Paradiddle news & patch notes

• Fixed some issues that could result in crashes in multiplayer sessions when players were starting a song, or hitting the first note. Let us know if you continue to have any issues during multiplayer sessions.

Hi all, it's been a while!

We're excited to finally release this big update that's been in the works for the majority of 2025. Because of some of the infrastructural changes, we initially had it in beta for the past couple of months as we worked out the issues you reported. The 2 major new additions are modding support, and a new 2D/flat-screen mode on PC. The app has also gone through an engine upgrade to Unreal Engine 5, though you should ideally not notice much of a difference - in fact you might notice some of our performance optimizations. The engine upgrade will make it easier for us to keep updating the app with the latest XR platform features moving forward.

We also have a new release of the PD Song Creator/Companion App with some feature and quality of life updates: https://github.com/emretanirgan/ParadiddleUtilities/releases/latest

As always, you can switch back to the earlier version of the app if you run into any issues. To roll back to the previous version, right click Paradiddle -> Betas -> Select "previous" on Steam, or click the "..." icon on the app in your app library, go to Settings -> Release Channels and select "Previous Version" on Quest.

Modding Support

This has been a big task we've been working on for a while: we're excited to announce that mods are now supported both on Quest and Steam! You can drop them into sdcard/Paradiddle/Mods on Quest, or Documents/Paradiddle/Mods on PC.

• You can make custom environments, drums, hook into core app events such as notes being played in songs or drums being hit, make UIs for your mod that users can interact with.

• You'll need the Paradiddle Mod Kit to make mods using Unreal Engine 5.4. You can find the mod kit and instructions here: https://github.com/kasapoli/ParadiddleWorkshop. Keep in mind that we're still updating the documentation and will be clarifying more details as we take your questions about the process.

Here's a 'backrooms' inspired map that one of our community members, Moth, has been working on:

We're currently uploading some video content walking you through modding basics, and will be updating this post, as well as posting them on our Discord, as soon as they're up.

(Beta) 2D Mode

This has been another major undertaking that's now in beta state: when you launch the app, you can now select the "Launch Paradiddle in 2D Mode" option to launch into flat screen mode.

• You should be able to launch songs, play with any of the app or song settings, and change drum settings by clicking on a drum on your kit. Midi input automatically will be enabled on all your drums, so if you have an e-kit all you need to do is to select your drum kit under Options -> Midi.

• You can also use keyboard controls to trigger the different drums in the standard set, and play the app like a rhythm game just with your keyboard.

• We're still working through some positioning and usability issues in 2D mode, and trying to get a better sense of what you'd like to see improved or fixed first. Feel free to give us your feedback on the #suggestions and #bug-reports forum channels on our Discord!

• You can see an overview and list of known issues here that we're working through: https://discord.com/channels/354847842612936705/428143763068682242/1423560614508363776

DLC UX/UI Updates

We've added new DLC specific song pages with info about our song packs, where you can now purchase the packs directly in the app on Quest.

• The DLC songs will now display in their dedicated menu tabs after the download is finished.

• We've also made DLC downloads more reliable overall on Quest, and added a % download progress bar in the dedicated DLC page.

MIDI Input Over Network on Quest

The latest version of the companion app can send midi messages from your PC to your Quest. This should let you do things like connect your e-drum kit or other midi instrument to your PC, and send the midi messages to your Quest over the network without having to plug it in directly to your Quest.

PD Song Creator + Companion App Updates

• The latest release of the song creator now has a song display feature that can show you what your raw midi notes look like, and what the result of the conversion will look like.

• You can now select a preview audio track for your converted song.

• Made quality of life improvements to make it easier to catch conversion issues before they happen, such as showing the number of midi notes in your selected midi file and track, as well as how many notes will be present in the converted song file.

• The companion app will now let you know if there's a newer version available.

We're also considering making a web version of the song converter, so let us know if you'd find this useful or if you have any suggestions.

Unreal Engine 5 Upgrade

The app now supports OpenXR by default, which should in theory make it easier to support different types of headsets and controllers on Steam. Let us know if you notice any different/broken behavior on your headsets that you hadn't notice before, and we'll take a look.

