Here’s the latest rundown of Soundslice improvements:

Saving default transposition and synth sounds

Previously, we gave you a way to rename tracks and change default notation view. Now we’ve extended that to include a way to save default track transposition and default synth sound.

So, for example, if you import a MusicXML file and we somehow didn’t pick up that you wanted it to use the bagpipe sound samples in synth playback, you can now change that in track controls, then click “Set default.”

Soundslice player

• We made our notation auto-zooming more sophisticated. Previously, if you reduced your browser window’s width (or increased the size of a video) such that the longest bar of notation no longer fit in the available width, we would reduce the size of the notation — and if you increased the width after that, the notation would remain small. Now, we remember the last manually specified zoom level, so that notation shrinking is only temporary until the player width increases again.
• We increased the real-time accuracy of the playhead’s position during playback, leading to fewer cases of a “drifting” or “jumpy” playhead.
• Our synth player now supports “Choir aahs” and “Choir ooohs.” Ooooh! Ahhh.
• We fixed a bug where the playhead would remain in an odd position after reaching the end of the score.
• We fixed playback in iOS (iPhones and iPads) — sometimes playback wouldn’t start when you clicked Play.
• We fixed a bug where track controls sometimes said “undefined” for the track name (in case of bad MusicXML data).
• We now hide the playhead at time of page load. It doesn’t become visible until either you seek the audio or press Play. This makes for a cleaner look.

Notation rendering

• We made chord names slightly bigger when they’re used without diagrams. Looks nicer.
• We (finally!) added a brace connecting both staves in a grand staff:

• Similarly, we added a bracket connecting staff and tab staves:

• Stemmed tab view now includes time signatures.
• We now support circle and plus signs attached to note heads, e.g., in percussion notation to indicate open/closed hi hats.
• We improved the placement of articulations (staccato, accents, etc.) with respect to noteheads, especially in case of multiple voices.
• We fixed a rendering bug where end-repeat bars weren’t correctly drawn when preceding a start-repeat bar that contains a time signature change.
• We fixed a rendering bug with chord diagrams where they took up too much space in tab tracks that have fewer than six strings.
• In tablature with non-standard tuning, the tuning now uses sharps or flats depending on the key signature, instead of always using sharps.
• We improved hairpin rendering (aka crescendos and decrescendos).
• Stemmed tab view now displays simile repeat signs properly.
• We improved the positioning of fingering in piano scores with cross-staff beams.
• We now support rests with more than one augmentation dot.
• We fixed a bug where the tempo marking at the start of a score wasn’t positioned properly in some cases.

MusicXML importing

• We now detect a couple more ways that various notation programs specify “triplet feel” and properly import that.
• We improved our importer to properly deal with Sibelius’ buggy handling of subsequent bar repeats.
• We improved our importer to use bass clef for tab-only parts that are bass guitar. Even though MusicXML files don’t include a clef in this case, we do some heuristics.

Score manager / syncpoint editor

• “Success” messages look better now, with a yellow background instead of gray, plus some subtle changes in look/feel.
• The submit button in the “Add recording” page no longer jumps down after you specify a file to upload.
• We fixed a usability issue with the “More” menu in the score manager — you no longer have to make sure your mouse cursor precisely stays over the menu and its arrow.
• We fixed a bug where it would say “This folder is empty” at the bottom of some pages when you paged through your scores.
• We fixed a bug in the syncpoint editor where the guide notes sometimes wouldn’t be displayed at time of page load.

Embedding

• We improved our JavaScript API to let you change the notation’s zoom level. See the setZoom API method and ssZoom event in our documentation.
• We added a side_video_width URL parameter, which lets you specify the width of the videos when they’re on the left of notation.