 Products - Music - Bounce Metronome |
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What's New - Wednesday September 1st 2010Intro - What's new in this upload - Earlier uploads and first release - see also the page New developments in Bounce Metronome which is a summary of some of the recent highlights of this page. IntroFollow me on Facebook and Twitter as I work on the next upload - twitter.com/robertinventor (@robertinventor) or visit the Bounce Metronome page on FaceBook I also do an e-mail update - low frequency a few times a year - about significant milestones for Tune Smithy (including Bounce Metronome Pro). If you want to be on this list let me know, contact support@robertinventor.com The version number is shown as 4.1 because it was originally one of the tasks of Tune Smithy. The release of Tune Smithy is currently at version 3.0. Next update of Tune Smithy will be version 4.1 (or later depending on what version date Bounce Metronome reaches by then) What's new in this uploadWednesday September 1st, 2010 Made simpler version of Pitch of 1/1 window and slighlty re-organised the user interface. Minor improvements in menu layout for Metronome drop menu. Minor bug fixes upload. Installer for: 1st September 2010 Sunday August 29th, 2010 Added a new experimental check box to the Bounce Preferences window for the : Looks like this:
This is just an idea I'm exploring. May well change layout or do something else. If it works out well, idea is to do the same thing for all the metronomes. Also could easily have the 3D bouncing balls in the middle of the window as well. So you could have a drop list in the Bounce Preferences window of options including: main window with 2D bouncing balls only (with tempo strip), 3D bouncing balls only, 2D + tempo dial all in one, or split. Installer for: 29th August 2010 Thursday August 26th, 2010 Summary: Simpler more minimalist versions of many of the windows. When you use the Standard Settings, Stereo pan gets preset to follow bouncing balls. Some bug fixes. Details Simpler more minimalist versions of many of the windows, with only the things you want to change often. Also for newbie users, comes up with those windows as the ones you first see. So quicker to get used to the program and to find out where the most important things are. This is the new Bounce Preferences minimalist window.
The old more complicated version is still there, you get to it if you show the More buttons (you switch those on under Options or under Organise Windows, F2). Later on once used to the program and where everything is, you can then show the more buttons and then go to the more versions of the windows for advanced tweaking of the settings. How to show the minimalist versions of all the windows if you have already installed BM ProIf you have the more buttons hidden, then you get them automatically. Otherwise, go to and switch " off first, which will set all the windows to their minimalist versions - then switch it on again to show the more buttons once more. To get the most minimalist version of a particular window just keep choosing until you can go no further. Other minor tweaksNow stereo pan gets preset to follow bouncing balls for the standard settings buttons. If you want it to be preset to pan by parts instead, switch off "" in Installer for: 26th August 2010 Monday August 23rd, 2010 Summary: Minor improvements in user interface, including new HD preset button for export animations, minor new features and some bug fixes Details Add an preset button to , Shift + click on the button for higher resolution HD 1080p Made the , and preset buttons easier to find in - was in the More (twice) version of the window only. New option in . Normally when conducting 2/4, and set so the notes pan to follow the bounces, then the first beat of 2/4 will be panned to the centre and second beat to the left. When this is switched on, first beat is panned to the right, so using the full range available for the stereo pan. Added the to More version of the menu for the metronomes playing non melodic percussion. This is useful for the option to set instruments for individual beats in the rhythm - lets you see what is happening "under the hood" and to do any by hand fine tuning of what it does if you want. Also did a bit of rearranging of controls in the window and improving the tool tips, and renamed it from Custom Multi Instrument Voices to just "Custom Multi Instruments". Installer for: 23rd August 2010 Sunday August 8th, 2010 Summary: Option to Start when your Computer Starts easier to find. Added Go Silent Briefly and stripped down version of the Gradual Tempo changes to Basic metronome. Minor improvements in the user interface. Some bug fixes. Details Made the option to Start when your computer starts easier to find - now as a check box in the General Options window. Also added the "Go Silent Briefly" and a stripped down version of the gradual tempo changes to the Basic Metronome - previously only available in the Pro metronome. Minor improvements in some of the tool tips and added tips to to explain what some of the options there do. Minor improvement in layout of - relabelled Adjust Audio Sync. to . This just helps to make it a bit clearer what it does. Also improved the tip for it. Several minor bug fixes which may affect some users. Installer for: 8th August 2010 Monday August 2nd, 2010 Summary: Version update to 4.1. Three new metronomes - for mixed meters with mixed note types such as 4/4 + 7/8, for polyrhythms with mixed note types such as 4/4 over 4/3, and a Flamenco metronome. Three new windows -Conducting patterns (Ctrl + 247), Label beats (Ctrl + 246) and Custom Beats per measure (Ctrl + 248). Many minor improvements in the user interface and new minor features. New metronomesSome videos of them in action will probably help. Mixed meters with mixed note typesThis lets you play rhythms like 4/4 + 7/8 or 2/4 + 3/8. Here is 4/4 + 7/8, all together as one large mixed meter - with swing and subdivisions, with all the original beats divided into two subdivisions and then swung (giving sixteenth notes in case of the 7/8).
Polyrhythms with mixed note typesThis shows 4/4 over 4/3 - it's like a 4 over 3 polyrhythm but you count 4/4 in both parts - so the 4/3 though it has three beats to the measure of the 4/4 rhythm, is played with emphasis every four beats, so has a measure that is a third longer than the 4/4. The way you read 4/3 is that it is four "third notes" per measure where a third note is a third of the size of a whole note, just as a quarter note is a quarter of the size of a whole note. So four "third notes" have the same duration as one and a third whole notes.
Flamenco metronome.This is for the Flamenco 12 beat clock - so same as the existing Flamenco "clock" preset which was added in Wednesday May 12th 2010 but with a special metronome now to itself. Flamenco Compás "Clock" with syncopation on sixteenth notes New windowsThe Conducting patterns window lets you set your own custom conducting patterns - there I just mean the order of the beats such as 3 1 4 2 - doesn't yet let you rrecord a conducting pattern e.g. with mouse or video and play it back. The Label Beats lets you label individual beats as you like, including a beat boxing feature and an option to auto convert beat boxing syllables to corresponding non melodic percussion instrument sounds that get played on the same beat. The Custom Beats per Measure is one you won't use that often but gets auto set for the new metronomes where it is needed e.g. for 4/4 over 4/3 to keep track of the two measures which are different in size and for 4/4 + 7/8 to keep track of where one measure ends and the next begins when you make it all as a single measure. Other new featuresMore drum rudiments in the drop list for the Drum & Dance metronome. New button to make a roll with any number of strokes and a buzz roll in Dance rhythms - or any other rhythms with skiipped beats (Ctrl + 228) Button to make it as a Buzz Roll. Here is a video.
