Adding a Buzz Roll Beat Effect

[TeAiris]

Is there a way to extend the beat effects so that it includes the z symbol to indicate a buzz? This is a form of the tremolo articulation for creating a buzzed roll sound for many percussive instruments. While you can get by with the standard tremolo in concert snare music, the issue arrives when you need to use both (marching snare, drum set, etc).

Thanks in advance!

[Danielku15]

Not from the outside. Such extensions need full vertical implementation in the library (model, ile importers/exporters, rendering, midi generation,..).

I added #2373 to track this extension.

[TeAiris]

Thank you! I can research the definitions in mxl and explore the tick values produced when using a buzz at different durations during MIDI export to help support the issue.

[Danielku15]

That would be great. the more info we have, the easier it is to implement it as expected 😉

[TeAiris]

Here's what I've found so far.
When using musicxml (or .mxl compressed format), the tremolo value for buzz rolls is 0.
Here's an example of a note that has the (z) ornament symbol in musicxml

<tremolo type="unmeasured">0</tremolo>

      <note>
        <unpitched>
          <display-step>E</display-step>
          <display-octave>4</display-octave>
        </unpitched>
        <duration>2</duration>
        <instrument id="P1-X1"/>
        <voice>1</voice>
        <type>eighth</type>
        <staff>1</staff>
        <beam number="1">begin</beam>
        <notations>
          <ornaments>
            <tremolo type="unmeasured">0</tremolo>
          </ornaments>
        </notations>
      </note>

Even without the unmeasured type string, it is interpreted correctly (used Musescore for testing)
<tremolo>0</tremolo>

Here are the references from w3.org

The <tremolo> element
https://www.w3.org/2021/06/musicxml40/musicxml-reference/elements/tremolo/

SMuFL Codes
https://www.w3.org/2021/03/smufl14/tables/tremolos.html

[TeAiris]

Temporary Solution for the Player (I'm using on alpha tex for now)

Around lines 3824 in alphaTab.js I added

MusicFontSymbol[MusicFontSymbol["Tremoloz"] = 57898] = "Tremoloz";

Around lines 10681 I added this case

case 0:
                            beat.tremoloSpeed = Duration.SixtyFourth;
                            break;

Now in alpha tex I can write something like this

C4.16 {tp 0}

Using the sixtyfourth notes gave it a fast enough roll sound.

I think I added the Tremoloz definition in all the other spots as well and it worked!

[Danielku15]

Thanks for sharing this insight. I didn't expect 0 to directly result in a buzz-roll as the spec also mentions to use "unmeasured" tremolos with the smufl attribute.

I updated the issue with some more details.