PracticePad - forum release for beta testing

[snarescience]

Hi Ryan - Beginner here. I love the concept, especially I'm visual learner as I'm deaf. I see you already had/have feedback about slower tempos; I'd see it like at 60 bpm on up. Also; would it be possible to have something like a colored dot or some marker that moves while reading the music. That way I can see if I'm following the music with the tempo. Also; my teacher does this for me on notepaper; he makes the notations like when I was learning parradiddle parimid (sp-like I sounds to me) he make counting notations. Like the 1e&a underneath the notations. I would be neat if you could have a feature (that can fade in or out) that could be turned on/off for the beginners while learning to read & play music. I'm liking the idea of using this to build a daily practice routine to build on. Just some thoughts from a old fart learning & loving drumming.

Randy

Thanks for the suggestions Randy, I will keep them in mind for future development.

Another question; would we still be able to use this on the computer? I would like the bigger screen size

I'm not sure what you mean... You should be able to currently use all of the practice pad features on the computer. I am planning to update the main practice pad page such that it operates in the same fashion as the practice routine page, i.e. the music shows up in the video player and can be set to full screen mode for ease of reading the music.

[snarescience]

I intend on using this daily, and i have at least 3 friends who plan on the same!
Just tried it on my iPhone 4s in Safari, and it worked pretty well. Minus not having the sheet music right on screen, I can confirm it worked fine. It would be cool if you added "Groups" or "Sectionals" or "Challenges" or something to that affect, where you could challenge other users or assign them workouts. A nifty little checklist visible to other people in the group could create some friendly competition.

Thank you for this incredible practice tool!
Something like this could really help turn around drum newbs who barely practice into masters of percussion!

Thanks again,
Cola

Thanks for these suggestion Cola, and anyone else please chime in with feature suggestions like this. I definitely want to 'gamify' the whole program more, but I am just not sure exactly how to implement it as of yet.

[bohogony]

The program is great and I use daily for practice. But a problem I find is when I edit my routines. It will not let me delete a row and If I leave a row blank I will get an error. It would also be very useful if you could add rows between others e.g you have eights then sanford but want paradiddle speed in the middle, you cannot do that at the moment and would be great if you could.

Thankyou for all the time you put into this program as I am sure I will be using it for many years to come!

[snarescience]

The program is great and I use daily for practice. But a problem I find is when I edit my routines. It will not let me delete a row and If I leave a row blank I will get an error.

Thanks for pointing out this bug. I will get to work on it.

It would also be very useful if you could add rows between others e.g you have eights then sanford but want paradiddle speed in the middle, you cannot do that at the moment and would be great if you could.

I agree that it would be very useful to be able to insert steps. It is slightly beyond my programming knowledge at this point, at least given the way I have structured the code. If I was more expert at programming it would probably be easy. I will keep this in mind though and may get around to it at some point.

Thanks for the feedback!

[snarescience]

The program is great and I use daily for practice. But a problem I find is when I edit my routines. It will not let me delete a row and If I leave a row blank I will get an error.

Thanks for pointing out this bug. I will get to work on it.

This bug should be resolved now. Thanks again for bringing it to my attention.

[snarescience]

Now that the click tracks are completed, I would like to begin work on the slower-tempo practice mp3s. Please let me know which exercises should be the highest priority, and what tempo range you would like to see.

Thanks!
Ryan

[bug1580]

Just asking...are you planning to make it possible to add our own exercises to the practice pad via a username and password? Just wondering, b/c I would really love this, but I don't know anything about how much work this would be.

[mikeg813]

amazing, this is to cool.

[KaySigh]

this is awesome!

it would be nice if we could pick a tempo, instead of predetermined tempos? like an analog dial or something. also, the ability to edit exercises would be awesome. some kind of cross between finale/sibelius and fruityloops interface.

also, i have another web based idea i think you may be interested in, sort of similar to this concept.

[Kaitou]

this is awesome!

it would be nice if we could pick a tempo, instead of predetermined tempos? like an analog dial or something. also, the ability to edit exercises would be awesome. some kind of cross between finale/sibelius and fruityloops interface.

also, i have another web based idea i think you may be interested in, sort of similar to this concept.

That would be extremely impractical as the audio tracks are all preloaded by snarescience..he has to make the audio file for every tempo. This would make the editing really difficult as well

[KaySigh]

this is awesome!

it would be nice if we could pick a tempo, instead of predetermined tempos? like an analog dial or something. also, the ability to edit exercises would be awesome. some kind of cross between finale/sibelius and fruityloops interface.

also, i have another web based idea i think you may be interested in, sort of similar to this concept.