Now shows the size of the smallest note value as a drop list with all the notations (not just abc) - and you can change this and if you select another note type from the drop list - then remakes the entire rhythm. So for instance if you want to show your paradiddles using eighth notes or sixteenth notes or whatever, just select the appropriate note value from the drop list and the rhythm will update accordingly. Now has a free taster metronome - after your test drive expires or if you haven't yet started it - you can run the basic metronome as a free taster - with some of the features hidden. Basically like the other ones but the only rhythms you can make are the standard 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8. You can make other rhythms in the other metronomes and then switch to the free taster to play them, so this gives you a free (though deliberately a bit awkward to use) method to play any of the rhythms in the free taster. New tool tips and improvements in some existing tips. Many bug fixes - too numerous to mention individually. Installer for: 2nd August 2010 Wednesday June 30th, 2010 Summary: Set instruments for individual beats in the rhythm. New features for rhythmicon - easy ways to make it with 5 limit harmony so leaving out the more exotic harmonies. Option to set instruments individually for each beat in the rhythm. Added Lissajous patterns. Details: New
feature for rhythmicon. Easy ways to make it with only 5 limit harmony,
for instance - you set all the numbers you want to multiply together
e.g. (1) 2 3 5, then it will make the rhythmicon - in that case with the
harmonics 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 12 15 16 18 20 24 25 so leaving out the more exotic 7, 11 and 13 limit harmonies Option to select separate instruments for each beat in the rhythm: And what it looks like in the new expanded version of the instrument menus:
You can enter the numbers for the beats you want to set the instrument for, then use Select Now or just select from the menu to change the instrument for just that beat. This also gives an interface for the feature for blind musicians. Added options Right click on dot to set instr. for beat and Label with instr. for beat to More version of Bouncing Balls - 3D Visuals (Ctrl + ...) Added Show dots for right click set instrument for beat and Dot size to the More version of Bouncing Balls - Controls, Text and layout Add a Custom drop list to the non melodic percussion menu with drop list of example Custom multi-instrument voices for non melodic percussion. Added window Custom Multi Instrument Voices Menu (Ctrl + ...) - this is where the new option to select the instrument for an individual beat gets worked out "behind the scenes" - you can leave this window open and look at it to see how it is done or to customise the result further. In fact the reason this new feature was easy to add was because it uses this window which is from Tune Smithy 3 and was originally used as a way to enrich the fractal tunes. For rhythmicon then did it so that you see the complete range of harmonics (or subharmonics) when you unselect "Silence keys" to play along with it.
Added new option Select harmonics, and Select harmonics - least beats per measure first - to the drop list How to choose the harmonics. This gives you more options for this feature, and used for the triplet rhythmicon which now has a Shift or Control + click option for the less exotic harmonics similarly to the regular rhythmicon. Added the Lissajous patterns window - which you may be familiar with if you use Tune Smithy. You can read about them here: Lissajous patterns for Tune Smithy. Added new options to : which is useful for the harmonic metronomes and rhythmicon - you can see the Lissajous pattern change even when there is no sound, e.g. not playing the rhythm, just as you adjust the pitches for the parts. Preset to SELECTED. - this lets you show a Lissajous pattern even for the rhythms using non melodic percussion - uses the number of beats to the measure instead of the pitch to draw the curve. Preset to SELECTED - since it makes no difference to the normal Lissajous patterns, just adds an extra option to also show the patterns for rhythms with no variation in pitch. - use this if you want to ignore the pitches and just use the beats per measure to draw the curve. Tuesday June 22nd, 2010 Summary: New option for the to cycle through a list of tempi and time signatures with Up and Down arrow keys. Added stepping progression option to the window - e.g. two up, one down, repeat. Added triplet patterns version of the . Other minor additions, improvements in the user interface and a few new tool tips. Also fixed numerous minor bugs and glitches. Details: Added new options to the . So the up and down arrow keys cycle through the list of tempi (and optionally time signatures) you set for it. You can also cycle through time signatures at the same time as you change tempo - e.g. 80 bpm in 4/4 then 30 bpm in 3/4 with 2 subdivsions then 120 in 6/8 or whatever. This is useful if you have several pieces with different tempi and / or time signatures that you want to practice in a single session. I added this feature in answer to this question at Yahoo Answers: Where can I get a good metronome for my PC? When unselected, up and down arrow keys adjust by one tempo dial notch at a time. New version of with the stepping progression. E.g. suppose you have set it to automatically increase by 2 bpm, then drop down by 1 BPM. Now you can also set it to repeat that endlesesly as e.g. 100 102 101 103 102 104 ... Then you can set a maximum tempo to stop the stepping progression at, and also set what happens when the progression ends. Here is a screenshot to give the idea:
For (in droplist of metronomes) - added Triplet rhythm version of the rhythmicon. Uses the pattern quarter note, eighth note repeated. Also serves as an example to show how you can make other versions of the rhythmicon with varying beat sizes. Added a separate column to the version of with option to show the actual data sent (i.e. 8192 for 0 cents diff) - preset to unselected to show the amount of the adjustment in pithc bend units. Also minor improvements in this window. Added option to the window to auto pan the last part to the center, appears if you select Auto pan by Parts from the drop list for . Also labelled the drop list and minor improvement of layout of this window. Also added check boxes to all the metronome main windows to make it easier to find the feature and switch it on / off. Added to . Marked as HD in drop list of video save formats - as alternative higher resolution HD format (is the high resolution HD format for youtube videos). Added some extra options to - to help with rendering to audio to get the timings exact - especially if you want the recording to be exactly in time with an animation in . Also fixes a bug - see bug fixes for details. Added new option for the rhythm text . It's used for the new example "Triplet Pattern Rhythms in 1/8 up to 16/8 simultaneously" to make sure it is always polyrhythmic even if you have the option switched on in the . Overrides to unsynchronised parts as required for polyrhythms. Also added an option to the More version of . As you'd guess from the description, sets the prest pulse to use. Normally quarter beats - so 2 eighth notes. Changes the way the rhythms are swung or lilted. Added - to - keeps the desired pitch and instrument, just varies the controllers. Useful if you run out of channels e.g. for stereo pan. Used for the Rhythmicon with stereo pan for instance - when you run out of channels to play the notes, better to play the correct pitch in a different stereo pan position. Added to - makes it clearer when you have e.g. quarter notes with 3:2 (normal triplets 3 in space of 2) or 7:4 and eighth notes with 9:8 (9 in the space of 8 eighth notes) or 5:4 (5 in space of 4 same as 10 in the space of 8). See the Wikipedia article on Tuplets to read more about this notation. Added a second version of with a column - to show the actual data sent via Midi Out - and added a check box - unselect to see it as the pitch bend differences from 12-et still in pitch bend units. Other minor improvements in the layout of some of the windows. Also improved some of the tool tips and added a few new tool ones, including tips for many of the new features. Wednesday June 2nd, 2010 Reorganised the Polyrhythm Metronome a bit, and added subdivisions to it. Also in the More version of Combine with More Rhythms (Ctrl + 217) for the polyrhythm metronome, added option to have subdivisions of any of the rhythms. So e.g. you c an have 3/4, 5/4 and 7/4 each with 2 subdivisions (or a different number of subdivisions for each one if you prefer) and so on.
