Hookpad Updates: Improvements to Exporting, Band Editing, Magic Chord, Bass Collections, and Support for Pickups

September 20, 2018

Improved Band Editing

The Band Editor Can Now Be Toggled In and Out

The Band Editor can now be toggled in and out of persistent view, making it easier to simultaneously tweak the band and the music, as shown below.

The Hookpad Band Editor can now be toggled in and out of persistent view

Show More Or Less of the Band Editor by Resizing

In addition, the Band Editor can now be vertically resized to show more or less content, as shown below.

Hookpad’s Band Editor can now be vertically resized

Improved Volume and Octave Control

Finally, the volume and octave values of each track now show as their sliders are adjusted, as shown below

As the volume and octave sliders are adjusted, all volume and octave values are shown

Improved Magic Chord and Magic Bass

Magic Chord received several improvements in the 2.1 release, summarized below:

Magic Chord now shows chord-use data, displaying examples of songs that use the suggested chord in the same context.
Magic Chord and Magic Bass choosers now have buttons for previous chord, next chord, audition, cancel and accept.
Magic Chord and Magic Bass choosers can now be controlled with keyboard shortcuts ←, →, ↑, and ↓
Magic Chord and Magic Bass choosers now drop down from the top and don’t cover the score.
Magic Bass button now shows bass color of selected chord

10000 songs and shows you what other other artists have done in the same scenario.” width=”2214″ height=”990″ class=”size-full wp-image-1455″> Hookpad’s Magic Chord lets you ask Hookpad what it thinks is the best chord to use in a given situation. Hookpad scans > 10000 songs and shows you what other other artists have done in the same scenario.

Improved Exporting

Hookpad 2.1 has many improvements to exporting, summarized below.

Score export now hides empty staves
Score export now uses abbreviated instrument names on pages after the first page
Score export now exports landscape.
MP3 export now adds exactly 1 beat of silence before export region to facilitate syncing in DAWs more effectively.
Midi export grids notes on prescribed beats rather than using the timing of Hookpad playback
Midi export tracks now have instrument names attached for clarity
Score export adds instrument names to staves.
Score export now only exports one consolidated melody per lead voice rather than one stave per lead instrument.
Score export shows guitar strums as slashes
Note lightup and scrubber are throttled back during mp3 export to improve performance
Project no longer plays while an mp3 is being recorded
Midi and mp3 export now name files the same name as the project name

Improvements to Lyrics

The Lyrics Editor can now be resized and lyrics can be ignored using block-style /* */ comments.

Hookpad’s Lyrics Editor can now be resized horizontally

Improved Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboars shortcuts for Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, Redo, and Select All operations now work with command ⌘ (macOS) and ctrl (Windows), e.g. ⌘C for copy, ⌘V for paste.

Added Support For a Pickup Measure

A pickup measure can now be added to Hookpad projects by selecting the measure staff and turning on the pickup measure, as shown below. When a pickup measure is added, subsequent lines of music are shifted to the right by one measure.