what MIDI notes or MIDI events are used for which drums by default.
  
• Latency Guide (paradiddleapp.com/latency-guide): The latency guide is meant to ensure that every Paradiddle user can troubleshoot latency issues and get the desired low latency they want when using the app. It includes instructions on how to use ASIO and ASIO4ALL to gain maximum control over the app's audio latency.
  
• Updated Pedal Guide (paradiddleapp.com/pedal-guide): The Pedal Guide was updated with a DIY (do-it-yourself) Pedal section for those seeking to build their own pedals that can be used in Paradiddle. The Rock Band Pedal section was also updated to include a section on troubleshooting RB Pedals plugged in via the microphone jack, offering some tips on how to fix certain common issues.
  

Other Changes and Fixes

• Delete Button in Drum Options: A delete button was added to the drum options menu, currently denoted by the trash can icon. Keep in mind that in addition to the button, you can also grab the drum with both hands, and scale it all the way down to delete it. As you scale it down, it'll turn red past the delete threshold, at which point you can let go to delete the drum.
  
• Updated the version of Unreal Engine used for the app from 4.21 to 4.23, bringing some major performance improvements in scenes with lots of drums.
  
• Updated the version of LIV being used in the app, leading to performance improvements during mixed reality recording sessions.
  
• Fixed a bug where the camera view positions in the Camera tool weren't where they were supposed to be.
  

Quest Beta Update

Other Updates, What's Next