Fixed some bugs. Saturday May 29th, 2010 Added to . Also to . This labels just the first row with the beat numbers - instead of labelling them all which can help when the rhythm has many parts. Wednesday May 19th, 2010 Added to . Here are a couple of screen shots:
The idea here is that you continue to play when the sound stops. Then when the sound comes back again, aim to be exactly in time with the metronome, or as close as you can get to it. You can try this either with or without the bouncing ball visuals as an extra cue to help you stay in time. One reason to do this is to help you to learn to keep a steady tempo without a metronome. You can also use it when you learn tricky rhythms e.g. polyrhythms etc, to see if you can keep them going during the measures when the metronome is silent. Added some new windows of particular interest for the Fractal Tunes metronome - , , and You can find these in the drop menu when you have switched on. These are windows from FTS which I left out of the original release of BM Pro, but could be useful particularly for users of the Fractal Tune Metronome. Also added the graphics versions of the and windows. The "Score" is a very rudimentary non editable score, with no clef signs and only dots (or diamonds etc) for the notes - but with some interesting microtonal display features. Idea is it gives you some idea of the tune e.g. if you want to play along or sing with it. Various bug fixes. Also one very minor unfixed bug which will hardly affect anyone. It remains unfixed for techy reasons and I have no plans to fix it. Wednesday May 12th 2010 Added button Flamenco "Clock" preset to the Drum Metronome. This sets it up with the 12 beat pattern used in Flamenco music - here is a screen shot:
To make this possible added a few extra options to the Drum metronome, some of which may well be useful for other rhythms as well. Added to . It shows up for the bounce inside ovals and bounce outside ovals options. You can select that to start the bounces at the top of the oval instead of the bottom, or at any other position you like. Preset to angle of 180 degrees which means you start the count at the top. Added to . Here Emphasized beats are beats that are played on more than one part. For the Flamenco rhythm this will make the pulse 3 for the first 6/8 part of the rhythm and 2 for the second 3/4 type part of the 12 beat rhythm. This is used for the swing and swing volumes options - changes the way the beats in individual parts are accented. So for the Flamenco rhythm, they are accented in threes for the first half of the rhythm and in twos for the second half of the twelve beat rhythm. Added to . This is used to start the count in the clock at 12 so you count 12, 1, 2, 3 ... in the Flamenco "clock" with 12 at the top like a clock face, instead of 1, 2, 3, ... as you do with other rhythm patterns. Some bug fixes Wednesday May 5th 2010 Minor update. Just slight improvement of some of the help and some Minor bug fixes Thursday April 29th 2010 Minor update. Added new Script "Go Silent Briefly" - this sets the volume level to 0 every third measure for two measures, as: measures 1 & 2 loud, measures 3 & 4 silent, 5 & 6 loud etc. Useful when you want to test yourself without the metronome and then see if you come in on time when the metronome plays again. Reorganised the Organise Windows window (F2) slightly. Installer for: 29th April 2010 Tuesday April 20th 2010 Minor update - added RECOMMEND Bounce Metronome Pro to your Friend to the help menu. Fixed some tips that got left out of the tool tip help in an earlier upload and some other very minor bugs. Installer for: 20th April 2010 Saturday April 17th 2010 Minor update - added "CHOOSE your metronomes" above the droplist of metronomes in the main window - to help users who download the program for the first time and aren't sure where to find the Pro metronome. Also added "Follow on Facebook" to the Help menu. Installer for: 17th April 2010 Friday April 16th 2010 Minor update - added a new check box you can use to hide tool tips for the windows with graphics such as the bouncing balls windows. Added check box to gray out silenced parts in the 3D Bounce. Also another check box expected to be rarely used - to switch on Elastic bounce for cone for 3D window with cone only baton. Made the Time Signature easier to find in the main window to help you if you want to make odd time signatures etc. Also slight improvement in one of the tool tips - and minor bug fixes. Details: New check box in : preset to checked. You can uncheck it to hide the tool tips that pop up when you hover the mouse over one of the blocks or controls in the 2D or 3D Bounce graphics. Recommended that you leave it switched on as you learn the program - but once you know about all the ways you can adjust the rhythm etc. using mouse clicks or click & drag, you may want to switch it off. Added check box in You can configure how gray they get in the More (twice) version of that window. Added check box in the More (twice) version of. This is for the "cone only" baton and lets you do it with an elastic bounce so that the baton squashes vertically when it "bounces" even when there is no bouncing ball shown. Expected to be rarely used but you may like it as it can give a slightly more distinctive feel to the moment of the bounce. If you don't see any More buttons then you can show them with a check box in the window. Slight improvement in one of the tool tips - for the drop list of different styles of bounce pattern - especially - mentions that you can unselect "Bounce in opposite directions for polyrhythms" in Bounce Patterns (Ctrl + 227) and added headers and words in CAPS to break up the text a bit and help to highlight the the advantages of each of the styles of bounce pattern. Moved Time Signature text fields to just below the 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 etc presets in the main window. Hopefully will make it so you can find out how to make odd time signatures such as 5/4, 11/8 etc. more quickly (you set the time signature to make them). Installer for: 16th April 2010 Monday April 12th 2010 Minor bug fixes, most to do with appearance of the baton for 3D Bounce with elastic bounce switched on. Installer for: 12th April 2010 Saturday April 10th 2010 Added check boxes for some sections in Bouncing Balls - 3D Visuals window (Ctrl + 226). So - you can now switch on / off: SHADOWS & SPLASH, BLOCKS, PARTS STRIPS ETC, LABELS, and BUTTONS AND CONTROLS each with a single click. You can still switch items off individually within each section if you want e.g. dots without numbers etc. E.g. when you switch off LABELS that entire section of window 226 gets hidden & any dots or numbers in the 3D Bounce window will vanish. Minor bug fixes Installer for: 10th April 2010 Wednesday April 7th 2010 Very minor update. Minor gui improvements. Changed the preset bounce heights for the conducting patterns in the to make the secondary bounces a bit more distinct (400 instead of 700 for up beat, 200 instead of 250 for middle beat and 150 instead of 200 for the last subdivision). Changed the click to buy url to the page with the details + billing information all on one page instead of two. For users who haven't yet bought the program - running the test drive, about to start the test drive, or after the test drive expired: Restored the"" button on the help window at the bottom of the window - since it is well out of the way now. Makes it easy to buy the software especially if you want to buy it soon after you download it - if you need a longer test drive, you can hide this button from . Wednesday March 31st 2010 For bouncing note symbols - and the note symbol on the tempo dial - now shows 3 beside the note for triplets, 5 for quintuplets etc. Here is a screen shot:
Added: in More version of Only affects the 3d bouncing musical notes - lets you show the number above the note instead of to the side. In 2D it's always to the side for now. Screen shot shows that option switched on so above the note. Installer for: 31st March 2010 Tuesday March 30th 2010 Installer for: 30th March 2010 Monday March 29th 2010 Added and (for bouncing balls or baton) to - helps make the 3D baton easier to see. Added and to . Added a drop list of ways to show the - as decimal seconds, % of a second, and milliseconds. Added a new check box in the window so you can easily switch that option on and off. Added button to the main window. Added help for first time users and trouble shooting page to the help overview now at: Installer for: 29th March 2010 Monday March 22nd 2010 Very minor update to do with improving purchase process. Main thing - preset the "Click to buy" button on the help window to hidden for test drive users again, for now. If you want it back for some reason, you can still do that - go to the Unlock window and select the option to show it. Installer for: 22nd March 2010 Sunday March 21st 2010 Very minor update to do with improving purchase process. Improved text for disclaimer, moved the Click to Buy button from title bar of help to the middle bottom of the window, and improved the tool tip help for the click to buy button. That's about it. Installer for: 21st March 2010 Friday March 19th 2010 Fixes a few very minor bugs in the last upload. Nothing worth mentioning really. Also in the window - now is preset to use the CinePack codec from Radius to make the avi if you have it - this codec seems to be commonly installed in Windows and gives good results. That's better than the normal preset which is "Uncompressed frames" which can make really enormous avi files. The help for the window explains about this but it seems best to use a good codec for the preset if there is one available. Installer for: 19th March 2010 Thursday March 18th 2010 Added the Bach musicological font to Bounce Metronome Pro, and use this to show musical note sizes in the program - e.g. on the tempo dial, and a new option for bouncing musical notes. New rhythm edit window for the drum metronome.