Performance Optimizations

We've made several GPU & CPU optimizations across the board. Some of this work was offset by our upgrade to UE5, as certain cheaper to use engine features have been deprecated, however you should still see a net performance gain compared to the previous version of the app.

• Decreased default CPU usage by about 20-30% in all scenes of the app.

• Enabled dynamic resolution on Quest. This might give you better resolution than before in some cases, and will also help with temporary frame rate dips, especially in more complex songs.

Other Fixes

• Fixed a bug where you couldn't grab and move the note highway in the Galaxy map.

• Fixed a bug where the midi learn buttons on drums were listening to any midi event, rather than filtering by midi 'note on' events.

• Fixed the recenter button not working on PC and brought it back to the toolbar under the menu.

• Fixed an issue where some custom song album art would appear with wrong colors, or with a color tint.

Known Issues

If you play the new version, and switch back to the prev_version branch on Steam, there is a chance the older version won't be able to properly recognize your save file due to the engine upgrade. If you run into any unexpected behavior, you can try deleting your Saved folder under C:/User//AppData/Local/Paradiddle/Saved.

-Emre

[email protected]

Join us on Discord!: https://discord.gg/paradiddle

Official Paradiddle website: http://paradiddleapp.com

FAQ: http://paradiddleapp.com/faq

• Fixed custom songs crashing due to special characters in the file/folder name.
• Improved how really long (over an hour) audio files are handled when loading an audio file from the file menu. This issue didn't impact songs on the note highway, but only the ones loaded from the file menu. Any app freezes or crashes caused by this issue should now be fixed.
• (Quest hand tracking branch only) Fixed recentering messing up the hand ray position and orientation.
• (Quest hand tracking branch only) Fixed the menu getting stuck to the hand when closing the app and relaunching it with hand tracking on.

• Cosmic (7:31)
• Hail to the King (5:06)
• Shepherd of Fire (5:24)
• A Little Piece of Heaven (8:01)
• Nightmare (6:14)
• Bat Country (5:12)

A new environment - Cosmic:

1 new pair of sticks

2 new drum skins

🎶 (Beta Release) Notation Updates: Sheet music view for highway songs:

🥽 (Quest-Only) New E-Kit Toggle and MR Drum Improvements:

• Instead of individual MR toggles for each drum, there's now a global "E-Kit" toggle you can find in the menu toolbar.
• MR drums are now compatible with lessons.
• We also have a new drum substitution system for MR kits: if a song uses a drum your real kit doesn't have, the app will do its best to substitute it with one that's close enough (so a missing Floor Tom might be mapped to your existing Tom 2, for instance).

🤏 (Quest-Only) Hand Tracking UI Branch

Feedback, reviews and artist suggestions appreciated!

Here's what's included in the DLC:

5 songs adding up to over 50 minutes of music:

• Ice V (10:16)
• The Dripping Tap (18:17)
• Gila Monster (4:36)
• Iron Lung (9:05)
• The River (10:10)

New environment - Gecko Ruins:

A new psychedelic drum skin:

2 new sticks:

Feedback, reviews and artist suggestions appreciated!

DLC Patch Soon

• Fixed the app crashing when loading any recording from File -> Load Recording.
• Fixed a long-standing bug with the Right Grip button that prevented it from being used for the kick/hi-hat if a song was open.
• Fixed non-hi-hat e-drum pads not registering as successful hits on the note highway, even though they're detected in the app.
• Fixed a slider bug where the +/- buttons could be used to get to slider values beyond the minimum and maximum defined.
• Fixed the song speed being adjusted to 100x the value that was set, if it was set using the +/- buttons.
• Fixed the song speed slider not resetting properly across songs.

Custom Song Support in Multiplayer

Looping Checkpoints in Songs

Timeline Section Support in Songs

Other Changes

• Thumbstick Swipe Navigation Toggle:If you have thumbstick drift issues on your VR controllers, we have you covered! We've added a toggle to turn off thumbstick swipe navigation in the Controls tab.
• VR-Mirror Window Jitter Fix: We've finally addressed a nasty VR-mirror window jitter problem that some PC VR players encountered.
• Extended Song Length Support: We've increased the maximum supported song length to a whopping 10 hours from 30 minutes, so you can drum to your heart's content.

