Bounce Metronome Blog

Is it possible to get Bounce Metronome working on the Mac again?

admin — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 17:14:58 +0000

12/02/19

Is it possible to get Bounce Metronome working on the Mac again?

First, Bounce is programmed for Windows and the only way to get it to run on anything else is to use Windows or WINE which is a legal way to run Windows programs on other operating sytems because it is programmed from scratch to be compatible without using any actual Windows code. I used WINE for the Read More »

Update September 1st 2017 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 23:18:17 +0000

31/08/17
Update September 1st 2017 - Bounce Metronome Pro

September 1st: Adds new option to the Session clock: "Run clock while rhythm is playing only". Also used larger text for the time on the clock and made a "least" version of the window without the check boxes and options in case you want to use the window itself as a clock.

Minor extra update, 31st August, This adds a "session clock" which you can find in the Options drop menu. It's just a text clock, shows the time so far in minutes and seconds (and hours if necessary) since the start of your Bounce session. It's the active time so if you use another program it doesn't count that, and only counts it if you move the mouse or keyboard or have Bounce playing. You can set how long an idle pause counts as you taking a break from practice.

You can also add it to the main window title so that it shows how long you have been practicing so far right in the title. It's a new feature and I can add extra options to it later if needed. E.g. anyone want a visual or sound alarm feature?

Also, fixes a couple of minor bugs.

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Update July 3rd 2017 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 00:11:53 +0000

03/07/17
Update July 3rd 2017 - Bounce Metronome Pro

Very minor extra update, 3rd July, The new window 3D Bounce - Overview (Ctrl + 298) wasn't included in the + menu for the 3D Bounce window and related windows - fixed.

This is a minor update with some small changes and bug fixes. New window 3D Bounce - Overview (Ctrl + 298) - this is especially useful if the check boxes, droplists and buttons are hidden in the 3D Bounce Window - an option on Windows and always hidden on the Mac. It's an overview of some of the most important controls that change how the 3D Bounce is displayed.

New button in that window, "Make Scene Preset" with four prset scenes so far:

"Fast with 2D balls for old slow machines"

"Textured Sea"

"Darker Textured Sea"

"Simple scene - just skin background"

The first three were available as separate buttons before. The last one is a new preset.

New option "Show FPS" in Bouncing Balls - Visuals - Controls, Text and layout (Ctrl + 233) and 3D Bounce - Visuals (Ctrl + 257)

New options in the Win drop menu "Simplify all except main window menu" and "Restore all simplified menus" shown if appropriate.

Some other minor changes and several bug fixes. For details see Change Log for 2nd July 2017. To download go to the download page

I

Version 4.7, June 16th 2017 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 11:30:25 +0000

16/06/17
Version 4.7, June 16th 2017 - Bounce Metronome Pro

I've decided to call this version 4.7, as a result of many updates with new features since version 4.6. It's a bit hard to know what to focus on in this summary as there were no really major new features. It's more to do with details and making it more polished in how it works.

So first of all, for those who use it as a practice metronome, made it easier to use the arrow keys to adjust tempo globally (actually was meant to work like that originally but had some bugs now fixed). Also added a new window to make it easy to double or halve the tempo or select from preset tempi you set up in advance. Added a new window to show the bounce rhythms as music notation (even if not made originally using music notation). For those of you who work with DAWs, added a feature that helps the exported midi file to align the notes in your DAW so that they all have the same number of midi ticks. I've also added in several windows for transforming fractal tunes from Tune Smithy which work fine in Bounce Metronome.

Also added a new option to simplify the menu, and a + drop menu with extra options specific to that window. It now highlights the buttons that open new windows and the More and Less buttons. Many other minor tweaks and bug fixes.

For details see Change Log for 16th June 2017. To download go to the download page.

I haven't yet updated the Mac beta. For now, you can do that manually and I'll do the upload soon, today or tomorrow.

