I’ve been working on a number of minor improvements to DrumBurp over the last month. v0.8 is available for download now!

DrumBurp v0.8 mostly focuses on improving the Lilypond export feature introduced in v0.7. This is still a rapidly evolving part of DrumBurp so expect its interface and capabilities to change over the next few releases. Changes to the Lilypond export since 0.7 include:

  • Major improvements to the positioning of repeat counts and section titles.
  • Increased user control over how the score is set by Lilypond, specifically the font size, number of pages, and last page fill style.
  • Correctly set the paper size according to the setting chosen in DrumBurp.
  • Fixed a bug with persistence of Lilypond effects.

A new feature I’ve added is keyboard shortcuts for alternate note heads. Suppose you want to add a number of ghost notes or flams in quick succession. It’s a pain to have to keep middle-clicking and selecting the appropriate note head each time. This new feature allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to each note head for each drum. Holding down the corresponding key on the keyboard while you click to add notes will cause the correct note head to be inserted instead of the default. This feature is a little rough around the edges: it may not work on Linux yet, and the graphical display of which note head you’re inserting is a bit ropey. However, the basic idea works and I wanted to get it out there to be used. Let me know how you get on with it!

Other changes:

  • Support for 32nds and 32nd triplets.
  • Display of various status bar messages when your mouse hovers over important elements of the score. This is designed to help new users discover what they can do, and how to do it.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the correct editing and moving of drums in the kit editor.
  • Fixed a bug with repeating notes up to the last division of the last measure.
  • Fixed a bug in the display of potential repeated notes when omit empty lines is turned on.

I want to say thanks to Jason from Kinasis who’s given me a load of fantastic feedback recently on DrumBurp. It’s really helped me improve the program. It’s worth mentioning that the 32nd note support is in there specifically because he asked for it: if there’s something you want DrumBurp to do, let me know!