With the Auto Beam on edit feature - as you edit the rhythm the notes are automatically beamed together to the desired number of eighth notes. The ABC notation feature adds just the basic rhythm capabilities of abc - pitch variation is ignored also doesn't yet support repeats or >, >>, < or << - so it is a start - but later on can add those capabilities to it. New option for the drum & dance rhythms: - it's useful for rhythms with several parts. Makes all the parts the same length, i.e. same number of quarter notes (or sixteenth notes or whatever). The duration of a quarter note is the same for all the parts even when one of the parts is shorter (fewer quarter notes etc) - perhaps because it is mid-edit. Added to version of the window. Some other minor new options. Numerous minor improvements in layout of windows e.g. .. Installer for: 18th March 2010 Monday March 1st 2010 A few new tool tips and additions to existing tips. Sunday February 28th 2010 Improvements in the way the conducting patterns are shown - in the Bounce Patterns (Ctrl + 227) - added: You can see the effect of these in the new version of the conducting patterns page on this web site, e.g. for conducting 4/4 as 1 & 2 & Added option to set the tempo you change to as a tempo in BPM instead of a % multiple of the start tempo in . Also improved layout of this window and the More version of it. Added option "Keep this tempo when rhythm changes" to the Tempo Dial & Preferences window (Ctrl + 223). When unselected then keeps the measure beat tempo when the rhythm changes. When selected, keeps the tempo for the part shown in the tempo dial, whichever part it is. Added a tool tip to the new red "Click here to Buy" button which you see floating above the title bar of the window you work with, if you haven't bought the software - explains what it is for, and also tells you how to hide it if you want to (from Help | Buy Now or Unlock). Installer for: 28th February 2010 Thursday February 25th 2010 SummaryShow any Bounce Metronome Pro window FULL SCREEN (without menu, title bar or borders) now doesn't have a title bar Added or accents button to quickly add accents to the entire rhythm. Added - this makes it clear which instruments are used for which parts Other minor extra features and improvements in the interface - and some bug fixes. DetailsYou can now show any Bounce Metronome Pro window FULL SCREEN. To do that just press the ESCAPE key - or choose from the menu for the window. You press ESCAPE again to return to normal. You can use SHIFT + ESCAPE to show the menu full screen for windows with a menu (or to hide the menu if already shown). The now doesn't have a title bar - to take up less space on the screen. Also you can now move it around using click and drag anywhere between the buttons. Also while at it, did it so that you move any of the other windows in the same way - even when they have a title bar. So, as well as the usual click and drag on the title bar, you can click and drag anywhere between the buttons and controls. You can switch this off if needed in the window. You can also add the title bar back to the Play bar there as well if you want to (in the version of the window). Added options "" and "" to the tempo dial for the 3D bouncing balls, configured in the . This helps to see the tempo at a glance without the decimal point for fractional tempo and slightly larger text - you can see the decimal part in the text field at the top of the window where you can enter the tempo as text. Also means that you can show the tempo when you export a 3D animation in Added an button to main window. When you click on it, accents the beats. If already set to accents, changes to accents - with the accents on the weak notes between the main beats of the bar so a syncopated type effect. Clicking again changes back to normal accents on the main beats. It gives you a quick way to swap between accents or jazz type syncopation for an entire bar with one click. In - new option: "" in More version of the window - preset to selected. So - when you save a movie, if you halt it part of the way through, maybe because it is taking a long time to make, still adds the sound, trimmed to the movie, so that you can hear what it is like for as far as it got saved. In - new option . This is for lilt bars or continually changing tempo when you have switched on. Normally, it adjusts the total time for the movie to the time needed for the exact number of bars based on the start tempo and then uses that time for the length of the movie. If you switch on then the exact number of bars gets saved even if less or more than the estimated time based on the start tempo. This is useful if you want to save a particular number of measures. Also in the same window, added: . which gets shown when is unselected. This is useful - e.g. if you want to save an animation for continually changing tempo for e.g. 1 minute, will save a little over 1 minute and stop at exactly the end of the measure so that the animation can loop smoothly. Added to - preset to selected. This makes the shiny reflective spots on the bouncing balls a bit brighter when the bouncing balls are textured or for animated textures. When unselected, then the specular colour gets mixed with the texture so the shiny spots are less bright and depend on the colour of the texture. Depends on your version of OpenGL whether this is supported. Added : to More version of - this may give better results for some displays when you show the 3D bouncing balls at high resolution - maximised or full screen. Added and to - this makes it clear which instruments are used for which parts - when you look at the instrument in the menu - the part number gets added to the instrument name. Installer for: 25th February 2010 Monday February 15th 2010 This upload was mainly to do with the visual appearance of the software and the animations you can export from it. It also fixes an access violation that may happen in very rare situations for the 3D bouncing balls. Added new Pink Cherry Blossom Software Metronome skin based on the famous Mount Fuji seen through cherry blossoms - one of the views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai. To do that needed to add some new options as well as fix some minor bugs that turned up. Add options and to Added option Auto rescale texture to fit individual windows to Skins (Ctrl + 162) Added , and to the drop menu as a quick way to access these skins. Made the tool tips colour coordinated so you get blue tips on a pale blue background for the Shades of Blue skin and pink tips on a pale pink background for the Pink Cherry Blossom skin. Now recognises ¼ ¾ and ½ in any of the text fields where you enter numbers - i.e. the special ascii characters you get in most fonts for these fractions. So e.g. you can enter 3.25 as 3¼ in any text field which expects numerical input. The way they work is that the fractions get added to the number because that's how these symbols are usually used in practice. So - it's not really defined what happens if you use more than one of them but did it so they all get added together. So e.g. 3½¼ is parsed by Bounce Metronome Pro as 3.75 same as 3¾ Installer for: 15th February 2010 Monday January 11th 2010 Some work on the Midi Sync Send window, which is still "WORK IN PROGRESS" Installer for: 11th January 2010 Monday December 28th 2009 You can now use Ctrl or Shift + left or right arrow to micro-adjust the tempo by a fifth, tenth or (both together) a hundredth of a BPM. Installer for: 28th December 2009 Monday December 21st 2009 Adds sound to the animation save with a new window This includes an option to automatically convert midi recordings to WAV using the timidity plug in which you can get from the Extra Downloads page. Added support for Windows 7 multi-touch - to play chords with the PC Keyboard Player (Ctrl + K or Ctrl + 112) and in other places e.g. you can adjust the timing of several beats simultaneously or accent / skip several beats at once in the Bouncing Balls display. To try this out if you have a multi-touch device, switch on Recognise MultiTouch in the Options - General (Ctrl + 202) dialog. I'll be doing more work on this later. Installer for: 21st December 2009 Thursday November 26th 2009 Improvements in layout. Installer for: 26th November 2009 Tuesday November 24th 2009 Bug fixes for the new window and some other minor bug fixes. Minor improvements in tool tip help for the new window. Installer for: 24th November 2009 Monday November 23rd 2009 window is now active - in the Tempo drop menu. What it does is to add a tap timing strip to the 2D bouncing balls window which you can use to practice tapping ahead of the beat, behind the beat and on the beat. Some minor bug fixes. Installer for: 23rd November 2009 Friday November 20th 2009 Added Time Signature to the 3D Bouncing Balls window - this