In more detail:

Read More »

Update December 14th 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 01:53:17 +0000

12/12/16
Update December 14th 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

Minor update 14th December

Added shortcut Ctrl + Q to quit the program and Ctrl + Shift + Q to set all the currently visible windows to be shown at the start of every session then close the program (without a message asking if that's what you want to do). Also now when it reshows windows at the start of each session it remembers which one was in front last time you closed the program for a smoother work flow - at least on Windows it does (not yet on the Mac). For details see download page. I have also Added droplists to Tempo Dial (Ctrl + 222) to you choose how to show the tempo in the tempo dial. Added droplists to Tempo Dial to make it easier to choose how to show the tempo on the tempo dial. This is available in Tempo Dial - Preferences (Ctrl + 223). but I get emails from time to time from users who haven't found it yet and find the tempo dial puzzling, so I hope this will help with that. Also for everyone, it put this option right in the tempo dial, where it is most needed. It doesn't obscure any of the other options in the dial as you see from the screen shot

Also, when you use F4 to record the window positions on the screen then it not only preserves their positions, it now preserves which ones are on top and which are behind others - the way they are stacked from back to front ("z order"), when you close the program and re-open it. Also added options to expand or contract to include all keyswitches in Play Keyswitches from PC keyboard, on-screen keyboard or via midi in (Ctrl + 268)

See Change Log for Sunday 11th December 2016.

Update October 29th, 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Sat, 29 Oct 2016 23:25:31 +0000

29/10/16
Update October 29th, 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

This upload has some improvements in the Speed Drills window including an option to stay at the current tempo, pausing the tempo changes - mid drill and then resume it whenever you want to. Also you can now make clusters of windows attached together which you can move around on the screen as a single unit. Then there are several other minor new features and a fair number of bug fixes as usual. I have also updated the Mac Beta to this latest version.

Added: Randomly Quieter to Humanise Chord Timings - for Fractal Tunes etc (Ctrl + 184) now renamed to "Humanize Timings and Volumes" for a more natural feel.

Added a new option to let you type e.g. 35,1 to select instrument 35 in bank 1.

Added: Polyrhythmic paradiddle with double paradiddle ! to Music Notation - Drum & Dance etc drop list

Several additions to Speed drills (simpler version) (Ctrl + 280), including a new option to stay at the current tempo, pausing the tempo changes, an option to do the Tempo step as a percentage or ratio instead of BPM, and an option "Spread evenly over" to choose how many steps there are between the first and last tempo

New feature - you can make clusters of windows attached together which you can move around on the screen as a single unit, also open them all in one go and close them all. To find this option go to any window and then to its Win drop menu and click on "ATTACH other WINDOWS to this one" and then follow the instructions in that mesage. You can then move those windows around as a single unit, also minimize them and restore them all as one unit, and if you show a window, all its attached windows get shown with it.

In the Choose Percussion and Melodic Menus (ctrl + 157), More version of this window (available if you are in Advanced mode from the Options drop menu) there's a new option to set a bank number offset, and to set the value of the other byte in the bank message. The defaults there of 64 for the offset and 63 for the other byte hopefully will work for choosing grooves for the Yamaha MOX (will see if this works).

This upload also has a number of bug fixes. For details of the changes, see Change log and Bug fixes.

To get it, visit the .

Update September 13th, 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 20:52:33 +0000

13/09/16
Update September 13th, 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

This is mainly a bug fixes upload in the latest version 4.6 of Bounce which I released a couple of weeks back - for details of it see Update August 31st 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

I think perhaps the main bug of note which I fixed is one for people using screens with fine detail (high dpi) like the surface pro. You will only get this if you show the window to adjust individual beats in a rhythm on a high dpi screen. When you do that it auto reszies all the Bounce windows with smaller font which can make them hard to read.

Apart from that, it also fixes a bug in a new option to set the volumes for individual beats in a multi instrument - this is an obscure feature which few will have discovered yet. It can cause strange behaviour in the program if you switch this option on, exit the program and start up again. Anyway it's fixed now. Also fixed some bugs in playback of the polychords and various other minor bugs,

Also minor updates to Add Melodic Sequence or Chord Progression (Ctrl + 275) and Chord Progression For Part (Ctrl + 250)copied over from Options for Seed, Arpeggio and Scale Play buttons (Ctrl + 28) and added a new option "Remove duplicated notes in polychords". This is for polychords like C:F which go F A C C E G with a repeated C where the chords join. When this option is switched on it removes the duplicated note and just plays C:F as F A C E G.

