What’s new in Peak Notes

Peak Notes began as a simple idea: count the notes, keep the take. A month later the studio records MIDI, films a silent counter, remembers your history, and has a public face with a blog. Here is every ship date so far — including the new way to start a counter video on the first note.

July 23, 2026 — Day one

The first commit. A piano note counter in the browser, nothing more and nothing less. That is the day Peak Notes started: a score you could watch climb while you played, and a bet that visible progress would make people want to sit down again tomorrow.

July 31, 2026 — The studio starts sounding like one

Sound arrived, then the rest of a real session: MIDI download, video export, practice history, and a full-screen mode for when the counter should fill the room. In one day the project stopped being a prototype and started being a take you could keep — hear it back, save the MIDI, film the count, look it up later.

August 2, 2026 — A front door

The landing page went up, then got links, light-mode styling, and a footer. Peak Notes needed a place to introduce itself before anyone opened the app — a page that felt like the bench, not a software splash screen.

August 3, 2026 — A cleaner bench

The “try one octave” button came out, and the README caught up with how the studio actually works. Small cuts matter. The app should ask you to play, not to tour the furniture.

August 5, 2026 — The pedal holds

Sustain started behaving like a piano. Damper pedal (CC64) keeps notes ringing under the foot instead of dying when you lift a key — the difference between a demo and a room that still has air in it.

August 7, 2026 — Out in the world

The public layer landed: Google Analytics, a YouTube video on the landing page, the first blog posts, smoother scrolling, a tighter vocabulary pass, and a real image preview for shares. Peak Notes could be sent to someone and look like itself.

August 18, 2026 — Pedal count, and a sharper face

The nav got a pass, the Open app button went more clearly blue, and video export picked up new styling. The headline feature was pedal count mode: tally notes only while the damper is down, then reset when you lift. A different way to score a phrase — useful if you think in pedaled shapes, not raw totals.

August 23, 2026 — Covers that match the stories

The blog thumbnails were placeholders. Today they are not. Each preset article got a cover that belongs to it — habits and hammers, a take being filmed, a vintage recording room, Chopin at the desk — and this log joined the grid. The pictures should feel like the writing: specific, not generic stock keys.

August 25, 2026 — Start the film on the first note

Counter videos used to run from the moment you pressed Record — including the empty seconds while you found the keys. Save Video now has a Start at first note switch. Flip it and the MP4 begins just before you play, still jumping from 0 so that first hit is in the picture. The dead air stays out of the take.

That is every update through today. It is not the last one. We are about to do even more — the next stretch is already in motion. If you have been practicing with Peak Notes since July, thank you for counting along. If you just arrived, the studio is open.