Derek Lee
complete
The 6/8 time signature was included in release 4.1! 🎉 Please download the latest release and let me know what you think. Thanks! Best, Derek
J
Jörg Eckhardt
Hello Derek, for me and I think many other Drummers 6/8 and 12/8 time signature are one of the most important beats. But first comes first, and you decide what‘s most important now. Thanks a lot. Greetings, Jörg
Derek Lee
planned
Updating this back to "Planned" as all development work has been paused in order to resolve other critical and outstanding technical issues.
I will resume development of this in the near future. Thanks for your understanding! 🙇🏻♂️
Derek Lee
Hello friends! I have some questions regarding how you would expect 8th note time signatures to work... but posting them here would likely bias your answers, so I'd like to ask these questions to people in 1:1 user interviews in order to get honest, unbiased responses (at much as possible!).
Ideally I'd LOVE to get feedback from at least 5-6 people. If you are interested and can spare 30 minutes of your time this week, please check my calendar and schedule a 1:1 meeting so we can talk about how 8th note time signatures will work in Beat Note!
Thank you!!! 🙏🏻🙇🏻♂️
C
Collin Flaherty
Derek Lee just set up a meeting for this! Looking forward to it 🙏
Derek Lee
Collin Flaherty Yeah, Collin!! Thank you! Looking forward! 🤩
Hinrich Nagel
Derek LeeIt is to be feared that my English is not good enough for such an online discussion. And as you should known I‘m still a beginner in playing drums and therefore I haven’t sound knowledge of music notation. The reason in voting for this feature is very simple: I have some exercises which are noticed in 6/8.
Sorry for that, Derek.
Derek Lee
Hinrich Nagel Thanks for your comment! Your honesty about being a beginner in playing drums and your knowledge of music notation is appreciated. I would suggest you don't need to worry about your language skills – we can always find ways to understand each other better, whether through online translators or simply taking our time to communicate clearly. As someone who learned a second language, I can understand the challenges here. Besides, I like to think music is a universal language that transcends linguistic barriers. 🎵🥁
It's fantastic that you're exploring exercises in 6/8 time. Even if you don't feel it's your strongest area, everyone has something valuable to contribute to the conversation.
If not for this discussion, I hope we can connect in the future on another topic. My door is always open for any future discussions! 👍🏻
Derek Lee
in progress
I've started to work on adding support for 8th note time signatures. The first one I will introduce will be this one (6/8) since it has the highest # of votes.
Even just starting to look at how to solve this problem it's become more clear to me how involved this is. Just to give you a high-level overview of the aspects that will need to change to support this:
#1.
Time signature selection:
Right now there's a dropdown with quarter-note options. While I could just add another option to this dropdown (and that might be a good first step), I think mixing quarter note and 8th note time signatures together would be confusing. Likely the way you choose which time signature you want will need to be completely re-designed. #2.
Sequencer Grid Input:
Both the headers and grid columns will need to be re-configured. For a measure of 6/4, there are 6 individual "beats" and each "beat" contains two 8th notes each and the subdivision can be changed for each logical "beat". Compare this to a measure of 6/8, where there are not 6 individual beats whose subdivision can change: there are really only two logical "beats" where the subdivision could be configured and each "beat" contains three 8th notes. This approach can be expanded to 12/8, and even 9/8, but what happens with 5/8, 7/8, 11/8, etc? Then the grouping of notes changes per logical "beat" and could be either three or two. #3.
Music Notation:
The music notation needs to be improved to handle 8th note time signatures, and determining what a "group" of notes is and how they should be beamed. All music notation in Beat Note is manually drawn: every note head, every stem, every dot, every rest, every beam, every tuplet, every tuplet bracket, every staff line, every bar line, every repeat bar line... literally everything.#4.
Audio playback and tempo:
How are the timing of the audio playback and tempo impacted by switching from a measure in quarter-note time to a measure in 8th note time? What is the primary beat and how does changing the tempo impact this? These are just the initial aspects that come to mind when considering what needs to be updated to support 8th note time signatures.
Given this, I don't have a timeline or deadline I am working towards for this feature so I can't say when it will be complete. I'll post updates here and to Instagram as progress is made.
Thanks for your patience and support! 🙇🏻♂️
J
Jörg Eckhardt
Hello Derek, What do you think? When will it be possible to ad 6/8 beats? It‘s one of the most important time signatures. Thanks for your amazing job. More than the money worth ;-)
Greetings Jörg
Derek Lee
Jörg Eckhardt Hi Jorg! As per my comment below, I've identified this as one of the main enhancements to add in an upcoming release. This enhancement, as well as flams and syncing data across devices, are the most highly requested features and will be my focus for the upcoming releases.
Other 8th note time signatures will follow (12/8, 9/8, 5/8, 7/8, etc), and each will be introduced incrementally given there are some unique challenges to introducing each one. 6/8 will be the first 8th note time signature that I introduce given it is the most highly requested.
I don't have a specific target date yet as I haven't started to work on this yet, but I am confident I should be able to complete this sometime in March, 2024. So it will be available soon!