Also added "fade if silenced" and "darken if silenced" check boxes to Tune Display Options (Ctrl + 19) to let you configure this, defaulted it so that the silenced parts are a bit darker than before, so easier to see - more of a darker grayish shade of the colour than a pale washed out colour as it was previously, which was especially hard to read on a high contrast screen.

For details of the changes, see Bug fixes.

To get it, visit the it gives instructions on how to update your version of Bounce for Mac with the lastest Windows release. I want to test it a bit more on the Mac first as it's a major update though I've tested a little and everything looks fine so far, after those bug fixes, expect the Mac update soon. If anyone wants a beta of it right away just ask, I've got it here but want to do a bit more testing before uploading it as the next "official beta" as it were.

Update August 31st 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:52:57 +0000

31/08/16
Update August 31st 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

This is a new version now, version 4.6, and it has quite a few new features, including a graphical way to set the silent and hidden measures for the Play then silent feature,a new count in option, work on the automatic rhythm changing, and several music notation related features along with many bug fixes and smaller changes . I've been working on it since January. To get it, visit the it gives instructions on how to update your version of Bounce for Mac from the lastest Windows release. Or you can ask me for an early Mac beta. I hope to release the Mac build in the near future.

Including: New Visual Count In window Visual Count In (Ctrl + 289). This lets you show the bouncing balls bounce several times before the rhythm starts.

New graphical interface for the option to play and be silent at selected measures and to show / hide the bounce - you can set it to display the measures polymetrically when some of the measures are of different sizes - parts 1 and 2 have shorter measures than parts 3 and 4 in this screen shot. The yellow lines show where each pattern of play and silent measures repeats. White here is silence. You left click to set a measure to played or silent and right click to set the position of the yellow line for the pattern repeats. As before you can set it so the bounces are automatically hidden / shown whenever it plays or is silent. It's just a graphical user interface into the existing feature, but it does make it easier to use in some ways and you can also expand it to show the patterns of measures in all the parts for as many measures as you like - which may go on for a long time without repeating the whole thing exactly if each part repeats after a different number of measures, or some parts are polymetric..

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Update January 23rd 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 12:49:53 +0000

24/01/16
Update January 23rd 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

Steve Reich's melody for Piano Phase played slowly on five phasing pianos in Bounce Metronome

New features: can now set the tempo dial to show notches at fractional BPM - usesful if you want to customize it to show a small range of tempi and then click to set the tempo to the nearest 0.1 BPM etc. Can now show bouncing musical note names. Added Steve Reich's melody from piano phase to give examples to show how the vary tempo feature works with abc notation.

Hugely speeded up auto remake for the music notation rhythm, making for smoother editing of the text. Can set a different number of syncopating parts for each of the rhythms in the syncopated African polyrhythms window. And various other minor otptions and bug fixes.

To update, visit the download page and you can install on top of your existing version. For Mac OSX, visit the Read More »

Update January 23rd 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 12:49:51 +0000

24/01/16
Update January 23rd 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

Steve Reich's melody for Piano Phase played slowly on five phasing pianos in Bounce Metronome

|New features: can now set the tempo dial to show notches at fractional BPM - usesful if you want to customize it to show a small range of tempi and then click to set the tempo to the nearest 0.1 BPM etc. Can now show bouncing musical note names. Added Steve Reich's melody from piano phase to give examples to show how the vary tempo feature works with abc notation. Hugely speeded up auto remake for the music notation rhythm, making for smoother editing of the text. Can set a different number of syncopating parts for each of the rhythms in the syncopated African polyrhythms window. And various other minor otptions and bug fixes.

In detail:

Read More »

Update January 12h 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 01:55:19 +0000

13/01/16
Update January 12h 2016 - Bounce Metronome Pro

The main new options are

* Can now use abc notation (Beta) - not all its features but enough of it so that it is now practical to use Bounce Metronome for entering compositions with rhythms and pitches in any of the sixteen parts. you can transform the abc notation into any tuning system you like, and so this gives a way you can use standard abc notation to composse microtonally. Doesn't have suppor for microtonal abc yet.

* Added midi time code sync (Beta).

* Many improvements in the Automatic Tempo and Rhythm Changes with Accelerating Tempo, Accents, etc. (Ctrl + 264) window window.