makes it easier to change the time signature or number of subdivisions without any need to leave the 3D Bouncing Balls window. A couple of the windows had got rather large with too many features, and needed to be split into smaller windows. So, split the 3D Images or Animations - for Sea Sky, & Bouncing Balls... into two windows with a separate window for the 3D Bouncing Balls. Also split the Skins window into three, with separate windows for the buttons and for the skin animations. Some minor bug fixes Installer for: 20th November 2009 Thursday November 19th 2009 Big improvement in the animated skins so that they now work smoothly on a fast enough computer, with no flickering text at all. If you have an older computer the animated skins will have a very slow frame rate like maybe one or two per second or less. However, you can also show slide shows as the skin background on slower computers. Added example animated skin using animated caustics made with caustics generator from Dual Heights software. For a screen shot and more about the animated skins see Animated Skin. Also added animated sea examples for the 3D scene, preset to show the simplest example which is animated just by turning the image around in 3D so that you see the texture from different angles - gives an effect like waves breaking in a light breeze on a fairly calm day. Work on the script to permit continuously sliding scripted pitch of the 1/1, so e.g. you can have a continuous swoop of any note from say 50 Hz to 1000 Hz - with some example scripts. These work best with the Waveform instruments since they can be changed in pitch smoothly without the need to resound for every new midi note in the pitch range. Many minor improvements and speed ups in the skin refresh and minor bug fixes and minor new features. You'll see those if you go to More twice in the Skins window. Added option to convert folder of images into an avi file in Settings and Encoder (Ctrl + 238). Fixed some other bugs, mostly minor, too many to list individually. Installer for: 19th November 2009 Thursday November 5th 2009 Minor improvements in smoothness of animations in low CPU situations, particularly, if it needs to reduce the CPU load by dropping frames, starts by dropping alternate frames. Only drops consecutive frames if that isn't enough to reduce the CPU load below the maximum value the user has set. Added a Fast Timer option to the More version of Bounce Preferences (Ctrl + 228) - this lets you run the animations at more than the 32 fps which is the normal limitation for the slower timer. 32 fps is generally considered to be okay for computer animations but more than this may make them slightly smoother. Installer for: 5th November 2009 Wednesday November 4th 2009 Minor improvements in tool tip help and layout of some windows. Installer for: 4th November 2009 Tuesday November 3rd 2009 Later in the day: Added option to show rectangle behind the srt subtitles. Bug fix. Installer for: 3rd November 2009 3D Visuals - Sky, Sea, Textures or Animations (Ctrl + 235)If you select Tile or Tile reflected for the sea, you can now set the number of repeats in both directions and angle of repeat. One situation this is useful - to tile it with caustics to give an impression of the sea. With animated caustics you can get an impression of moving water. You can make these types of textures and animated textures with the Caustics generator from Dual Heights. I've been testing it here with caustics, and I'll add some examples in a future download. Will also probably use an animated caustic as the example for the animated skin feature as well when it is ready. Settings for Animated Textures and Skies (Ctrl + 238)Added option to show the srt subtitles at the bottom of the scene, preset to switched on. Bounce Patterns (Ctrl + 227)Added option to bounce right to left first for bounce both ways and to bounce right to left instead of left to right for the bounce left to right option. Added new option Bounce on top of previous bounces. At present this is only for the bounce back and forth and bounce left to right. Could also do it for the bounce inside or outside ovals. Added new option Sync if possible - the idea is that if beats are a multiple of each other (or more generally have a common divisor) so that the ball bounces synchronise with each other several times in the bar, then the balls should bounce in the same direction as each other. Installer for: 3rd November 2009 Sunday November 1st 2009 Added gradient fill options to the plain background colour (either vertical or horizontal gradient fill) - this also works with the textures if you switch on fade to background colour - it will then fade to a gradient fill - but with texture the gradient fill is over the texture width or height with the plain background it uses the window width and height. Added an option to bounce upside down so that the bounces are off the top of the bouncing balls window instead of off the "ground". Added check box to use the skin background seamlessly as the sky for the 2D bouncing balls. Made a bit more space to enter text into the Polyrhythm Metronome window. Renamed the Fractional Rhythms metronome to Fractional Polyrhythm metronome (more accurately describes what it does). Added option to read all the images in a folder as an animation - to use it drag and drop the folder containing the images into the Skins window with the experimental Animated skins feature switched on - the animated skins are still an alpha feature with the vanishing and flickering text but should be able to fix that soon. The images in the folder are used as successive frames for the animation in sort order - so this same approach if you set a longer time between frames could also be used to make the skin a "slide show" of all the images in a folder. Installer for: 1st November 2009 Saturday October 31st 2009 Installer for: 31st October 2009 New version of the tempo dial with irregular sized notches like a standard dial for a metronome- notches of 2 BPM at slow tempi and going up to 8 BPM notches for fast tempi. The effect is to spread out the tempo markings more so that the Presto occupies a smaller region to the right of the dial. The old version of the dial is still available if you prefer it that way - go to the Tempo Dial - Visuals & Preferences (Ctrl + 223) and unselect "Uneven notches like standard dial". Improved layout and fixed some confusing messages in the out device capabilities wizards, also in the Out Devices Capabilities window (Ctrl + 106). Ditto, improved Edit the Melodic Instruments Menu (Ctrl + 157) and added capability to read menus of instruments in the Cakewalk .ins file format. Added option to show the bouncing balls as bouncing images or as bouncing animations. Use Shift + drop to drop any image or animation into the bouncing balls window and use it as the texture for the bouncing balls instead of the sky. Includes the bouncing text, bouncing polygons and the shadows, all will be textured. Also all can be faded or coloured with the bouncing ball colour. The images or animations can also be used as "sprites" with the background colour treated as transparent. You can choose which of nine possible pixels to treat as transparent from top left, top middle, top right etc all the way to bottom right - then any other pixels in the image same in colour or within a particular tolerance you set will also be treated as transparent. With the animations, the pixel is recalculated for each frame so it doesn't matter if the background colour changes between scenes. To find all this see Bouncing Balls & Sky Image or Animation (Ctrl + 236). Made it so that you can drop an image into the Skin & Textures window (Ctrl + 162) to make a new skin with that image as the background. Also added an option to show a plain background colour, set to anything you like, either just as a plain colour on its own, or to fade the image to the colour. This helps with high contrast images to make the text in the windows easier to read. As an experimental feature i've also added animated skins. The background image for the skin can actually be an animation, again just drop the animation into the window. The coding for this is nearly done, but it has flickering or vanishing text for the radios, check boxes and static text. I know how to fix this, pretty sure anyway, so may be able to fix it for next upload. This is an innovation as far as I know, I don't know of any other program that has animated textures for the skin. The animated textures may well be slow on an older machine so are preset to 1 fps and also automatically pause when the program starts up. But I'm gradually speeding them up with various tweaks, and they have reached the point where apart from the flickering text they are tolerable on a modern computer, and can play e.g. 12 fps, enough to seem like continuous