As always, I will post updates here for you. 👍🏻
Thank you for your support and for helping me to prioritize what to work on next! I also appreciate you helping to keep me accountable! 😅
J
Jörg Eckhardt
Derek Leehello Derek ;-)
You already mentioned it: The time signature for 12/8 Beats you already have with a 4/4 measure with 8th notes triplets. And for a 6/8 the same with a 2/4 measure. But in the front of the measure it‘s a 4/4. Maybe to change the front 4/4 to 6/8 or 12/8 and wipe away the triplets sign 3 over the triplets could help. But it also has to change in the menue.
The most important is 6/8 and 12/8.
7/8 and 9/8 is also nice to have, but not so important like the others.
Greetings from germany,
Jörg
P.s.: i‘ ve started a Drumming-Lesson-book ;-)
Derek Lee
Jörg Eckhardt Congrats on starting a drumming lesson book! I'd love to hear more about it!
Regarding 8th note time signatures, you make it sound like it should be super simple - "just change the numbers and remove the triplets!" Unfortunately, this is not the case when programming. As I continue to delve into the development of this feature, I'm discovering more and more complexities. I'm doing my best to find intuitive and natural solutions to these challenges, but the more interviews I can conduct with people the better.
If you're willing to jump on a call please do set up some time for us to chat! I don't want to speak for anyone else directly, but I had the impression that through the conversations I've had with others, it has helped them to gain a bit more empathy for how complex adding 8th note time signatures is.
J
Jörg Eckhardt
Derek Lee Hello Derek, Yes, it‘s a lot of work. I didnt want to say it’s easy. It’s complicated. You make a d. good job.
The problem to handle a app like this, that is in progress and developing is that you have to know that big picture about it. Cause everytime you change things, it‘s always the question, what comes next and maybe you have to change things again which you had just bulit. So it takes time to think it to the end…But in the end it will be fine🤩🤩👍🏻. Sorry for my english 😉.
Best wishes. Greetings, Jörg
Derek Lee
Given the high # of votes for this feature, I'm planning to include this feature in an upcoming 3.x release. I'll update this feature as progress is made. 👍🏻 Thanks for contributing to the Beat Note roadmap by sharing your feedback and votes!
Derek Lee
planned
Although I'm unsure when support for 8th note time signatures will be scheduled, it is definitely planned to be included in an upcoming release. 👍🏻
A
Anita Hoogewoonink
Derek Lee: I hope soon!
Derek Lee
Anita Hoogewoonink: Hi Anita! Thanks for commenting and voting on this enhancement. I don't have a timeline for this as there's a lot of work on the to-do list, but based on the number of votes this is a popular request, so I can definitely consider doing this sooner than planned.
In case you aren't aware, although the notation is different, rhythmically, the 6/8 time signature is audibly equivalent to utilizing a 2/4 time signature with 8th note triplets. In case you haven't discovered it yet, tapping on the header of a beat allows you to change the subdivision for all beats or a specific beat.
Therefore, in the following screenshots, with a time signature of 2/4, I illustrate how to change the subdivision from 16th notes to 8th note triplets and quickly swipe and tap in the notes for measure #59:
Derek Lee
For measure #22, this could also be achieved using 16th note triplets. While it is likely easier to read when notated in 6/8 time, this is still possible to do with a 2/4 time signature using 16th note triplets:
Derek Lee
Anita Hoogewoonink Let me see what I can do about prioritizing 8th note time signatures. Unfortunately, it's not possible to add support only for 6/8 - I need to develop the ability to handle all 8th note time signatures at the same time (3/8, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, plus odd times like 5/8, 7/8, 11/8, etc).
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Anita Hoogewoonink
Derek Lee: I had found that but not yet tried to find a work around
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Anita Hoogewoonink
Derek Lee: You are too kind. I sent a picture of this sheet music merely to show you that in the Malletband genre I play in now, 6/8 etc. is used often 😌
A
Anita Hoogewoonink
Derek Lee: 🙏🏻💪🏼
Derek Lee
Anita Hoogewoonink: Thanks for your kind response! This is why I'm here - to help you on your musical journey. Thank you for sharing your feedback and giving us the chance to connect. By including a screenshot of what you're working on, I can better understand what you want to do, and thus, understand your needs and potentially make suggestions. Naturally I've build Beat Note initially based on my own foundation of drumming experience, but my needs and yours are inherently different. By sharing your needs, I can build empathy for you and incorporate your feedback back into the app.
I'm fully committed to making Beat Note the best drumming practice and teaching tool it can be. At the same time, I'm only one person and can only move so quickly 😅 so I appreciate your patience and feedback as I continue to build out the app. I couldn't do it without your support! 🙇🏻♂️
Derek Lee
Anita Hoogewoonink Here's a beat to help get you started: https://www.beat-note.app/downloads/094944DD-A102-43AC-BEA5-7800E5791D12
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Anita Hoogewoonink
Derek Lee: 😮🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Derek Lee
under review