* lots of other minor options and bug fixes.

To update, visit the download page and you can install on top of your existing version For details of the changes, see Change log and Bug fixes.

For the Mac version, go to the 24/10/15
Vanishing Metronome Clicks, for Timing Sensitivity: And other Metronome Techniques - Many Ways to Use a Metronome

Have you seen my Many Ways to use a Metronome? I've now released it as a kindle book as well.

Vanishing Metronome Clicks, for Timing Sensitivity: And other Metronome Techniques - Many Ways to Use a Metronome - on kindle (Amazon)

Many people find metronome practice awkward or dull, and some beginners find it hard to get started with it at all. That's not too surprising. After all, you don't expect to just pick up an instrument and play it until you learn the technique - much the same applies to metronome practice.

You may be surprised to discover that metronome practice can be relaxing, enjoyable, and an exiting musical adventure, continually exploring new horizons

Read More »

Recorder Tunes from the Heart

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 13:43:15 +0000

24/10/15
Recorder Tunes from the Heart

This is my new kindle book of tunes: "Recorder Tunes from the Heart: 163 New Tunes for Solo Descant or Tenor Recorder. With a Folk Feel and a Refreshing Spontaneity "

163 Tunes for solo descant or tenor recorder. Many composed out of doors, and noted down quickly with few or no changes.

The idea was to compose more and more spontaneously, like the way many Impressionist painters painted, and the way Japanese and Chinese calligraphy is done, and also the way birds sing.

Read More »

21st June - Bug Fix

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 11:22:08 +0000

11/06/15
21st June - Bug Fix

21st June, more bug fixes.Main thing - this fixes a blue screen issue that affected a few users.

I've had a couple reports of blue screen after installation, which apparently - from a debug log - is a result of using Direct 2D for edge smoothing when drawing circles on some computers. If affected, then this will happen right away after you first install Bounce Metronome, when you first try run it. No idea why this happens as I can't duplicate it here.

Anyway the new defaul to use image resampling instead fixes it. Also fixes a bug that may auto switch off the gradual tempo changes in some situations.

You can get the latest Bounce from the download page.

Mac version not yet updated, will do it soon. For Mac users, the blue screen is not an issue, as it doesn't have Direct2D anyway.

Read More »

9th June - Installer now backs up old .exe file with date, so that rollback is easy to do

admin — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 18:22:12 +0000

09/06/15
9th June - Installer now backs up old .exe file with date, so that rollback is easy to do

With this upload, the installer now makes an automatic backup of the old .exe file, with date and time. For instance the Bounce Metronome installer will copy the old "Bounce Metronome.exe" to e.g. "Bounce Metronome - Date=06(day)-06-2015 (Saturday) - Time=23-26-40.exe"

That way then rollback is easy, just in case the new update has a bug in it that affects you. Just go to the program location folder and you'll find your old .exe file still there and can run that instead. E.g. change desktop shortcut so that it links to the old version of Bounce instead of the new one.

Also fixes a bug on the Mac - that if you click on the Buy button in the program, or some of the other buttons that are supposed to open external web pages - you get an error message and no page shows up - fixed.

You can get the latest Bounce from the Read More »

6th June - "Click to send playing style keyswitches" window and circular piano style graphics for theremin

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2015 21:19:23 +0000

07/06/15
6th June - "Click to send playing style keyswitches" window and circular piano style graphics for theremin

New window that lets you send playing style keyswitches from Bounce by pressing buttons. These are often used by sample player instruments. E.g. Kontakt instruments. Lets you change playing styles, e.g. for string instruments notes that were pre-recorded as arco (just normal bowing), staccato, vibrato, tremolo, pizzicato etc.

Also have extended the new piano keyboard theremin visuals to the circular theremin (NB you can set it to use any arrangement of black and white keys and any number of keys to the octave). It's purely visual, to help you orientate yourself, the theremin still plays continuously. Though in the future I could add an option to play it discretely as an on screen keyboard.

This shows the circular keyboard set to wrap around once. So the two Gs at the left and right are the same pitch and the notes in the top half of the window are the same pitch as the notes immediately below them in the bottom half.

You can get the latest Bounce from the download page.

