Bounce Metronome Blog

13/01/16

Update January 12h 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

The main new options are

* Can now use abc notation (Beta) - not all its features but enough of it so that it is now practical to use Bounce Metronome for entering compositions with rhythms and pitches in any of the sixteen parts. Has the carol Silent Night for SATB as a preset to show how the notation works. As I show in another video, you can transform the abc notation into any tuning system you like, and so this gives a way you can use standard abc notation to composse microtonally. Doesn't have suppor for microtonal abc yet.
 
* Added midi time code sync (Beta).
 
* Many improvements in the Automatic Tempo and Rhythm Changes with Accelerating Tempo, Accents, etc. (Ctrl + 264) window window.
 
* lots of other minor options and bug fixes.
 
To update, visit the download page and you can install on top of your existing version For details of the changes, see Change log and Bug fixes.
 
For the Mac version, go to the Bounce for Mac Beta page. 
24/10/15

Vanishing Metronome Clicks, for Timing Sensitivity: And other Metronome Techniques - Many Ways to Use a Metronome

Have you seen my Many Ways to use a Metronome? I've now released it as a kindle book as well.

Vanishing Metronome Clicks, for Timing Sensitivity: And other Metronome Techniques - Many Ways to Use a Metronome - on kindle (Amazon)

Many people find metronome practice awkward or dull, and some beginners find it hard to get started with it at all. That's not too surprising. After all, you don't expect to just pick up an instrument and play it until you learn the technique - much the same applies to metronome practice.

You may be surprised to discover that metronome practice can be relaxing, enjoyable, and an exiting musical adventure, continually exploring new horizons

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24/10/15

Recorder Tunes from the Heart

This is my new kindle book of tunes: "Recorder Tunes from the Heart: 163 New Tunes for Solo Descant or Tenor Recorder. With a Folk Feel and a Refreshing Spontaneity "

163 Tunes for solo descant or tenor recorder. Many composed out of doors, and noted down quickly with few or no changes. 


The idea was to compose more and more spontaneously, like the way many Impressionist painters painted, and the way Japanese and Chinese calligraphy is done, and also the way birds sing. 

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11/06/15

21st June - Bug Fix

21st June, more bug fixes.Main thing - this fixes a blue screen issue that affected a few users.

I've had a couple reports of blue screen after installation, which apparently - from a debug log - is a result of using Direct 2D for edge smoothing when drawing circles on some computers. If affected, then this will happen right away after you first install Bounce Metronome, when you first  try run it. No idea why this happens as I can't duplicate it here.

Anyway the new defaul to use image resampling instead fixes it. Also fixes a bug that may auto switch off the gradual tempo changes in some situations.

You can get the latest Bounce from the download page.
 
Mac version not yet updated, will do it soon. For Mac users, the blue screen is not an issue, as it doesn't have Direct2D anyway.

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09/06/15

9th June - Installer now backs up old .exe file with date, so that rollback is easy to do

With this upload, the installer now makes an automatic backup of the old .exe file, with date and time. For instance the Bounce Metronome installer will copy the old "Bounce Metronome.exe" to e.g. "Bounce Metronome - Date=06(day)-06-2015 (Saturday) - Time=23-26-40.exe"

That way then rollback is easy, just in case the new update has a bug in it that affects you. Just go to the program location folder and you'll find your old .exe file still there and can run that instead. E.g. change desktop shortcut so that it links to the old version of Bounce instead of the new one.

Also fixes a bug on the Mac - that if you click on the Buy button in the program, or some of the other buttons that are supposed to open external web pages - you get an error message and no page shows up - fixed.

You can get the latest Bounce from the download page. 

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07/06/15

6th June - "Click to send playing style keyswitches" window and circular piano style graphics for theremin

New window that lets you send playing style keyswitches from Bounce by pressing buttons. These are often used by sample player instruments. E.g. Kontakt instruments. Lets you change playing styles, e.g. for string instruments notes that were pre-recorded as arco (just normal bowing), staccato, vibrato, tremolo, pizzicato etc.