motion, faster if the animation has a small frame size. So, hopefully eventually can become quite smooth once I fix the flicker, by eventually I mean in a few days if all goes well depending on how much time I have to work on it. This work on streamlining the textures to make them suitable for animated skins also has had the effect of making the skin change more instantly and smoothly when you change settings in the Skins window and for window contents to update more quickly when you resize a window or maximise or restore a window.. Added a pause button for the bouncing balls even when the sound isn't playing. Both 2D and 3D. Added option to configure the height of the bounce - maybe you don't want the bounce to go all the way up to the top of the window. You can do that in Bounce Patterns (Ctrl + 227) which is also improved in its layout. Improved the layout of the Waveform Instruments menu (formerly Wave Shape Player but I thought Waveform Instruments describe what it does more clearly). Also added square wave as a new option and sawtooth, as frequently used waveforms. These can be rather harsh sounding for music, because of the sharp sudden discontinuous changes in the wave - particularly the square wave, so they are there mainly so that you can play them if you need them rather than for music making particularly. Put all the settings to do with the Mencoder animation conversions into a new window Settings for animated TExtures and Skies (Ctrl + 238). This leaves more space in the other windows and avoids duplicating the settings in the relevant windows. Added tempo strip to the bouncing balls window to make it easy to change tempo when main window is hidden. This is in: Bouncing Balls - Controls, Text and layout (Ctrl + 233). Adds arrow key shortcuts to easily change tempo by one BPM or one notch. It's left and right arrows for BPM and up or down arrows for notches. Numerous minor bug fixes. Here is the installer for this date: Installer for: 31st October 2009 Wednesday October 21st 2009 Adds option to hide the main window - go to File | Hide Main Window. Adds animated textures for the sky, sea, bouncing balls and background to the 2D bouncing balls. To find this feature go to and . Also in the More version for the 3D bouncing balls, added options to vary the material for the bouncing balls and the sea with choice of Ruby, Gold, Silver, ... Also added support for many more output formats to . This is done using MEncoder, so visit the Extra Downloads page to get it to add support for these formats. You will also be able to use any of these types of video as animated textures as well, i.e. for input as well as output. Supported file formats include: Separate Frames, .AVI, .MP4, .WMV, .MOV, .ASF, .MKV, .3G2, .3GP, .TS, .M2TS, .VOB, .FLV, .DAT, .RM, .RMVB .DPG, .FLI, .FLIC, .SMV, .STR, .SWF, .VIV, .OGM, .TIVO, .MMV Added some new options to . They configure what happens to the swing or individual beats for changes of time signature: Keep swing (preset to selected), Keep skipped beats, Keep Edited Beat Times, Keep Edited Beat Volumes. This can be useful if you want to e.g. vary number of subdivisions or vary the time signature based rhythms in other ways and keep the skipped beats, volumes etc. Also added warning message if you make a rhythm with time signatures after editing the beat times or volumes. If you don't need to see this warning you can switch it off in the More version of the window. Fixes some minor bugs Installer for: 21st October 2009 Wednesday October 14th 2009 Improvements in the SHIFT + F1 tool tip help for the metronome main windows - made the Quick Start nearer the top of the page and edited it for clarity and succinctness. Added a drop list of common denumerators for the time signature - as 1 to 16. If you use Backspace to delete a number then improved the tool tip you get about the BACKSPACE tempo tap to suggest you use Highlight and Delete as an alternative to switching off the tempo tap. Some minor bug fixes. Installer for: 14th October 2009 Tuesday October 13th 2009 Some minor bug fixes. Also, installer now includes many example instruments for the Wave Shape Player. I forgot to include them in the earlier installers, sorry. Installer for: 13th October 2009 Monday October 12th 2009 Added and to the window: This lets you start play at any measure (bar) in the tune - previously you had to start at a particular time but measures are often more convenient for rhythms. Also you can set it to stop automatically as well. Added Note On and Note Off instructions to the script, with examples in the drop list of special instructions in including an option to play them as repeating notes, also to play them with fade in and fade out. Now any controller can be auto scripted with new script instruction Controller for part, example: Controller for part 1 = controller 7 = 127 Also you can now morph the controller for any part over a period of time, e.g. gradually increase or decrease the expression, channel volume, modulation, tremolo etc - just as you could morph the tempo and volume etc before. Example instruction to show how to do this added to the list of special script instructions. Many minor bug fixes. Installer for: 13th October 2009 Installer for: 12th October 2009 Thursday September 24th 2009 When you have play script switched on in Script (Ctrl + 171) now shows that it is switched on in the main window with PLAYING SCRIPT prefixed to the title. Also the Script... entry in the menu is ticked. This helps with confusions where one may not realise that you have a script playing. Installer for: 24th September 2009 Wednesday September 23rd 2009 Minor bug fixes Installer for: 23rd September 2009 Tuesday September 22nd 2009 Added . Added Stop Play to the . This is useful if you want the rhythm to stop automatically after a set number of seconds, or bars after you press the play button. Also Beep which may be useful as an alarm for practice along with a script. Added several other script instructions (from the Tune Smithy fractal tunes tasks). Replaced "Bar" by "measure" throughout the help and the program for US users. If you are from the UK then it will be shown as "Bar" as before. Made the check box to choose which you want easier to find - it is now in Added "" to the same window. This lets you show any frame in the animation for any time by stopping the tune and the bouncing balls. You can then e.g. explore it at different angles in the 3D window and so on. This can be useful as a way to look closely at the frame for any desired time. You can then print the frame, save it as an image or copy it to the clipboard at any desired resolution using . Added , and to , also to . Installer for: 22nd September 2009 Friday September 18th 2009 Now you can use concentric ellipses for the bounce outside ellipse. Fixed some bugs in positioning for bounce inside and outside ellipse. Installer for: 18th September 2009 Thursday September 17th 2009 Minor bug fixes upload Installer for: 17th September 2009 Tuesday September 15th 2009 Minor bug fixes upload Installer for: 15th September 2009 Friday September 13th 2009 Minor bug fixes upload Installer for: 13th September 2009 Tuesday September 15th 2009 Minor bug fixes upload Installer for: 11th September 2009 Wednesday September 9th 2009 Minor bug fixes upload Installer for: 9th September 2009 Thursday September 3rd 2009 Program is now thoroughly tested in Windows 7. Added. This lets you make smoothly looping animations of any of the rhythm videos e.g. for a web page. You can also make an image for any moment of time in the rhythm, and print it out to printer's resolution too if you wish (except for the bouncing lyrics - they are currently limited to your screen resolution). I'll be using it to add many more animations to this web site in the near future. Changed the way the option works in . It used to be on the same line as the word you are currently singing. But that makes the two words together very long so that if the window is narrow they can't easily fit in the screen. Instead now the next word in brackets is placed below the one you are singing now, which works much better. If you have it set to show the lyrics in canon however, e.g. for Frère Jacques,, then it will show the next word on the same line as before. Improved the layout for in . Also added the lyric itself as editable text so now you can edit the lyrics directly in Bounce Metronome Pro. If you want to add your lyric to the drop list you still need to edit it by hand for now. Later on (especially if there is a lot of interest in this feature) I can do it so you can easily add lyrics to the drop list - or edit them, move it around, make different drop lists and so on, also add abc music capabilities as well so that the program can play the tunes for the lyrics. Added to . When unselected (which is the way it was