June 2020 Update
David William Hearn • Jun 29, 2020
A StaffPad Update, an Apple Design Award, and some reflection...
In mid February, we launched StaffPad and StaffPad Reader. As I write this follow up, just 16 weeks later, I still can't believe the unprecedented level of change the world has gone through - and is still going through. Wherever you are in the world, I hope that you're safe, healthy and staying positive about the future.
I've enjoyed hearing about how StaffPad is being used on projects, both large and small. In 4 short months, I've learned that StaffPad has already been involved in major movie projects, TV shows, live events and album projects. We've received some wonderful
reviews
and a fantastic community has grown around the app, with Facebook groups
and forums to support the growing user base. The current situation has meant we haven't been able to focus on the in-the-room collaboration features offered by the Reader, but we can't wait until we're able to get together again en masse
to make music and properly demonstrate the remarkable capabilities of StaffPad and StaffPad Reader working together.
We've won an Apple Design Award!
We're really proud to announce that StaffPad has won an Apple Design Award!
This is a huge honour for us. To receive the prestigious Apple Design Award, just 4 months after releasing on iPad, is truly humbling.
We put design front and centre in everything we do at StaffPad. This doesn't mean just spending time on what the app looks
like, but taking the time to think about the entire experience from start to finish, and how to build that in the best way we can. I could muse for days on design (and often do) but, for now, I want to express my biggest thanks to the StaffPad team and, of course, to Apple for the recognition... right, I'm off to open some champagne!
The #OutsideCompetition
Recently we ran a competition, in partnership with the great people at Orchestral Tools, encouraging composers to write a short piece - however they choose to write - capturing their relationship with nature and the great outdoors. We were incredibly moved when more than 500 composers rose to the challenge, and compositions of incredible quality and expressiveness poured in. The talented young composer Cameron Moody took first place in the competition with his fantastic piece "Morning Air", capturing the essence of renewal and opportunity that a new day brings. Cameron has since been enjoying writing with StaffPad, saying:
"StaffPad is wonderful! It's incredibly powerful, efficient, and a real joy to use. The interface is intuitive, and the sound quality is impeccable!"
You can listen to Cameron's piece, and the runners up below. These compositions, and all of the entries to the competition, were an absolute joy and pleasure to listen to. I hope the competition provided some relief and inspiration during the past few months. My biggest thanks and congratulations to all of the wonderfully talented composers who entered.
The June 2020 update to StaffPad
In February, when we relaunched StaffPad, and introduced StaffPad Reader, we were releasing the result of 4 years of hard work into the world. The technical scale of StaffPad is enormous, with a vast codebase that's extraordinarily complex. We use bleeding-edge development techniques but, inevitably on a project at this scale, there's been some challenges along the way. I know it's been a bit of a bumpy road, especially during those initial weeks. We've been working really hard to stabilise the codebase, and fix as many issues as we can as quickly as possible. There's still more to do here, but I wanted to thank you for your patience
as we move ahead. We are committed to making StaffPad the best it can be, and there's a bright future in front of us.
On that note; we're excited to announce the latest release of StaffPad - the June 2020 update.
This update adds some new features, and contains many fixes and improvements to enhance your experience of writing with StaffPad. The update is now live in both the App Store and the Windows Store, and will roll out gradually over the next week.
Let's dig in and have a look at what's new...
Note Stretch
This is a great feature to quickly change the duration of an existing note. You've always been able to move notes left and right on the staff just by dragging them. Now, you can change their length too. Now, you can simply tap on a note with the Pencil or pen, hold for moment, then drag left and right to adjust the duration. It's a great way of quickly extending a note or chord to cover multiple bars, or to quickly adjust a duration down without having to rewrite the note itself. Have a look at how this works in the video below:
Dynamics Drag
As well as being able to change note durations by dragging left or right, you can now drag up or down on dynamics symbols
to change their value. This also works for groups of dynamics you've selected with the lasso. In case you haven't seen it yet, you can also drag hairpins up or down
to change their direction.
These improvements mean it should now be easier to write, edit and erase a bar of music without using any additional UI - just the pen or Pencil.
New Sounds
We've introduced new sound packs for StaffPad
to help inspire new compositions and take your productions to the next level. These include
- Cinesamples Artist Series: Tina Guo Cello StaffPad Edition
- Cinesamples Artist Series: Taylor Davis Violin StaffPad Edition
- Ambience One
- Essential Drummers
For emotional, lyrical cello lines the Tina Guo Cello sings beautifully. Taylor Davis Violin brings a modern sound to melodic writing for violin. Ambience One contains a fantastic array of production sounds and evocative soundscapes. Essential Drummers brings the sound of two of the UK's top session drummers into the app, along with punchy drum machines. Each of these libraries have their own info and demos within the StaffPad Store - definitely check them out when you get a chance. You can hear a quick composition showing some of these new sounds below.
All the little things
Of course, we're constantly working to improve the stability, reliability and performance of the app. Over the past few months we've deployed numerous enhancements to the recognition system. This includes improved recognition, and rolling out a new "report bar" system. Now, if you see an orange/pending bar where you feel one shouldn't be, tap once with your finger on the bar and press "report". This sends the bar to us for further analysis and helps us improve the system
in the future - for all of us.
We've added stem export, which lets you export your score as individual WAV files, for further work elsewhere, mixing or backup purposes.
There's a lot of smaller fixes and enhancements too. Take a deep breath; here's just a few:
Copy and paste of chord symbols is now more robust, and now also works with the lasso tool. Chords from the Chord Staff will also show on regular instrument staffs where appropriate. Tuplets are no longer “swung”
during swing playback. The transposition dialog now defaults to “off” for the ‘change key signature’ option. Slurs now properly update their direction for parts that transpose when printed. Versions are more robust, and quicker to switch between. Chords are now exported and imported via MusicXML more reliably. Under-filled and over-filled bars no longer appear shaded on printed scores, the Reader, or PDF exports. Tempos can be manually entered to two decimal places (previously, this would only apply to imported tempo maps). You can now copy and paste between scores. We added a custom Downloads & Updates screen for iOS, to make managing purchased sample libraries easier. We've fixed multiple layout issues, as well as made general stability and performance improvements throughout the app. We've made multiple updates to the sound libraries, fixing issues that have been reported.
As always, there's much to do. The team and I are working hard behind the scenes to bring new features, important fixes, and some entirely new concepts to the app. We're also working to bring StaffPad to additional languages, and you'll start to see some of that work in the next update in the coming weeks and months. I'm really excited about the future of StaffPad, and I can't wait to share more with you in the near future.
Until next time, stay well, stay positive and stay healthy. As always, I hope you continue to enjoy writing music with StaffPad!
With very best wishes,
David William Hearn
David is a the lead designer and co-founder of StaffPad, as well as a professional composer and orchestrator.
London, http://www.davidwilliamhearn.com
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StaffPad has been updated with audio recognition for piano, known as Piano Capture, as well as MIDI input, new Muse Sounds libraries, support for video and more. StaffPad now provides amazing tools for scoring movies.
