Love it! Couple of questions...

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Rushy
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:27 pm

Love it! Couple of questions...

Post by Rushy » Thu Jan 26, 2017 10:51 pm

Hi Richard and Yann,

Thank you guys (and my lovely wifelet) for reviving a lifelong dream (usual restrictions apply; money/space/lack of ability/neighbours). Absolutely loving your great product. Like many others I saw you on Dragon's Den and was compelled to try it out - shame on you Dragons.

I had a snare drum for my 7th birthday but this was sabotaged by my jealous (**** of a) cousin who decided to thrust a stick though the skin and my parents could not afford to replace it (or so they say), so I've always been left wondering what might have been. 41 years on and a month with Aerodrums and I'm now convinced the world missed out!

So to my questions...

1) Like Eirlysbill and Panthos, I suffer from ghosts who keep hitting the high-tom while I'm rockin' out on the hi-hats. I have read your advice about reducing back-swings, drum-placement etc, but I have also read that you plan to introduce a feature to limit the area that each piece of the kit responds to:
We do plan to introduce a feature that will prevent hits being triggered when the stick is too far from a drum. We have a prototype of this and it helps a lot so expect it in a future software update.
I think this might help me, is there any sign of it being implemented soon? (I have updated to the latest version and cannot see that option)

2) While the foot-markers are perfectly adequate for the job I can see that repeated use over time will eventually cause the small strip of foam between the strap and the foot to deteriorate and fail. There have been a few threads here detailing self-modded foot-markers to prevent this but I wondered if you have plans to design a more robust product and make them available to be purchased separately at a reasonable price?

3) More of a suggestion really; others have alluded to the great teaching potential of AD, and I agree. Imagine how many kids in the world have begged their parents for a drum kit but due to parental skepticism have been denied. It is understandable; drums are loud and kids have very short attention spans; that drum kit could end up as a very expensive dust collector. AD fills that gap in the market perfectly! If a child can prove to their parents that it's more than just a passing whim by mastering AD the parents might be more prepared to invest in a real kit. And it's not just kids... many people (myself included) wonder for years if they might be able to transfer their air-drumming prowess onto a real kit - AD will show them (up) pretty quickly. To this end I would like to see a drum tutorial feature included with AD. Simple exercises to help with timing and precision to start with, progressing up to more complicated rhythms and fills to practice, with maybe a scoring system (like some of the popular music games on the market) which allows you to progress through the tutorial. Each exercise could culminate in playing along to a drumless track which covers the exercises in that section of the tutorial (I know, I know... copyright laws right?).

Once again, many many thanks for helping me live the dream. I wish you both every success.

Rushy

Richard
Posts: 1014
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:45 am

Re: Love it! Couple of questions...

Post by Richard » Mon Jan 30, 2017 3:56 pm

Hi Rushy, so nice to hear that Aerodrums has helped you play drums at long last!

The next Aerodrums software update should be coming very soon. Next week if not later this week. It will have new hit filtering logic that should help with the mis-triggering problems you're having.

Yes, we do plan to improve the design of the foot pieces to make them sturdier. Making replacement parts available to customers (without having to contact us directly) is something we have been meaning to do for a while now and will hopefully get around to it soon.

We definitely agree with the points you made in (3). We have talked before about our future plans to implement various educational features into Aerodrums and are very excited about the possibilities here. It is quite a big undertaking though so not something we'll see in the near future. For now we are still prioritising improvements to the drumming experience provided by Aerodrums.

Rushy
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:27 pm

Re: Love it! Couple of questions...

Post by Rushy » Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:25 pm

Thanks Richard, I look forward to the next update and to exorcising the ghosts in my room :)

I also look forward to new pedal markers and, eventually, the tutorial features. But don't let that stop you from improving the drumming experience - keep up the good work!

Rushy

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