What's Next

• Haptics improvements for Quest headsets (on both PC and standalone Quest versions): We thought the haptic effects on Quest headsets were too weak until now, so we completely reworked them. You should feel the clearest difference on Quest 3, however you'll feel stronger haptics on other Quest headsets as well. As always, you can tune the intensity of the haptics under Options -> General -> Haptics Intensity. Let us know how you think they compare to the haptics before this update!
• Fixed multiplayer cross-play issues where Steam and standalone Quest users would be kicked out when joining each others' rooms. This should now be fixed, however let us know on the #multiplayer channel on the Discord if you still run into issues.
• While using the Fixed Menu Mode setting, your menu will now remain where you placed it until you switch maps or quit the app.
• Tweaked some cymbal volume levels so they're a bit louder relative to the other instruments - we might keep tuning these in future updates.
• Fixed Friend Leaderboards not showing any entries from friends.
• Fixed a UI bug that was always showing player local high scores as 0 in the song menus. These were actually being saved all along, so you shouldn't have lost any of your locally saved high scores.
• Fixed Rock Band pedal input not working in the app.
• Fixed an issue where the correct audio output device wasn't loaded properly in a new session if the user had switched it in a previous session.

Quest Standalone Version Only:

• Graphics improvements on Quest 3: Increased default render resolution and made the foveated rendering level less aggressive. If you were used to the Low-Medium-High VR resolution options in the previous versions of the app, we're now essentially running the app on the High mode by default on Quest 3.
• Brought back access to the sdcard/Paradiddle folder for custom songs, audio files, PDF files and recordings. The first time you launch the app, you'll now see a "Manage All Files" permission dialog pop up. This is an Android system-level change that we now have to accommodate - you'll need to enable this permission for the app to be able to use the sdcard/Paradiddle folder again. If you skip it the first time, you can always access this permission again under Options -> File -> Manage Folder Permissions. Note: Paradiddle will only access the sdcard/Paradiddle folder as it did before. If you don't want to give this permission, the sdcard/Android/data/com.tanirganemre.paradiddle/files/Songs/ path will continue working as before.
• MR mode improvements: If you're using a kit with MR features turned on (to use them with a real life kit), they'll now be autosaved/autoloaded in the same spot in the real world. Added some notifications to let users know their drums will be locked to the real world if they enable MR on a drum.
• Fixed PDFs not being loaded properly on Quest.

Multiplayer

Co-op Note Highway Play
• You can play any built-in song in-sync with other players, and compare your scores at the end. Time to settle who's the best drummer in the group!
• Custom songs not supported right now, but we're working on it. Let us know if you'd be excited about having custom songs supported in multiplayer :) Free Play
• When not playing a song on the highway, each person in the room can hear the others' drums freely. We're hoping this'll pave the way for some fun virtual performances, remote teaching sessions, or just the best type of absolute chaos where everyone is banging on their drum fortresses.
• Keep in mind that networked audio latency isn't quite good enough to play in sync with others freely, so it's tricky get a 4 person jam session going where everyone's playing at the same time. However as you'll find out, it's still quite fun to show off your skills freely to the others in the room!

MIDI improvements and MIDI Input/Output Support on Native Quest Version

• MIDI Monitor: We added a MIDI Monitor under the MIDI tab in Options where you can see the last MIDI message that was received by the app. This should make it easier to spot any MIDI connection or message issues without having to rely on another program to inspect incoming messages.
• MIDI Learn Button: Each drum now has a "Learn" button under its MIDI settings. Simply click the button, and hit the MIDI e-drum pad or pedal you'd like to use for that drum, and its MIDI settings will be automatically set.
• (Quest native version only) Midi input on Quest over USB: You can now plug in your MIDI device and have it be detected automatically by the app on Quest. Easy!
• (Quest native version only) Midi output over network: Using our updated Paradiddle Companion App, you can now have your Quest send MIDI messages over the network to your PC. After quite a bit of testing, we can confirm that in most cases you'll get lower audio latency with this setup compared to the default audio latency of the Quest. So if you wish your drums were just a bit more responsive in terms of the audio delay, and have a PC, give this a try! You can also change the sounds of all your drums this way, since it's now possible to connect the Quest version to a DAW such as Ableton or Superior Drummer.

New Songs

New Instruments

• New mallet instruments like the steel drum, hand pans (hapi drums) - these were actually started from community requests!
• New auxiliary percussion instruments: rope tension (marching) snare drum, giant bass drum
• Added a new drum kit: the Virtuosity kit

(Quest Native Version Only) Mixed Reality Drums

Paradiddle Companion App

• We're looking into Mac and Linux builds for the companion app.
• The MIDI messages are one-way currently (from Quest to PC) however we already have the other way working, so we'll have an update soon that makes the MIDI traffic two-way.
• Big thanks to Primitive for their help in refactoring the companion app repository on GitHub!

Song Format Updates

• New metadata file: Each song can now have a lighterweight "info.rlrr" metadata file that only contains meta information such as the title, and the file names for the different difficulties.
• Time signatures are now supported in song files.
• Song-mapper defined bookmarks and jump points are now supported in song files. We'll add a visual representation of these on the app side soon, where players will be able to jump to predefined or self-defined points on the song timeline easily.
• Thanks a lot to CANADan and anonymousthing for the feedback on this!

Other Updates and Improvements

• Kit rotation: While grabbing your whole kit, you can now rotate it by using your right thumbstick left-right axis.
• Added a zoom setting to the camera menu.
• Added individual audio level controls for Environment and UI sounds.
• Added more accessibility options for the note highway under General:
• Latency slider: You can now change the visual latency of the notes on the highway relative to the audio.
• Auto kick: The song will trigger the kick notes automatically without affecting your score.
• Mute drums on miss: By default, a missed note lowers the drum track audio for a song if it has one. You can now turn this off if you'd like.
• Removed some settings on the menu that were PC-specific.
• Fixes to various bugs reported on our Canny board.
• Various performance improvements to particle effects, menu rendering optimizations.

More Coming!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where users could accidentally start a lesson even without the lesson menu visible.
• Fixed a scary bug where the sticks would become unresponsive and would not register any drum hits until deleting the save file.
• Fixed the lesson text getting hidden behind the full drum kit in the 2 drum fill lessons (drum fill intro & drum fill exercises).
• Fixed a drum material bug where certain song and kit files would load with drums that looked inside out/see-through.
• Fixed a bug where the song speed setting would not take effect if it was adjusted prior to starting the song.
• Fixed the song tempo lines getting off-sync in certain edge cases that involved pausing/rewinding/fast forwarding or frequent tempo changes that could happen in the middle of a beat.
• Fixed a bug where the kick drum wouldn't make any sounds when a previous kick's default velocity was set to 0, even if that previous kick was deleted from the scene.
• Fixed a bug where after playing the song at a lower song speed, song achievements wouldn't get unlocked even when the player replayed the song at normal or faster speed.
• Fixed an issue where the position of the in-game windows and the camera tool wouldn't stay the same upon switching scenes.
• Fixed the tutorial text not mentioning the correct buttons (trackpad vs thumbsticks) on certain headsets like the Valve Index.
• Fixed a bug where the drum kit anchor wouldn't get detached if the user clicked the menu/thumbstick button while grabbing the anchor.
• Fixed certain drum types not playing the drum deletion sound.

Feature Updates

• If the "Keep Only Required Drums" option is not selected, starting a song no longer deletes any extra drums that were already in the scene. In order to prevent performance issues in edge cases where going from song to song could keep creating more and more drums, we've put a limit of 25 drums to this behavior. Feel free to let us know if you could see this being a problem for you.
• The behavior is the same as before if the "Keep Only Required Drums" option is selected - all drums except the ones which have note/hit events in the song will be deleted.
• Custom songs are now sorted based on artist name.
• Recordings and custom songs now support drums with override data. (e.g Crocell Snare instead of default Snare)
• The custom song page will now refresh automatically if new songs are added while the app is running. If you're going to be adding and removing lots of custom songs, we still recommend relaunching the app to make sure all of the data is loaded properly on start.
• The PDF window now loads files in the background, and will no longer freeze the app while loading a file.
• Added a timeout while logging in which disables online features if the app is taking too long to log in. This was added to prevent getting stuck at the loading screen.

• MIDI bug fix: Fixed a bug with the + - buttons on the MIDI sliders that would cause them to change the MIDI note by 2 instead of 1. If you were having issues where your MIDI devices weren't triggering the drums in the app, or your VR drums weren't corresponding to the right instruments in your DAW, there's a good change it was related to this.
• We're now hiding the HMD model when using LIV for mixed reality/avatar recordings.
• Removed some unintentional double notes on some songs: The Lull Before The Storm, The Wave, Subspatial (triple note on this one).
• Fixed an issue where finishing a lesson wouldn't immediately refresh the lessons page and show the next lesson as unlocked, even though it got unlocked.
• Fixed an issue on the last page of the Lessons tab where going to page 4, switching to another main menu tab and then switching back to Lessons would cause two extra lesson buttons to appear.
• Fixed an issue where the autosave kit wasn't getting loaded automatically after skipping the tutorial on standalone Quest.
• Fixed an issue where loading a kit from the Load Drum Kit button wouldn't end the tutorial when it was supposed to.

• Fixed an issue with Lesson 4 that prevented it from being completed. We're still looking into a few visual issues with the rest of the lessons where some of the lesson text might show up behind your kit based on the player's height. We'll be addressing this issue and make some more improvements to the lesson system in our next patch.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the favoriting functionality from working on some drums.
• Added support back for the old Saved/Songs folder on PC for custom songs, in addition to our new Documents/Paradiddle/Songs path. If you're not seeing your songs from the Saved folder show up after this patch, let us know!
• Closing the hi-hat pedal now triggers the hi-hat notes on the highway again, like it used to.
• Fixed the song stats window at the end of a song always displaying "Easy" as the song difficulty.
• Fixed a few buggy achievements: Go Your Own Way, Subspatial - Medium, as well as a hidden achievement.
• Fixed the highway ready button not adjusting to the horizontal highway layout if the player changes it after loading a song.
• Fixed some camera tool issues that caused wrong grabbing behavior when trying to grab the third person camera. We'll be making a few more fixes on the camera tool in our next patch.
• Adjusted some lesson beat that weren't lined up with the metronome.
• Fixed a coloration issue on the highway when triggering fire mode.
• Simplified the Rock Beat Variations lesson to only use one variation on the rock beat, instead of combining multiple. In our next lesson improvement patch, we'll be adding mini numbered exercises into certain lessons to allow people to practice more variations in an easier way.

Overhauled UI and UX

• We've redesigned the whole UI so that all of the options and features packed into the app have more sensible places in our various menus.
• Placed a new toolbar under the menu for some options you might want to access quickly, such as recentering, or the camera tool.
• Switched to a laser pointer based interaction mechanism to make it easier when placing/grabbing content at a distance such as the note highway or various app windows.
• Other improvements include some fun new UI sounds, as well as a rounder, more polished look overall for all our UI elements.

New Environments

• Dojo: The perfect place to unwind and play some lo-fi hop hop beats as you watch the birds flying through the swaying trees. Comes with a sleepy animal companion who'll listen to your music.
• Jazz Club: Step into our moody jazz club and perform on stage for a small and intimate audience.
• Galaxy: Transport yourself to a planet once inhabited by an ancient alien civilization, where music affects the land itself.

New Instruments & Improved Default Drums

• You'll notice that your Drums tab has some new additions! We now have 5 full drum kits (including a jazz kit with brushes), mallet instruments like the xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel, and auxiliary percussion such as bongos, tambourines and timpanis. The default kit has also been updated to use some of the new drums, you should notice a difference especially with the hi-hat and snare.
• Favorites Tab: We've added a favorites tab at the top to organize any instruments you might want to have quick access to. You can click the heart icon in any given drum's options menu to add them to your favorites.