That would be extremely impractical as the audio tracks are all preloaded by snarescience..he has to make the audio file for every tempo. This would make the editing really difficult as well

that's the idea. this current design requires the host to be very active in creating mp3s at certain tempos, with click tracks etc....

this would be way way more effective, if the sound files could be generated in the script. so, specify a tempo, an exercise and the script would build a midi file or something that could loop flawlessly. this way, it puts less focus on the moderator to add new exercises, correct mistakes, etc etc.

its a bit of a more complicated program, but it would be a lot more useful

[yoshikinto]

that's the idea. this current design requires the host to be very active in creating mp3s at certain tempos, with click tracks etc....

this would be way way more effective, if the sound files could be generated in the script. so, specify a tempo, an exercise and the script would build a midi file or something that could loop flawlessly. this way, it puts less focus on the moderator to add new exercises, correct mistakes, etc etc.

its a bit of a more complicated program, but it would be a lot more useful

That's a bit of an understatement. Having something that's like a cross between Fruityloops and notation software would be some pretty heavy stuff to be running on your browser. And I'm no expert but I feel like it would take multiple people to get that accomplished. Multiple people that probably wouldn't want to work for free...

[Kaitou]

that's the idea. this current design requires the host to be very active in creating mp3s at certain tempos, with click tracks etc....

this would be way way more effective, if the sound files could be generated in the script. so, specify a tempo, an exercise and the script would build a midi file or something that could loop flawlessly. this way, it puts less focus on the moderator to add new exercises, correct mistakes, etc etc.

its a bit of a more complicated program, but it would be a lot more useful

That's a bit of an understatement. Having something that's like a cross between Fruityloops and notation software would be some pretty heavy stuff to be running on your browser. And I'm no expert but I feel like it would take multiple people to get that accomplished. Multiple people that probably wouldn't want to work for free...

This

[KaySigh]

that's the idea. this current design requires the host to be very active in creating mp3s at certain tempos, with click tracks etc....

this would be way way more effective, if the sound files could be generated in the script. so, specify a tempo, an exercise and the script would build a midi file or something that could loop flawlessly. this way, it puts less focus on the moderator to add new exercises, correct mistakes, etc etc.

its a bit of a more complicated program, but it would be a lot more useful

That's a bit of an understatement. Having something that's like a cross between Fruityloops and notation software would be some pretty heavy stuff to be running on your browser. And I'm no expert but I feel like it would take multiple people to get that accomplished. Multiple people that probably wouldn't want to work for free...

This

before all you nay sayers feel the satisfaction of shooting me down, i don't think i described it very well. it would have the simplicity of entering notes as in fruity loops. (click which sixteenth note you want to be played, leave the blank ones as rests. notating it in music form)

here's some examples:

http://www.onemotion.com/flash/drum-machine/
http://www.rinki.net/pekka/monkey/m.php
http://www.virtualdrumming.com/drums/wi ... chine.html
http://www.ordrumbox.com/online-drum-machine.php

these are actually way more complicated and capable than what i was thinking of. these are also all free. this would need only one sound file (snare drum) and the ability to add tuplets, amount of measures, accents, diddles, flams and the sort. really nothing as complicated as the "ordrumbox" one.

however, the advantage this "practice pad" would offer would be *presets* or something similar that would load existing exercises.

so there would be preloaded files that you could select from (like it is now), but it would offer a perfect loop, tempo control, and the ability to add measures, take away measures, modify it to diddles... etc, etc.

does that seem a little more clear?

[drummerboyonfire]

seems really helpful!

[CVBass2]

Just asking...are you planning to make it possible to add our own exercises to the practice pad via a username and password? Just wondering, b/c I would really love this, but I don't know anything about how much work this would be.

I think this would be kind of a cool idea

[boukenhxc]

This is great. Just great. Honestly, I think there should be on option to have the clicks and the exercise mp3 going at the same time, but that's just me.

[Jason]

Can you add popular exercises like these to it?

[SteelSampson]

What program are you using to create the mp3s?

What music notation software more specifically?

[dunklee]

What program are you using to create the mp3s?

What music notation software more specifically?

My drum tech uses sibelius, because you can write music for any instrument and its cheaper i think

[SteelSampson]

What program are you using to create the mp3s?

What music notation software more specifically?

My drum tech uses sibelius, because you can write music for any instrument and its cheaper i think

Cheaper? Isn't it like $500 plus another $300 for VDL?

I wish I could afford that. I have to pay for rent, tuition living etc.

[8Keep]

Any update on what the secret feature will be?

[The_beut_u_nator]

Anybody heard of/or have the Movement Drum Co. pad(s)?

[Ken Speranza]

First of all, necropost. Second, wrong thread. You're 0 for 2 now bud
But if you wanna discuss it, go ahead and post it in a new thread in the general discussion section