Follow Me: Practice Both hands?

[nycnycnycnycnyc]

This is pretty nuanced and I get the simplification you did with the practice hands in Follow Me mode, but there might still be a use case for Follow Me when practicing both hands. Wait for Me with both hands is very responsive, but it doesn't show/impose any rhythm or tempo, so that's useful for playing the correct notes in order as you're progressing. But there may be a place for something inbetween that and realtime where you still need to play both hands at the right rhythm and tempo.

I think it's just an interface change as it probably should work with the settings as it was before. In Follow Me mode, make the left and right practice checkboxes independent again. The playback ones can remain greyed out, but would turn off both when both practice hands are selected, and like it is now, when one hand is selected it would auto-select the other one.

I know you were trying to simplify it, but see what you think...

[ztbishop]

i'll have to look into this. i was hoping to keep the UI simple but maybe i could have it default the current way but not gray out the options. In the meantime I set the metronome in wait mode to act independently like a regular metronome ...not exactly the same but it can help. Did you say the metronome is delayed in midi out?

[nycnycnycnycnyc]

It's not the greying out that's preventing it, it's now the L/R practice choice being more like a radio button such that you can only select one but not both. It's allowing both to be selected again that would allow follow me for both hands (at the right tempo and rhythm).

The metronome seeming off was tied to the realtime slowdown. I haven't noticed any other issues with that.

[ztbishop]

Thanks for the suggestion — this is a really interesting use case, and I did spend some time testing it.
Short answer: it can be made to work (see test console snippet below), but I’m not planning to add it as a standard option right now.

The main reason is keeping the practice modes clear and predictable:
Follow Me is designed around one-hand practice with guided playback. That constraint (the other hand playing back at tempo) is what makes it feel stable and predictable.
Without that playback — and without forcing a metronome on — there’s no clear tempo reference. At that point, it starts to overlap with Wait for Me + metronome.

From a UX standpoint, exposing this directly introduces a few challenges I’m trying to avoid:
It makes the distinction between modes less obvious
It adds more combinations for users to think through
It introduces edge cases (especially around timing, early-note grace, and tempo guidance)

That said, the underlying engine actually supports this pretty well. If you want to experiment with it, you can enable both practice hands in Follow Me using the console.

I tested this by starting Follow mode, opening DevTools (F12 in Chrome), and pasting the following script:
FollowBothHands.txt

If this ends up being useful for more people, I’d consider adding it later as an advanced option rather than changing the default behavior.
Appreciate the suggestion — definitely a good one to explore.

[nycnycnycnycnyc]

I guess to your point about not having a tempo reference -- you do actually have the cursor moving at the correct pace. Imagine a song that has alternating left and right parts across different measures with different rhythms. The cursor would keep you in check and it wouldn't necessarily accept it if you were playing notes too far ahead of the correct time.

I'll try the console insertion to play around with it some more vs. wait for me with both hands. I understand keeping the UX clean and simple.