Note Highway Improvements with 16 Total Songs

• TImeline controls: Go to any point in the song and easily practice a section you might be stuck on.
• Metronome toggle:Turn on a metronome to get some help while trying to nail down the timing of a song.
• Playthrough stats: At the end of a song, you'll now see a breakdown of your performance which shows how many notes you missed, or played early/late/perfect.
• Highway Tilting: While grabbing the highway, you can now use your left controller thumbstick to tilt the highway up/down.
• Load only required drums setting: Added a new toggle under Options -> General to have the song system only load the kits that are required by the song being played. For instance, if you load an Easy difficulty song that only uses 3 different drums, it won't load the rest of the kit drums for you.
• Fire mode: You'll notice the fire mode kick in when you're on a combo streak, lighting everything on the highway on fire.

Brand New Lesson System with 10 Lessons

• Different VR Headsets: We’d like to hear from all different PC VR headset users, including Index, WMR, Reverb, Rift S, Quest via Link, Vive. Any issues with remapping your inputs? Any controls that don’t feel good on your headset?
• Peripherals and pedals: If you were already using Paradiddle with a peripheral, give it a try on V1 and let us know if you run into any issues.
• Performance: Any performance issues in any of the new maps?
• Leaderboards: Your score should be written to the global leaderboards as long as you don’t pause during a song and don’t change any of the default song speed type settings. Let us know if you’re not seeing your scores posted and we’ll look into it.
• Any other general thoughts you have about how the app feels, the new UI, lessons, new drums, environments etc. Let us know what you think!

Known issues:

• When loading a recording, pressing Play/Pause will cause a crash.
• Certain menus haven’t been 100% updated to the new UI yet. We’re still tweaking the look of certain menus and UI elements.

Important to know:

• You'll have to be logged into Steam and online to play the demo (don't worry, this won't be the case for the actual release). The beta branch will be closed at midnight PT on October 5th so we can get back to development based on your valuable feedback!
• Incredibly brief summary of the changes/additions: overhauled UI, new environments, new instruments, more songs, lessons, more robust stick mechanics, major performance improvements, more settings and quality of life features.
• In V1, the directory used for custom songs, saved kits, recordings and audio files has changed to Documents/Paradiddle/. If you’re not seeing your custom songs show up, you can move them under Documents/Paradiddle/Songs/ and they should show up again. In the future we’ll try and still check the old directory so that it’s not as jarring for people transitioning to V1.
• We’re going to change how the highway scoring works so don’t take that as final. Leaderboards will be reset when V1 launches as well.
• There’s still some new content coming up in V1 that isn’t included in this demo yet, so there’s more to look forward to end of October!

Fixes:

• Fixed a MIDI bug that prevented MIDI messages for harder drum hits from going through. This was seriously affecting the MIDI out functionality in the latest update, but you should now be able to use the MIDI functionality as it was previously.
• Fixed a note highway bug where interacting with the highway UI or pressing the thumb sticks before the song audio was fully loaded would lead to a 'Fatal Error' message and crash.
• Fixed an issue where the drum autosave/autoload functionality wasn't working properly. This now works as intended, where the app will autosave your drums when you exit the app. The next time you launch the app and skip or finish the tutorial, your drums will be autoloaded.
• The autosave fix also means that you should now have an easier time using a modified kit with the highway. If you move a kit around while using the highway, exit the app and then relaunch it, you should see that same kit layout the next time you open a song or skip the tutorial.
• Fixed an issue where the kick samples weren't loaded in memory unless the kick drum model was in the scene. This could lead to kick latency issues in scenes where the kick drum wasn't dragged and dropped into the scene (more noticeable on Quest). The kick samples are loaded on app launch now and remain loaded until the app closes.
• Changed how the "Invert" button works for pedals that connect through mic input (such as Rock Band pedals). If you were previously having trouble with the pedal triggering the kick on release instead of a press, the new Invert button should work better.

