Hi Robert,
Sometimes, I’ll noodle around and find something that I really like, but then it’s not written down so I forget it before it’s entrained into my fingers (well, cerebellum).
What tool are you using when you pull together all your finger drumming music diagrams (e.g. example below)? Clearly, doing this from scratch wouldn’t be too hard using something Illustrator (and these days getting an AI to do it would be trivial too). But if something’s already out there, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
I wanna make little music diagrams for myself. 
Thank you,
-David
Hey I actually used illustrator with special hotkeys to morph the grey squares into those other shapes. It always was the thing I enjoyed the least as part of building out the lessons but it was doable. The trick is to have empty templates ready, hotkeys etc. and then it is not too much work.
I no longer have adobe stuff and use Affinity for everything. I would have to see how I’d do it now to be honest if I would need to make more diagrams.
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Thanks for the quick response, Robert. Illustrator is no shortcut, that’s for sure. I’ll keep looking around… Of course it’d be overkill, but what’d be great is something that read midi notes and placed things on a grid.
-D
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Hey Rob, I actually was having the same question. I guess you don’t know of any other tool that can help you do diagrams similarly, right?
Hi All,
I’ve been thinking about the same, so with with some AI help, I created a small tool to create such diagrams (I just “stole” the looks 
): Drum Pattern Editor
Quite basic and needs some polishing, but let me know if there is interest and I can spend some more time with it.
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Omg that is amazing! Man, AI has really changed things… building the QFG website would have been so much faster these days
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Holy smokes @dobaksz . Finally a good use of AI! This is fantastic, thank you so much
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okay okay long time lurker first time poster… this is so cool!
Good job!
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Hi dobaksz,
I have two feature requests. 
- Check out the snare on 3& and 3a. It’s a ghost note for beat 3a. Any chance you could pull that notation off?
- Any chance there is a save to pdf function? I can screen shot, but it’s not precise.
Thanks!!!
Hi Sussilo,
I added PDF export support (SVG export was there already, I just kept it), check the “Export…” button at top right. I also made it possible to put note symbols on the grid lines, not just inside the grid. There are two new buttons on the toolbar which can be used to select where to put or delete the symbol. Is this what you are looking for? There are also many small fixes and improvements in this version.
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PDF is great! The mid-beat strike is awesome, too. Though I realize now that there’s probably a slightly different mark for a ghost note vs. a 32nd note. The ghost note would likely be 2/3 of the way between the elements of the grid. What you’ve implemented definitely serves in a pinch, though!
I couple of other things that are really bread and butter:
- Is it possible to move rows up and down? E.g. I want to add a hi-hat (open), which Robert would typically have at the very top and use cyan color. This becomes very difficult because I’d have to change all the labels and colors to do it (I think). If you could just natively rearrange rows then you could drag the the bottom row to the top and voila. Which brings me another request.
- Is it possible to have a few default colors that mimic the colors that Robert has used? The color picker is adequate but unwieldy. Whereas, if you’re following along with QFG, there are a set (perhaps six?) colors that Robert always uses, so having those colors as defaults here would be very helpful.
One last comment. This is a really great start, and I feel like you’re closing in on a terrific community utility that a lot of people would enjoy and make use of. But if you aren’t feeling it, I totally understand. Many thanks!
-David
Thanks, good to hear that the tool is useful. I enjoy updating it and I learn a lot by doing it, so currently it is just a fun to polish it.
So, I made another update. I added handles, which can be used to rearrange rows by dragging them. Added presets for row labels and colors (see the “Add row” button). I also made it possible to select between three different places for mid-beat strikes.
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Ok, this tool has become legitimately useful! I just made a couple of groove diagrams and it was super easy. I think I have two final requests, and then I think it’s basically done.
- Like the diagram below, it’d be super useful to have multiple measure sas rows on the same page (I love the multiple measure in the same row as you already have now). Would it be possible to add multiple rows with a space between them?
- Also like the diagram below, it’d be great to have some basic text between rows of measure.
Really great and thanks!
-David
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This is truly fantastic. Thank you so much! I’m using this almost daily now. If you are accepting requests: Would it also be possible to have the grid in triplets like in the diagram below?
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