Bounce Metronome 4.3 Release

With version 4.3, Bounce Metronome, you can now play beat preserving polymeters - - with the beats the same in all the rhythms, and the measures varying in size. 

Youtube Video

Two rhythms ♩ ♪♩ and ♩ ♪♩ ♪ as a beat preserving polymeter - this is one of the preset rhythms in the Drum & Dance view in the main window drop down..

You get a new "Beat preserving polymeters" metronome type - dedicated to this type of rhythm. Aso, as a new feature you can combine any of your rhythms in music notation as a polymeter.

You can also combine your rhythms as a polyrhythm (and so make polyrhythms where each rhythm has notes of several different sizes, e.g. play ♩ ♪♩ polyrhythmically with ♩ ♪♩ ♪). As another new feature, you can combine your rhythms using Steve Reich style rhythm phasing - with a different tempo for each one.

Other improvements - you can now use file names in any language (full unicode support), any of the unicode symbols also in the lyrics or bouncing text etc, you can use  custom percussion menus (e.g. for Studio Drummer), nice preset sprites with some new special sprite features, for blind users you now have pitch and volume bounces to try out, as an audio version of the visual bounces, and there are numerous other new features and improvements.

 

Read on to find out more about the release.

New features 

  • Polymeters like 3/8 with 2/4 (Beat prserving)
  • New polymeters option for the Drum & Dance rhythms - if the parts vary in length, then you have an option to play them as a beat preserving polymeter (see video earlier in this page for an example). 

    Youtube Video

    Rhythm Phasing Example - Same rhythm in all sixteen parts,with the tempo slightly changed. The other parts are faster than the first part by 101%. 102%, 103%, ,,, 115%. First eight parts use the eight harmonics 1/1, 2/1, 3/1, ... 8/1 and the next eight parts are at the same pitches shifted down an octave.

     
  • New rhythm phasing option for the Drum & Dance option (example in drop list of rhythms, video at the top of this page)
  • "Echo parts" -  the same notes played a few milliseconds later - you can do this for many of the types of rhythm - though not yet with the polyrhythms or polymeters. 
  • You can use unicode now with file names, lyrics, bouncing numbers etc. The idea is to help the many users of Bounce Metronome who don't have English as their first language.
  • Custom  percussion menus  - for use with e.g. studio drummer, can select any of its instruments by name for any of the parts using the normal non melodic percussion menu. Also as you hover the mouse over any of the instruments (or naviigate the menu with keyboard) you hear the instrument played so can preview what it sounds like before you select it.
  • New on-screen percussion keyboard, lets you play any of the percussion instruments wiht the mouse.
  • You can now access many more percussion instruments on the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth - which you get on every modern Windows computer as part of DirectX. It has the full selection of the GS drum kits, so I've added them in as presets. This lets you can use any of the instruments on this page:http://www.voidaudio.net/percussion.html (though you can only use one of the drum kits at a time).
  • Pitch and Volume bounces. These give you an audio version of the visual bounces, so may be of especial interest to blind users of the software.
  • Bouncing Sprites made easier to use with new features
  • Also added some preset visual options using unicode, e.g. option to show bouncing  special characters now preset to a list of distinctive unicode printers Dingbats suitable in shape for a bouncing character: ★ ✾ ✰ ✲ ✳ ❉ ✿ ❂ ✺ ❀ ✽ ❄ ✪ ✫ ✯ ❖ ✖ ✦ ✧ ✠ ✡ ✢ ✣ ✤ ✥ ✙ ✚ ✜ ✕ ✇ ✷ ✸ ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ ❑ ■ ▲ ▼ ◆ ☺ ☻ ❍ ☪ ☯ ☸ ⌘ ❀ ◉ ◎ ▣ ◐ ◒ ◑ ◓ ◩ ◪ ◧ ◨ � - also for the beat numbers you can now set it to show various alternative numerals such as Japanese numerals, and Arabic Indic numerals.
  • Using the custom beats per measure you can do things like play 5/4,conducted as 2/4 with eighth notes, and counted visually as 6/8, i.e. no need to synchronise  the same measure size for the visuals or the conducting patterns with the sounds for any of the parts
  • Tempo strip at the bottom of the 2D bounce window so you can adjust the tempo and see it change, without need to bring up the tempo dial.  Arrow to the tempo dial which shows the direction of the tempo change - so when practising gradual tempo changes going up and down in cycles, you can see instantly which way the tempo is changing
  • Numerous other minor features and additions
  • A few minor improvements and bug fixes for the features already included version 4.2

 

 

Rolling back to the old version of Bounce

Hopefully no-one will need or watn to do this. But just in case any issues arise, it is easy to roll back.
 
Just run that installer to roll back to the old version.
 
If you do run into any issues when you update to the new release, please do let me know right away! The chances are that whatever it is can be fixed quickly.

 

Youtube Video

The Sound of a Pendulum Wave - As Bounces with Harmonic Series Pitches.