Song Creator 0.5.5 Changes:

• After selecting a midi file, any midi track with the word 'drum' in it will now get picked as the default midi track to convert.
• Fixed a bug that happened when converting multiple songs in the same Song Creator session, where the song length of a previous conversion could overwrite the song length values of new songs.
• Fixed a bug where the midi track list got longer when selecting a new midi file instead of the track list getting reset.

• Added a restart song button to the highway UI.
• Fixed an issue where setting the Drum Track Volume below 70 would make it inaudible in the song.
• Closing the hi-hat (via a pedal or controller) now triggers hi-hat notes on the highway.
• Fixed a bug where the drum kit volume wasn't being loaded properly.
• Fixed a bug where some text would appear sideways at the end of a song, if the highway was in horizontal mode.

Custom Song Support:

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

Music Lineup

Highway Customization Options

• Multiple Layouts: We currently have 2 highway layouts: perspective and horizontal. We'll be introducing a 3rd layout in the future, the immersive layout, where the notes will be flying directly to your instruments.
• Song speed: Adjust the song speed (without changing its pitch) to slow down tough songs, or speed it up to gain ultimate mastery.
• Highway speed: The note speed can be adjusted to your liking.
• Control drum track and drum kit volume separately:
  • Turn down the song's drum track to just hear your drum sounds coming out of Paradiddle.
  • Turn down your drum kit if you just want to hear the song's drum track and nothing else.
• Auto-rearranging highway layout: The highway lanes will always reflect your current drum layout. Try moving your drums around to see what this looks like!
• Highway placement: Move the highway around to your ideal spot.

Local High Scores

New Recenter Headset Button

• Quick note: If you're not using an Oculus headset, this button currently does not work properly. This will be fixed in a future update, however you can use the "Reset Seated Position" button in the SteamVR dashboard to get the same result in the meantime.

Known Bugs

• The notes in the first few seconds of the song all get stacked into one spot (most noticeable in the lower note speeds). If you're making custom songs, try not to have any notes within the first few seconds of the song. This will be fixed in a future release.
• Intermittent crashes when closing the app: there have been a couple of users who reported crashes while trying out the note highway. If you run into similar issues, please let me know! What's most helpful is if you send me a zip of your whole logs folder (under your Paradiddle installation folder, in Paradiddle/Saved/Logs) so I can take a closer look at what might have gone wrong.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed hi-hat pedal close sounds not playing properly.
• Fixed a bug where MIDI in/out enabled and mute options were not saved in kit save files.

Upcoming Highway Improvements

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

How To Participate

New Instruments

Auxiliary Percussion:

• 2 Bongos (High and Low)
• 2 Tambourines
• Cowbell (finally!)
• 3 Timpanis
• Gong
• Triangle

Mallet Percussion:

• Xylophone
• Marimba
• Glockenspiel

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

Audio Improvements

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

Other Improvements and Fixes

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

What's Next

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

A Personal Note

Controls Improvements

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

Audio Improvements

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

New Guides & Existing Guide Updates

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

Other Changes and Fixes

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

Quest Beta Update

Other Updates, What's Next

The 2nd Official Paradiddle VR Drum Cover Contest!

How To Participate

Improved and Processed Drum Samples

New Cymbals

Stick Calibration

WMR and Index Support/Improvements

• The controller materials currently don't match the Vive or Oculus Touch materials, which are mostly dark gray with purple trim lines along the controller edges. This also means that the correct buttons currently don't light up during the tutorial if you're using WMR or Index controllers, but both of these will be fixed in a future update.
• Index users: The A buttons currently don't work properly. This was a somewhat frustrating realization, but Unreal Engine doesn't properly receive some of the Index controller button presses and thinks they're different buttons. Looks like it's possible to fix this using the SteamVR Input Unreal plugin that Valve has recently released, but that also doesn't seem to play nice with the Oculus plugins if they're active, so I'm currently investigating and trying to figure out the best way to resolve this.