before this upload), the bouncing numbers and letters bounced a bit above the "ground" in both 2D and 3D. That's because they bounced so that the descent of each character hit the line e.g. a y would hit, but most letters and numbers e.g. a, 1, etc appear to bounce a bit above the baseline. Added When ready, this should help you to synchronise the midi notes of the metronome when sent to another program that recognises the use of the Midi "Clock" messages to synchronise tempi. However it is work in progress, based on the same window in Tune Smithy 3.1 and will need some testing to make sure everything is working as expected in BM Pro. There may be nothing to fix, but if there are any issues, expect an update of it with next upload. Added an obvious button on the tempo dial which will appear there for the duration of test drive. This frees up the Standard Settings button which can now be shown in the test drive just as it is in the fully unlocked version of the program. You can also easily hide this new button at any time during the test drive. So it's not meant as a limitation or feature restriction in any way. It is just intended as a way to help any users who may want to buy the program and want to be able to find the Buy Now window quickly and easily. Installer for: 3rd September 2009 Friday August 21st 2009 Added option to. Minor improvements in way the tool tip works - main thing - if the help window isn't visible, then you get the ... at the end of the tip replaced by help saying that it is Shift + F1 for the extra help. Also minor improvements in the pan window and added the option to set auto pan for any part individually. Old installer: 21st August 2009 Saturday August 15th 2009 Better message for the "" message you get if you enter an incorrect user name or unlock key or a pair that don't match. I frequently get asked by users what it means, now the message itself explains what it means. Message now reads: "Sorry, this user name and unlock key don't match each other Have you entered your name exactly as it appears on your order e-mail? Any use of nick-names or alternative spellings will prevent the key from working: The best way to make sure of this is to COPY AND PASTE your USER NAME and LICENSE KEY from your order e-mail into this window. Please try again. Any questions at all, be sure to contact Robert Walker - support@robertinventor.com Thanks!" Old installer: 15th August 2009 Tuesday August 11th 2009 , in . - now preset to ON. Very minor bug fixes. Old installer: 11th August 2009 Sunday August 9th 2009 Improved layout of (Ctrl + 226), (Ctrl + 225), and Added to Added to . (Ctrl + 225) Added to . (Ctrl + 226) Added method of spinning the 3D bouncing balls around to view from different directions using Alt + click and drag - and zoom in / out with mouse wheel etc. - also added Alternative 3D views: ,, , . Added , and to . Added to the droplist of auto pan styles in Minor improvements in the visuals. Old installer: 9th August 2009 Monday August 3rd 2009 Added to - this lets you adjust the height of the blocks display in the bouncing balls display. Added to - this has the effect that the ball expands and shrinks during the bounce. Bug fixes. Old installer: 3rd August 2009 Saturday July 25th 2009 Minor improvement in message for play by file association, very minor bug fixes. Tuesday July 21st 2009 Minor bug fixes mainly to do with . Minor improvements in for the option to show the tips in a web page format. Monday July 20th 2009 Added . Fixed some bugs in this option and improved the layout of the web page format version of it, and made so that it is preset to show the tips in a web page format (previously available e.g. using its shortcut Ctrl + Shift + F1). Minor improvements in . Fixed some minor bugs. Minor improvements in the tool tip help. Old installer: 20th July 2009 (later version) Tuesday July 14th 2009 Put all the options to do with layout and text from into a new window . It had too many options for one window. Also improved layout of the window. Fixed some bugs in rarely used display options in those windows. Monday July 13th 2009 Minor bug fixes Sunday July 12th 2009 Added half circle controls to left and right of the bouncing balls display which you can use to show / hide the blocks or the parts adjustments. This means those extra check boxes can be removed from the main window leading to a simpler more streamlined look. Also you can show / hide them within the bouncing balls display as a separate window. The half circle controls themselves can be hidden if you prefer, using in the Some very minor bug fixes. Monday July 6th 2009 More Improvements and minor bug fixes for the Car Tunes Lyrics with bouncing balls main window metronome. Main thing - when editing the lyrics, you can just resave the file and the lyric for the Song Car-Tune Metronome in Bounce Metronome Pro will immediately get updated to match your changes. (Detects to see if the saved file is newer than the drop list). As a result, the button in the window is no longer needed, so that's been removed. Also added F1 tip for the Song Car Tunes Metronome and improved help for the button. Friday July 3rd 2009 Improvements and minor bug fixes for the Car Tunes Lyrics with bouncing balls main window metronome. Tuesday June 30th 2009 Several minor bugs fixed, and minor improvements and additions to the tool tip help. Saturday June 27th 2009 Several minor bugs fixed, and improvements and additions to the tool tip help. Monday June 22nd 2009 New version, now at 3.2 because of significant improvements in the layout and some important new features. Now the main window has a drop list of many different types of metronome. So now it is much easier to find the particular features of interest to you. The complete list is: Bounce Metronome Basic is completely new. In , added . This gives you the ordinary type of swing where only one size of beat is swung, normally one of the fastest beats. Also added which is again what you normally expect for an ordinary swing rhythm. Both are now pre selected too. So when you try the Swing metronome you get the expected type of swing rhythm to start with. You can unselect these options to experiment with the lilt or lilt combined with swing type rhythms. The new F1 help for the swing metronome explains this in more detail, with two sections, one for swing rhythms and one for lilt. Added new feature to adjust the volumes of individual beats in the main window using the middle mouse button (scroll wheel used as a button in scroll mouse) or Shift + left click. Also you can now accent individual beats or unaccent them or make them quieter than usual with the right button. Improved display and the interaction with the controls in the bouncing balls display in many ways. One big improvement - if you click on a beat to skip it, or click on the other controls, the action now always happens on the down click, rather than on the release of the button as it did before. Normally buttons in windows are activated when you release the mouse button - so that if you change your mind and move the mouse off the button without releasing it, nothing happens. But in this context it makes more sense to activate on the press rather than the release - like a musical note which is played on the press rather than the release. Added silence keys shortcuts. If the keyboard focus is set to a button, check box or anything that doesn't expect character entry then you can use the number keys 1 - 9 and the first few letters of top row of the PC keyboard to silence or play the parts of the rhythm. For edit fields or PC keyboard player you can switch on these shortcuts with Shift + Space Added quick key shortcuts: Return key to play / stop the rhythm. The Return key is normally used for the default (i.e. preset) action in a dialog. So this is like making the play / stop rhythm the default action for most of the windows. The main difference is that when you press the return key then the keyboard focus stays with whichever control you are using, it doesn't jump to the Play button as it normally would. Backspace to set the tempo by tapping at the tempo you want. Again shortcut to switch this feature on even for text fields - use Alt + backspace. Similarly Ctrl + space to tap out a rhythm for the currently selected part using the space bar. Added option: to The new thing here is that you can now unselect this. This makes it easier to skip beats as you just need to click on the beat itself, not on the diamond or oval shape within it. So for new users, it is preset to unselected. Numerous other minor features. Numerous minor bugs fixed. To find out about the new windows in this version see the next section. New main windows in version 3.2Here are the new metronome main windows: Bounce Metronome BasicBasic metronome with time signature, and sub-beats. Bounce Metronome