To get to the mouse theremin, first you need to make sure you show melodic instruments etc in the Instruments drop menu, then you can get to it with Ctrl + 163.

26th May - bug fixes and minor updates - and more on the mose theremin + integration with Kontakt for the mouse theremin

admin — Wed, 27 May 2015 14:03:43 +0000

27/05/15
26th May - bug fixes and minor updates - and more on the mose theremin + integration with Kontakt for the mouse theremin

This upload continues with fixes and new features for the mouse theremin - also to do with getting the mouse theremin to work with the Kontakt instruments, using a new update of the Kontakt script. Plus some other bug fixes and user interface updates.

Main new features for the theremin - an option to stereo pan the notes by pitch (Or vary any other controller at the same time as you vary the pitch)

You can get the latest Bounce from the download page.

To get to the mouse theremin, first you need to make sure you show melodic instruments etc in the Instruments drop menu, then you can get to it with Ctrl + 163.

6th May - Multi Tempo Theremin - with Multi Tempo Buzz Rolls, Piano Style Visuals Also Sliding Chords Harmonic Polyrhythms - Multi Strip Layout for Extra Pitch Sensitivity

admin — Wed, 06 May 2015 15:47:31 +0000

06/05/15
6th May - Multi Tempo Theremin - with Multi Tempo Buzz Rolls, Piano Style Visuals Also Sliding Chords Harmonic Polyrhythms - Multi Strip Layout for Extra Pitch Sensitivity

Many new features for the mouse theremin - with the Multi Tempo Theremin (Ctrl + 282) which lets you play harmonic polyrhythms as for Theremin's rhythmicon with continuously changing pitch as a theremin. Also now has a multi-row option, so you can "stretch" the pitch over several times the width of th screen to get higher pitch resolution (wth less volume resolution). As well as that, now you can show a keyboard on the screen to give visual feedback of where the pitch is in the twelve tone keyboard - this keyboard can also be configured to any other equal number of pisions of the octave or of other intervals like the tritave.

So, you can play it like a keyboard, with a continuous surface for pitch and volume sensitive depending on the position of your finger on the key - and with ability to do pitch slides. Or you can switch on the multi-tempo theremin option and play it as a harmonic polyrhythm creation instrument with continuous pitch and volume changes of any of the notes.

These new features are WORK IN PROGRESS, especially the multi tempo theremin, but enough there so you can have fun trying them out to see what they do. I'll return to these windows with another upload later on.

It's early days yet, but I think this may also be what I'll work on for my ideas for future multi-touch keyboards in Bounce Metronome and Tune Smithy as it is already very capable and the coding may be easier this way around rather than adding these capabilities to the existing on screen keyboards - will see how it goes when I work on that probably a few months from now.

This upload also fixes some issues with the new speed drills window, and has some other bug fixes and UI improvements.

This shows some of the new theremin options in use:

You can get the latest Bounce from the Read More »

7th April - Speed drills, Stop after, Midi In sync via a note on, minor improvements and Bug fixes

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 22:47:40 +0000

07/04/15
7th April - Speed drills, Stop after, Midi In sync via a note on, minor improvements and Bug fixes

Adds three new windows to help with speed drills, to set Bounce to stop play after a set period of time, and to help with sync with notes from midi in, e.g. to set Bounce to synchronize with your DAW or Finale / Sibelius etc. You can get it from the First, the Stop After window lets you set it to stop play automatically after a given time or number of measures. The More version of this window also has an option to fade out over a given time or number of measures (gradually gets quiet until it fades to silence) and to complete the last measure (useful if you set it to play a given time period).

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22nd March 2015 - Improvements in the Tempo and Rhythm progressions window, and many minor improvements and Bug fixes

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 22:41:03 +0000

23/03/15
22nd March 2015 - Improvements in the Tempo and Rhythm progressions window, and many minor improvements and Bug fixes

Main new thing - a lot moe work on the tempo and rhythm progressions windows - both the simple and the advanced versions. No major new features - but numerous minor improvements and bug fixes.

If you ever found that the rhythm and tempo progressions window was confusing, there's a chance this will help. Also fixes various bugs including one bug that might give you occasionally glitchy bounces that the bounce seems to "pause" momentarily.

Read More »