Other Changes and Fixes

• Grip to Grab: The grip button can now be used to grab drums (including dragging new drums out from the menu) or moveable windows. The trigger button still works the same way it used to in previous versions, where you can use the trigger to click UI elements as well as grab moveable objects.
• Introduced a color change to the hi-hat when moving between open and closed states.
• Fixed a minor issue with the Controls menu dropdowns where the action names weren't fitting properly into the button.

Coming Up

• 2nd annual Paradiddle VR Drum Cover Contest
• Drum velocity curve controls
• UI quality of life improvements (including the ability to move drum sets as a whole)
• Additional percussion instruments
• Note highway system

Oculus Quest Test Build Release

• Fixed a bug that caused terrible performance when trying to use the in-app camera tool. The app should now run just as smooth while using any in-app cameras! (Keep in mind that any cameras you enable in the tool still have a performance overhead, since the scene has to be rendered one more time for each camera.)
• Fixed some bugs related to using an electronic hi-hat pedal that triggered pedal close sounds even if MIDI wasn't enabled for a hi-hat, and triggered extra pedal sounds as the pedal was being closed.

Cymbal Choking

Hi-Hat Improvements

• Pedal Close Sounds: Hi-hat pedal close sounds have now been added! You can tweak the default pedal close velocity/loudness or toggle the pedal sounds on/off under the "Drum" tab of the hi-hat. The hi-hat will also send a MIDI Note of 44 when it closes, signaling a pedal close sound in most audio software - a slider will be added to adjust the pedal close MIDI note in a further update.
• Hi-Hat Close Sound Fade-out: Previously playing **h**i-hat sounds now properly fade out when the pedal is closed. Prior to this update, if you hit a hi-hat when it was open and immediately closed it after, you'd still keep hearing the open sound.

Ride Cymbal Bell Tuning

SXSW + Additional Drum Set and Recording Presets

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Oculus users would be placed in the floor after pressing Reset View in the Oculus Dashboard.
• Fixed a bug with dropdowns that prevented some users from using their Rock Band pedals through their microphone jack.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in crashes when using more than 3 Vive trackers in the app.
• Fixed a bug where the user would sometimes get stuck in the menu and not be able to switch back to their drum sticks.
• Fixed a small issue where a loaded drum set wouldn't be cleared from the scene when the user skipped the tutorial.

Coming Up

• Steam Workshop integration
• In-app drum sample improvements
• UI quality of life improvements
• Drum stick calibration relative to VR controllers
• Additional percussion instruments
• Educational content (this is quite a big task, but I'll be adding various pieces over the next several months)

Performance Improvements

Rock Band Pedal Integration

• Through USB: This method requires you to connect the pedal to your PC via USB, by connecting your Rock Band kit. You might need to get the USB breakaway cable in addition if the kit doesn’t already have one. Once your kit is connected and the drivers properly installed, it’ll work like a regular controller, and the kick pedal will trigger the kick in Paradiddle by default. If you’d like to use the pedal to control the hi-hat instead, you can change this in the Controls menu under Options, where it says "USB Input" under Rock Band Pedal.
• Through the microphone jack: This method doesn't require any additional hardware except for the pedal itself, so you won't need to have a Rock Band kit/controller or the USB breakaway cable. To configure it, go to Controls and click "Mic Input" under Rock Band Pedals. This will bring up a list of your audio input devices. Select the microphone jack that your Rock Band pedal is connected to, and then select the action you want it to trigger. Note: The mic jack currently isn't saved and loaded automatically across sessions, so you'll have to re-do it when you start Paradiddle. This will be added in the next update, sorry about the inconvenience in the meantime!

The Pedal Guide

Other Changes

• Kick Drum Default Velocity Setting: You can now adjust the default velocity of the kick drum under the "Drum" tab of a kick drum's options. This affects the velocity that's played when the kick is triggered via the controllers, pedals without velocity information (USB pedals, Rock Band pedals), or any other peripherals emulating keyboard input such as driving pedals.
• Drums now have a fun little load animation when they are loaded into the scene.
• Opening a secondary window in the Options tab now closes any windows that were previously open. This prevents things from getting ugly where you could have multiple windows open on top of one another in previous versions.