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Also have extended the new piano keyboard theremin visuals to the circular theremin (NB you can set it to use any arrangement of black and white keys and any number of keys to the octave). It's purely visual, to help you orientate yourself, the theremin still plays continuously. Though in the future I could add an option to play it discretely as an on screen keyboard.

This shows the circular keyboard set to wrap around once. So the two Gs at the left and right are the same pitch and the notes in the top half of the window are the same pitch as the notes immediately below them in the bottom half.

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You can get the latest Bounce from the download page. 

To get to the mouse theremin, first you need to make sure you show melodic instruments etc in the Instruments drop menu, then you can get to it with Ctrl + 163. 

27/05/15

26th May - bug fixes and minor updates - and more on the mose theremin + integration with Kontakt for the mouse theremin

This upload continues with fixes and new features for the mouse theremin - also to do with getting the mouse theremin to work with the Kontakt instruments, using a new update of the Kontakt script. Plus some other bug fixes and user interface updates.

Main new features for the theremin - an option to stereo pan the notes by pitch (Or vary any other controller at the same time as you vary the pitch) 

You can get the latest Bounce from the download page. 

To get to the mouse theremin, first you need to make sure you show melodic instruments etc in the Instruments drop menu, then you can get to it with Ctrl + 163. 

06/05/15

6th May - Multi Tempo Theremin - with Multi Tempo Buzz Rolls, Piano Style Visuals Also Sliding Chords Harmonic Polyrhythms - Multi Strip Layout for Extra Pitch Sensitivity

Many new features for the mouse theremin -  with the Multi Tempo Theremin (Ctrl + 282) which lets you play harmonic polyrhythms as for Theremin's rhythmicon with continuously changing pitch as a theremin. Also now has a multi-row option, so you can "stretch" the pitch over several times the width of th screen to get higher pitch resolution (wth less volume resolution). As well as that, now you can show a keyboard on the screen to give visual feedback of where the pitch is in the twelve tone keyboard - this keyboard can also be configured to any other equal number of pisions of the octave or of other intervals like the tritave.

So, you can play it like a keyboard, with a continuous surface for pitch and volume sensitive depending on the position of your finger on the key - and with ability to do pitch slides. Or you can switch on the multi-tempo theremin option and play it as a harmonic polyrhythm creation instrument with continuous pitch and volume changes of any of the notes.

These new features are WORK IN PROGRESS, especially the multi tempo theremin, but enough there so you can have fun trying them out to see what they do. I'll return to these windows with another upload later on.

It's early days yet, but I think this may also be what I'll work on for my ideas for future multi-touch keyboards in Bounce Metronome and Tune Smithy as it is already very capable and the coding may be easier this way around rather than adding these capabilities to the existing on screen keyboards - will see how it goes when I work on that probably a few months from now.

This upload also fixes some issues with the new speed drills window, and has some other bug fixes and UI improvements.

This shows some of the new theremin options in use:

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You can get the latest Bounce from the download page. 

To get to the mouse theremin, first you need to make sure you show melodic instruments etc in the Instruments drop menu, then you can get to it with Ctrl + 163. 

Read on for more details of the new features:
 

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07/04/15

7th April - Speed drills, Stop after, Midi In sync via a note on, minor improvements and Bug fixes

Adds three new windows to help with speed drills, to set Bounce to stop play after a set period of time, and to help with sync with notes from midi in, e.g. to set Bounce to synchronize with your DAW or Finale / Sibelius etc. You can get it from the download page.

First, the Stop After window lets you set it to stop play automatically after a given time or number of measures. The More version of this window also has an option to fade out over a given time or number of measures (gradually gets quiet until it fades to silence) and to complete the last measure (useful if you set it to play a given time period).

23/03/15

22nd March 2015 - Improvements in the Tempo and Rhythm progressions window, and many minor improvements and Bug fixes

Main new thing - a lot moe work on the tempo and rhythm progressions windows - both the simple and the advanced versions. No major new features - but numerous minor improvements and bug fixes. 

If you ever found that the rhythm and tempo progressions window was confusing, there's a chance this will help. Also fixes various bugs including one bug that might give you occasionally glitchy bounces that the bounce seems to "pause" momentarily.

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