Percussion maps

There’s no universal standard for percussion notation. Should the bass drum be notated on the bottom space or the bottom line? Should cymbals always use an “X” notehead? For these and other questions, opinions differ.

That’s why Soundslice lets you specify a percussion map when you create percussion music. A percussion map tells our system which staff position (and notehead) corresponds to which percussion sound.

We have a few built-in presets to choose from. And you can create a custom percussion map to your own tastes.

Choosing a built-in percussion map

When you add a percussion instrument, you can choose from our available percussion map presets.

The current presets for five-line percussion are:

• Soundslice default — based on our own experience/preferences
• Percussive Arts Society — based on the guidelines from the PAS

The current presets for single-line percussion are:

• Soundslice single-line percussion
• Single-line percussion, snare only — uses a snare sound for all staff positions

For details of these presets, load them in our percussion map editor (see below).

Editing a percussion map

Our percussion map editor lets you view an instrument’s percussion map and make changes to it.

To open it, click “Instruments” in our editor, find your percussion instrument in the list, then click “Percussion map.”

You’ll see the percussion map editor, displaying the instrument’s current percussion map:

In the left half, you’ll see a music staff — five lines, plus ledger lines above and below. Each line or space shows the sound(s) currently assigned to that position. Click any of the sounds in the staff to select it.

In the right half, you’ll see information about the selected sound (“Snare drum” in the screenshot above). Here, you can change the following:

• Position — Use “Move up” and “Move down” to move the sound up or down on the staff. You can also enter a staff position directly; see the circled numbers in the left half of the interface.
• Notehead — Select the notehead that this sound should use. You can use this to disambiguate between multiple sounds at the same staff position.
• Marking — Select the marking that this sound should use. (For example, an “o” for open hi-hats.)
• Remove sound — Click this to remove the sound from your percussion map.

To add a new sound to the percussion map, click “Add sound” below the staff and choose from the list of all available sounds. Your new sound will be added at the same position as the currently selected sound; you can then change its position via the “Position” tool at right.

Not sure what a particular sound is? Just click it in the interface, and we’ll play an audio clip.

If you’d like to quickly switch to an existing preset — either one of our built-in presets or one of your saved presets — click “Load preset” at bottom right.

When you’re done making changes, click “Save instrument’s percussion map.” Or click “Cancel” to throw out any changes you made.

Custom presets

If you work with percussion music frequently, you’ll probably want to create a custom preset. This way you won’t have to customize your percussion map each time you create a slice.

This feature is limited to people in a paid plan.

To save a custom preset, click “Save as preset” at lower right. (You’ll only see this if you’ve made changes to the percussion map.) We’ll ask you to give it a name, and that’s it.

From then on, you can choose this preset whenever you create a new percussion instrument and/or edit a percussion map. Your custom preset is available in all your slices, not just the slice in which you created it.

To delete a custom preset: open the percussion map editor, choose the preset, then click “Delete this preset” at lower right. Any existing instrument that used this preset will continue to work; you just won’t be able to use the preset going forward.

It’s not possible to edit a custom preset once you’ve already created it. Just create a new one and delete the old one.

Percussion maps in imported MusicXML files

When you import notation from a MusicXML file, we’ll automatically try to figure out a percussion map based on what’s in the file. (This assumes the data exists in the file. Not all notation software includes this information in their MusicXML export.)

You can then tweak the percussion map as needed, once the music is in Soundslice.

Percussion maps and drum tab

We don’t support custom percussion maps for drum tab instruments. That’s because drum tab supports all percussion sounds (i.e., you can enter any percussion MIDI number in the tab).

Percussion legends

You can use our separate “percussion legend” feature to display your percussion map to anybody viewing your slice:

For more, see the separate help page on percussion legends.

How do I use those noteheads (like “crossed out” or “circled”) and markings in my music?

Use our editor search to find the following commands:

• “Toggle X notehead”
• “Toggle diamond notehead”
• “Toggle crossed-out notehead”
• “Toggle circled notehead”
• “Toggle open/harmonic”
• “Toggle closed/plus”
• “Toggle half-open (1)”
• “Toggle half-open (2)”

For the circled X, use both “Toggle X notehead” and “Toggle circled notehead” together.

If you use any of these frequently, consider making a custom keyboard shortcut.

Is it possible to share my custom preset with other Soundslice users?

No, not at this time.