New Strumming Patterns Preview Release!

iPad user here so will volunteer if that’s needed.

Marla is great; her focus is on Irish mandolin. Her hubbie accompanies her on guitar so he’d be a good one to checkout his strums.

Getting close to releasing the next beta version, and I’ve got a dilemma that I’m hoping to get some feedback on… especially if you’re someone who uses different volume settings for different songs. :loud_sound:

First, the good news: this new version will introduce (or rather, bring back) global instrument volume/pan/mute settings! :tada:

You can override the global volume/pan settings on a per-song basis as well:

The global “Mute” button is used to quickly and temporarily disable an instrument across all songs:


I’m happy with this new design as still allows for per-song customization as desired, while making it much easier to default all songs to your preferred volumes.

The Problem

In the current beta, since volumes can only be set on a per-song basis, there are a lot of song-specific volume settings in the database. Should these per-song volume settings be preserved? I know that many of you have been setting most songs to the same volume settings, and would prefer to use the new global volume settings instead.

The Easy Solution

I could ignore all existing volume settings, giving everyone a clean slate as far as volume settings go. They could then set whatever combination of global and per-song volume preferences they wanted.

I’m hesitant to do this, even though it falls under the beta-version process. But it’s by far the easiest and most straightforward approach, and would probably be preferred by most people (who only want one volume control anyway).

Don’t like that idea? Let me know!

Are you someone who uses different volume settings for each song, and who would be sad to have your existing per-song volume settings lost? I want to hear from you! Perhaps I can manually restore existing per-song volume preferences for users to request it… or perhaps there’s another solution I haven’t thought of yet. Hit reply or click my username above and send me a message. Thanks!

I like your easy solution, but as you said I set all my volumes the same.
Thanks for keeping us informed and involved.

Hey Luke. One thing I’ve notice with the beat is the volume of the base seems much lower by default than in regular. When I want to be able to hear the base I have to turn down guitar and mandolin by almost half. Not sure if you intentionally decreased the volume of bass in the beta compared to regular StrumMachine.

Anyone who’d like to can take a sneak peek at the next version here, which includes all my work since June 8. (The database is a temporary copy, so changes won’t be reflected in the normal/beta app.) Hope to have this deployed to beta in the next couple of weeks, but lots of loose ends to tie up on Monday!

@RobertBiggs I think the reason the bass seems low is because the guitar and bass are competing for volume, and because of the way the built-in compressor/limiter works, the bass gets overly reduced. The new version should be better in this regard although more improvement may be possible. Side note, it’s really hard for me to decide what constitutes “equal” in regard to instrument volumes! Seems to depend so much on the song, context, and my preference in the moment… not to mention the kind of speakers I’m using…

Yeah, before submitting I was thinking along the same lines. But in regular StrumMachine the bass is notably louder. On the beta I have to lower the guitar and mandolin to about 50% to hear the bass. But I don’t bother with most tunes, just the ones where I want more bass.

I really like what you did with the interface for the strumming patterns, makes it a lot easier to grok. :slight_smile: Oh and two foot stomping patters, yay! I have a feeling I’m gonna spend the next 7 days fiddling with all the new strum patters and controls to see what sounds I come up with.

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OMG!!! Panning! Woopie!!! Thank you so much. That just adds a whole other level of realism. By the way, looks like QA solves the outro bug affecting Safari on mobile and desktop that the beta has. :slight_smile:

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I like it!!!great job

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I do use different volume settings per song but I can fix them again when I play that song again! What a small, small effort for me to give in return to all the fun and enjoyment I have with StrumMachine!
Please take the easy path……my 2 cents! Thanks for all your hard work at making your Customers Happy! Jim

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Would also like to see a master volume control.

WHY: I have the strum-machine beta app (chrome version on macbook) open and one of brian suttons videos open in another window. I’m in process of listen to him talk about different timing patterns. I opened strum machine to play along to a swing rhythm and the volume difference is substantial. Strum machine is much louder than the other video.

Another scenario:
I use strum machine on the iPad with my yamaha silent guitar plugged into it via an xsonic xtone audio interface. If an master volume was available on the strum machine app it would be much easier to equalize volumes between the guitar output and strum machine to get a good balance in my headphones for quiet practice

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The latest beta version (v370) now has a global volume setting! As has been said before, normally you’d want to keep this at 100% and use your device’s volume setting. However, being able to lower Strum Machine’s volume specifically would come in handy in situations such as @MichaelU describes.

Once I improve the list of initial built-in presets and update the help docs, I think this will be ready to release to the main site and mobile apps! (Not that I’m done adding strumming patterns or features in this area, but it’s high time I took what’s here now out of beta.) Aiming for “sometime in October”.

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Thanks very much Luke that’s going to be real useful for me. Love that the master volume persists across song changes. Good thinking.

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Love how the beta has turned out. You’ve done a great job. I guess the only thing I’d like to see after this version rolls out to Gold Master is a couple of patterns for bass and mandolin.

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I totally agree with Jim Jones. Luv strum machine !!!

Please separate Jazz from Swing as well as Folk from Rock and Pop : ) There is also a Gypsy genre… I love all the categories Luke!!

Oh that would be a “ditto”

@MaryAnnHetrick Just to be clear, the discussion in this thread took place months before the final release of the current band settings menu. Lots of things changed between then and now, including dropping the “genres” like Jazz/Swing and Folk/Rock/Pop in favor of setting playing styles more directly (although there are also genre-based Presets to choose from, with more presets on the way).

I am going to go ahead and lock this old thread so that further band-related discussion happens in new threads. :slightly_smiling_face: