This is a new version now, version 4.6, and it has quite a few new features, including a graphical way to set the silent and hidden measures for the Play then silent feature,a new count in option, work on the automatic rhythm changing, and several music notation related features along with many bug fixes and smaller changes . I've been working on it since January. To get it, visit the download page and you can install on top of your existing version. The Mac version isn't quite ready yet, just want to do some testing first before doing a new Mac build. Meanwhile, if you are very keen, visit the Bounce for Mac Beta download page it gives instructions on how to update your version of Bounce for Mac from the lastest Windows release. Or you can ask me for an early Mac beta. I hope to release the Mac build in the near future.

Including: New Visual Count In window Visual Count In (Ctrl + 289). This lets you show the bouncing balls bounce several times before the rhythm starts.

New graphical interface for the option to play and be silent at selected measures and to show / hide the bounce - you can set it to display the measures polymetrically when some of the measures are of different sizes - parts 1 and 2 have shorter measures than parts 3 and 4 in this screen shot. The yellow lines show where each pattern of play and silent measures repeats. White here is silence. You left click to set a measure to played or silent and right click to set the position of the yellow line for the pattern repeats. As before you can set it so the bounces are automatically hidden / shown whenever it plays or is silent. It's just a graphical user interface into the existing feature, but it does make it easier to use in some ways and you can also expand it to show the patterns of measures in all the parts for as many measures as you like - which may go on for a long time without repeating the whole thing exactly if each part repeats after a different number of measures, or some parts are polymetric..

You can now set it to highlight a region of the onscreen keyboard e.g. to show instrument range, or to show keyswitch regions.

Then ther'e a new feature "label by cycle of fifths". What it does is first find the closest to a fifth in the tuning, for instance, 31 steps in 53 equal. Then it starts from the F (as a "fifth" below the 1/1) and just goes around the cycle of fifths using that number of steps as the "fifth" to label all the scale steps in the tuning. So labels the note a fifth above that as C, next as G, D, A, E, B just as for twelve equal. In the other direction labels the flats. Then goes on to do the sharps and double flats, then the double sharps and triple flats, and so on until all the notes are labelled. Sometimes, e.g. in 72 equal, it gets back to the start without labeling all the notes because the notes form a smaller cycle - in this case a cycle of 12, so then it does those by adding +s or -s to the names it has found already. At the end of this every note will be labelled. But some tunings give quite surprising results when you do this.

In Pythagorean tunings and any tuning with the fifth sharper than in equal temperament, then the sharps are sharper than the flat of the note above, e.g. C# is sharper than Db so you get the notes labelled as C ... Db C# ... D. When you add in double sharps and double flats and so on that can make your head spin already. But in some of the more extreme temperaments, e.g. 13 equal, the same can happen to the note names too, e.g. in 13 equal, the B is sharper than the C because after you go around the cycle and get as far as the B, because your fifth is so sharp, then the B is raised enough in pitch to go above the original C. Similarly the E is above the F, in 13 equal.

Here is a screen shot for 31 equal, one of the more conventional arrangements of sharps and flats - the sharps are lower in pitch than the flats of the note above. This shows the positions of the double flats and double sharps as well. All this is worked out automatically by following around the cycle of fifths, using a "fifth"of 18 steps which is a little flat compared to twelve equal which is why the sharp is lower in pitch than the flat of the note above.

More examples here. Not at all suggesting that musicians should label notes this way :). It's just fun, and also helps you to see the interrelationships of the notes along the cycle of fifths. May also be useful for some of the smaller tunings. For more about this see my recent quora answer to: To be totally unconventional, should a piano with keys of E# and B# be produced? Would it be more versatile and more interesting? Expect it not to be one of the most used features. But it might be interesting to some.

There are many other new features including:

• Music font scratch space (Ctrl + 288) which can be useful while editing rhythms, just a text area with the musicological font for copy / paste,
• Multi Search and Replace (Ctrl + 287) which can be useful for turning the music notation into symbols to show in the bouncing balls windows,
• In Automatic Tempo and Rhythm Changes with Accelerating Tempo, Accents, etc. (Ctrl + 264), new option "Repeat from zone ...". This lets you use the first few zones as an "intro" which is played once only.
• In Beats Counting System (Ctrl + 246), option for custom counting system to change to the next symbol, or word, part way through the beat so you can see what is coming next,
• The relaunch after Freeze or Crash message now has a "Cancel" option which immediately exits from the program, so you get the relaunch or continue message repeated for the next session.
• Bouncing Balls - Visuals - Controls, Text and layout (Ctrl + 233) - new option "Label accents (no nums)" to make it possible to show which are the accented beats when label Beats is switched off. Also a new option to show the time as minutes and seconds, useful for times larger than 60 secs.
• PLAY then SILENT for Measures (Ctrl + 260) Visual fade in and out with optional minimum fade size. Also option to fade ticks and dots in the 2D and 3D bounce windows, and to hide the ticks and dots when the bounces are hidden. Also new options Sync random with part and "Fragments" - which lets you randomize fractions of a measure, default 50%, so half measures. Also now done so that you have to switch on the "Play, then Go &SILENT at measures:" in order to use the PLAY RANDOMLY. Also, when you switch on "PLAY RANDOMLY" the other options to choose which measures to hide get hidden because the choice is now random (if that's not clear, try it out and it should make sense). Before, the random silences were combined with the user chosen silences, which was rather confusing.
• New option for "auto set to proj." to auto set to tsProj in EXPORT ANIMATION, or Print or Copy (Ctrl + 234) - auto sets to the name of the current project whenever you open or save it or if you have it open at the time that you switch this option on.
• In Beats Counting System (Ctrl + 246) (More) - for custom counting system: New options: "Change label during previous beat" - this lets you see what is coming up next for the next beat. Also a new option there to ignore accent symbols when centering the symbol. The motivation for this is that accented beats like >a were bouncing on the midpoint between the accent and the following symbol, which is harder to follow. The default is to ignore > ^ ! (configurable). So, for instance, >a would have the bouncing a centered and bounce on the dot in 3D and the tick in 2D, with the > to the left of it. Also a new option to use Bach font, e.g. to use music notation from Dance rhythms - or any other rhythms with skipped beats (Ctrl + 228) to label the rhythms.
• In Dance rhythms - or any other rhythms with skipped beats (Ctrl + 228), new button "Space notes by" with a number below it (default 2), to put more space around the musical notes or abc notation notes in the music notation rhythms.
• General Options (Ctrl + 202) (More version) - new option "Show project in (nearly all) title bars". In the More (several times) version of this window you can also configure how many letters of the project name to show. This is useful if you are working with some other window, not the main window, and need a reminder of which project you are working on.
• 3D Bounce - Visuals (Ctrl + 257) and Bouncing Balls - Visuals - Controls, Text and layout (Ctrl + 233) - new options "Continuously changing numbers" (for measures) Instead of counting 1 2 3, this shows a continuosly changing count. So for instance 1.5 here means half way through first bar, 2.5 means half way through second bar and so on.
• Also (same window): "Separate counts for visible polymeter parts" - with these rhythms, parts may have different measure sizes, so that the number of measures played so far is different for some of the parts. This option lets you see the number of measures reached as separate numbers for each part.
• In Start Play at Any Time (Ctrl + 165) set to show measures instead of times, you can now start play part way through a measure e.g. start at measure 1.5 for half way through the first measure. Also added new option: "Count as measures for part ..." which lets you go to a selected measure for any part in a polymeter with different measure sizes and so different measure numbers for each part.
• Music Notation Rhythms List (Ctrl + 290): New window with list (instead of drop list) of music notation rhythms . It's a way to show many of the rhythms at once in one window without having to click on a droplist first to see them. It may also be useful for rapid changes of rhythm as it lets you select a rhythm by typing the first letter(s) of its description and to add row numbers to let you select them by typing a row number or letter.
• In Scales Drop List (Ctrl + 110) (More several times), new option "Add ROW NUMBERS to lists ( to select row by typing number)". This adds a row number before each row in the list, and lets you select any entry by clicking on the list then typing its row number (including multi digit numbers. It makes it easy to switch between rows quickly using the keyboard. You can choose which windows to do this for in the more (serveral times) version of Bounce Options (Ctrl + 220)\n\nDEFAULT - does for:\n Arpeggios Drop List (Ctrl + 109)\n Scales Drop List (Ctrl + 110)\n Music Notation Rhythms List (Ctrl + 290).
• Lots of work on Add Melodic Sequence or Chord Progression (Ctrl + 275), debugging it and making it easier to use. Also now has a button "Sequences and Chords - drop menu. Select any instrument from this menu to COPY HERE" - you can use that to copy the settings from any of the existing sequences or chord sequences into this window for editing.
• Lots of work debugging Automatic Tempo and Rhythm Changes with Accelerating Tempo, Accents, etc. (Ctrl + 264) and Automatic Tempo and Rhythm Changes (Ctrl + 245) to make them easier to use and to fix various things.

And many bug fixes.

For details of the changes, see Change log and Bug fixes.

This is a major update, and I've been working on it for seven months now, so it gets a new version number, 4.6 (I don't do minor versions as that system doesn't work so well when you have lots of updates, so individual versions are distinguished by the upload date). To get it, visit the download page and you can install on top of your existing version.

As I said, the Mac version isn't quite ready yet - the Bounce for Mac Beta download page it gives instructions on how to update your version of Bounce for Mac with the lastest Windows release. It's just that I've been working on it on Windows, with it sometimes used on a Mac, but not extensively tested at all. So, I want to test it for a while on the Mac after doing quite a major update before uploading the Mac Beta. Though the chances are it will work just fine as I haven't done anything that relates to Mac compatibility in this build as far as I know.