ProAll the features of the PRO metronome accessible within one window. If you want to focus on one particular feature then try one of the more specialised metronomes. Swing MetronomeUse this to practice swing or to use lilt for a more lively rhythm. Drum & Dance MetronomeFor drum rhythms such as paradiddle, and dance rhythms mixing crotchets, quavers and so on. You can select from a drop list of rhythms or enter a new rhythm. Polyrhythm MetronomeUse this to practice polyrhythms (cross rhythms) such as 2 beats to a bar with 3 simultaneously, or 3 with 4, 3 with 5 etc. Additive MetronomeTo practice additive rhythms such as 2 + 3 (i.e. 5/4 divided into two beats followed by 3 beats) or 3 + 2 + 3 etc. Additive Polyrhythm MetronomeHere you can make a cycle of rhythms and polyrhythms one after another. Useful for long additive rhythms with many rhythms one after another or a cycle that combines ordinary rhythms with polyrhythms. Fractional Rhythms MetronomeFractional rhythms here are ones with either a fractional (e.g. 2.2) or irrational (e.g. golden ratio or PI) number of beats to the bar. The beats drift in and out of phase with the bar line. Tap out a rhythmUse this to tap out a rhythm and then play the bouncing balls metronome to follow the rhythm of your taps. Harmonic MetronomeHere the idea is that each number of beats per measure is assigned a pitch, so e.g. 7 beats to the bar corresponds to the seventh harmonic, 5 beats to the bar corresponds to the fifth and so on. The results sound harmoniously together as they use pitches from the harmonic series. This idea is related to the Lambdoma arrangement of pitches, and to Theremin's Rhythmicon. Originally suggested by Barbara Hero and may be of interest for music therapy. Additive Polyrhythms Harmonic MetronomePlay a cycle of rhythms and polyrhythms one after another with the pitches following the harmonic series. Fractional Harmonic MetronomeHere the idea is that you can use fractional or irrational rhythms e.g. involving the golden ratio or PI and combine that with the idea of using pitches corresponding to the number of beats to the bar. So PI / 4 will be played using two pitches at a ratio of PI to 4 to each other. The golden ratio rhythms are particularly interesting here because the golden ratio rhythm is in a sense the most polyrhythmic possible rhythm (ratio of beats most hard to approximate using a rational number). Similarly the golden ratio pitch interval is the most inharmonic possible pitch interval. It's a pleasant interval actually on most instruments - some inharmonic pitch intervals are very pleasant sounding (the ones that are often hard on the ear are e.g. detuned fifths, close to a very pure interval such as a fifth, octave or fourth,but obviously not hitting it). So this combination gives the most polyrhythmic possible rhythm combined with the most inharmonic possible interval. A Version of Theremin's RhythmiconLets you play a version of Theremin's Rhythmicon using the number keys on your PC keyboard and the first six keys of the first row of letter keys e.g. q w e r t y as the keys of your instrument. Theremin's Rhythmicon is an instrument with sixteen keys. Each key silences or plays a rhythm with a different number of notes to the bar, starting from 1 for the first key, 2 for second key all the way down to 16 for the last key. Each key also plays a different note of the harmonic series. Fractal Tune MetronomePlay the rhythms using fractal tunes. This is just a taste of what can be done in this way. It may give some idea of what your rhythm will sound like melodically. It also introduces you to the fractal tunes you can make with Fractal Tune Smithy. Note - at present Bounce Metronome Pro is at version 3.2. but FTS is still at 3.0. Bounce Metronome Pro has many capabilities not in FTS such as the skipped beats for instance. So most of the tunes you make here can't be played in Tune Smithy itself until the release of version 3.0 hopefully some time in summer or autumn 2009. fixes some minor bugs. Improves layout for the main window. This is the last version that runs on Windows 98. Let me know if you need the software for Win 98, as I may be able to update the latest to run on Windows 98 but it needs some thought and investigation (perhaps putting the resources into a dll may work). None of the versions run on Windows 3.1 and earlier. New messages when you change to / from the Pro metronome, or show / hide graphics, or show / hide pitched instruments to ask to confirm that's what you want to do. New check boxes in main window and - previously those check boxes were rather hidden away in the Bouncing ball Visuals window. Also, is now preset to not show the parts adjustments as newbies may find them confusing at first glance, and they are easy to show with the new check boxes. Changed preset value to 60% for in. This gives better results for e.g. jig with swing (in Scottish Dance Music). This won't affect any saved rhythms, just changes the preset amount for new rhythms. The old value was 30%. Added a button to this window - that's useful when you have several parts in play at once and want only some of them with swing, e.g. to swing just the eighth notes in 6/8 with a steady rhythm for the dotted quarter notes. Renamed the drop menu to - to help make it easier for users to navigate to the swing windows. When you click on the horizontal triangles in the blocks display to increase or decrease number of beats for the part - now no longer resets all the beats for the part. Instead re-applies lilt to new number of beats if necessary - or just adds or removes an extra beat to the rhythm without changing the existing times. You can still use Shift + click on the arrow if you want to reset the beats for the part as before. Thursday April 30th 2009 fixes some minor bugs, and improves accessibility and layout for many of the windows. Particularly, very much improved layout for the 3D Visuals window and for some of the CSound windows. Also now if you tab to the help button with your screen reader then the tip for the button shows a list of all the shortcuts for the current window. Also with the Ctrl + Shift + F1 shortcut to show all the tool tips for the current window, the list now starts with a list of all the keyboard shortcuts for the current window. Old installer: 30th April 2009 Thursday April 16th 2009 fixes some minor bugs in the first release and improves the accessibility shortcuts and layout for theand windows. Old installer: 16th April 2009 First release: Wednesday April 15th 2009 New features since the last release of the Rhythms and polyrhythms task include:
Also many new minor features, tweaks and improvements of the other features, improvements in the skin, improvements in usability throughout, and simplification of many of the windows to make them easier to use. Also many bug fixes. For earlier what's new and bug fixes, see What's new (Tune Smithy) I plan to use the same version number for all the stand alone programs derived from Tune Smithy so that you can easily compare the stand alone programs with the same tasks as components of Tune Smithy. For instance since the version is 3.1 this shows you that currently Bounce Metronome Pro is currently more up to date than the main program. Old installer: First release 15th April 2009 Earlier uploadsCurrent upload: 1st September 2010 Earlier uploads: 29th August 2010 - 26th August 2010 - 23rd August 2010 - 8th August 2010 - 2nd August 2010 - 30th June 2010 - 22nd June 2010 - 2nd June 2010 - 29th May 2010 - 19th May 2010 - 12th May 2010 5th May 2010 - 29th April 2010 - 20th April 2010 - 17th April 2010 - 16th April 2010 - 12th April 2010 - 7th April 2010 - 31st March 2010 - 30th March 2010 - 29th March 2010 - 21st March 2010 - 19th March 2010 - 18th March 2010 - 1st March 2010 - 28th February 2010 - 25th February 2010 - 15th February 2010 - 11th January 2010 28th December 2009 - 20th November 2009 - 19th November 2009 - 5th November 2009 - 4th November 2009 - 3rd November 2009 - 3rd November 2009 - 1st November 2009 - 31st October 2009 - 31st October 2009 - 21st October 2009 - 14th October 2009 - 13th October 2009 - 13th October 2009 - 12th October 2009 - 24th September 2009 - 23rd September 2009 - 22nd September 2009 - 18th September 2009 - 17th September 2009 - 15th September 2009 - 13th September 2009 - 11th September 2009 - 9th September 2009 - 3rd September 2009s - 21st August 2009 - 15th August - 2009 - 11th August 2009 - 10th August 2009 - 9th August 2009 - 3rd August 2009 - 25th July 2009 - 21st July 2009 - 20th July 2009 - 20th July 2009 (later version) - 17th July 2009 - 14th July 2009 - 13th July 2009 - 12th July 2009 - 6th July 2009 - 3rd July 2009 - 1st July 2009 - 27th June 2009 - 22nd June 2009 - 18th May 2009 - 30th April 2009 - 16th April 2009 |
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