Stage Traxx beta version 3.0.0

peter

JDSMUSIC Good point, I need to check remaining storage space when importing songs.

It does pick up where it left off. All songs already imported are skipped during an import. Just refresh the song list (same gesture as in all other apps: swipe the list downward until you see the refresh icon spin up).

dellamore It is not entirely stable. The purpose of a beta test is to get the app to be stable. And yes, you can test it (see link in first post).

musicadi

Hi Peter,

I started some testing and here are my comments as a professional musician who uses ST2 on stage for playing given sets/shows (same show every time). So my comments are based on this approach.

Here is the process of importing and playing my tracks in the correct order in ST2:
1. Open playlist manager
2. Create playlist
3. Open playlist
4. Tap "Add songs"
5. Select location
6. Select the songs in the correct order (I have my filenames numbered, so it was easy, as I see the filenames at this stage)
7. Tap "Done"
8. Voila - the playlist is ready to play, just hit the super great green play button. EVERY TIME you open the app, you just have to hit this button and off you go (assuming you are playing the same show. If it's a different show, then it takes two taps 1. Open Playlist Manager, 2. Tap the playlist you want)

In ST3 it all looks like this (sorry, but I have to add a bit of drama to the text 🙂 )

Go to "Songs"
Hit + to add songs
Go to "Files" (VERY cool addition btw)
Select location
Tap "Select"
Tap "Select all" or select the files you want
Tap "Open" (note: at this stage, the playlist was ready to play in ST2, so normally I would just stop here and remove ST3. Continuing only for the sake of testing)
Go to "Playlists"
Create a playlist
Open playlist
Tap + to add songs (first problem: songs are ordered by title, so I have to go back to my computer or my printed songlist and check which is the correct order that I need, then go ahead and scroll through the songs back and forth to add them in that order)
So finally, my playlist is ready. Now trying to play it. Tap first song.... nope, it doesn't play, I just get into "Song details"
Ok, so I realise I have to swipe to the right to finally start my show, so I tap the "Play" part of the (ugly) blue button. Nothing happens again, I just see the cool green play button (which is smaller than in ST2 btw...),, the title, a time counter, a downward arrow and the waveform of my file.
I hit the big green button (not as great as in ST2 though 🙂). Ok, but where are my lyrics?!
Oh, tap the waveform.... cool, there are my lyrics and FINALLY a window that reminds me of the super useful single window in ST2, only it looks a lot more "spartan" to me 🙂. But wait, why do I have only one song in the playlist window on the left?! Jeez...
Ok, song finishes playing... and, the show is over, as the next song in the playlist is NOT played
Ok, I now notice the downward arrow near the time counter and tap it! YAY, it says "Continuous playback ON", so time to start my show
Hit play once again, first song finishes and boom.... show is over again (come on!)
I realise swiping to the right and tapping the left part of the blue button is adding the corresponding song to the Queue (BTW, no idea why you need to add songs to the Queue once you added them to a playlist - a playlist is to me a list of songs to be played. So, SET 1, SET 2 aso.). Ok, I just keep swiping to the right and tapping the blue button for EVERY SINGLE song from my playlist to add them to my queue (doh!)
I hit "Play" again, but wait. there is NO visual feedback in the playlist as to which song is playing and which song is next. This is to me one of the greatest features in ST2. Blue background for the song that is playing, yellow background for the next song.
I realise I have to tap the waveform to open the lyrics and see the window that resembles the main window in ST2, BUT only in landscape mode. The list is gone in portrait mode and you only see the lyrics, so you have no idea what song is next in line
Ok, so FINALLY my songs are playing and are in the right order (assuming that I didn't get anything wrong... In ST2 I couldn't go wrong, since my filenames are numbered). BUT WAIT.... as soon as a song finishes playing, it gets removed from the queue, so next time I have to play the same show/set/playlist, I have to add EVERY SINGLE song ONCE AGAIN to the queue, as opposed to ST2, where I just had to open the app and hit the super cool Play button!

So, honestly, for the way I use the app, ST3 is definitely a no-go in its current state and I agree to the previous commenter who wrote that it's a major step-back, although it has some really cool features that I was actually missing in ST2.

There are also a lot of things which are im my view very illogical and impractical for live use.

The biggest one is that basically, the "Playlist" has no practical use in the current state. It is the same thing as the "Songs" tab, except that you can keep your song in "Groups" and you can do an A-Z/Z-A sorting.

Some of the things that would definitely make this section better from my point of view:
- being able to add external songs from within the playlist (which would automatically be added to the "Songs" database ... unless the same filename already exists)
- opening a playlist will automatically add all tracks to the queue in the same order they appear in the playlist, so you only have to hit "Play" to start your set
- same window layout as in ST2 - playlist/play button, song volume, time, lyrics aso. on the same window
- same nice big icons and fonts as in ST2
- visual feedback as to which song is playing and which song is next
- tapping a song will make the queue "jump" to that song and continue from there (just like in ST2)
- playlist total time and clock or current play time (same as in ST2)

Some other comments:
- it would be more logical to switch the "Add to playlist/Play" and "Song edit" functionality. So, tapping a song would add it to the queue, and swiping right, then tapping the blue button will open the song editor.
- when importing songs from Google Drive, after tapping "Open", there is no visual feedback about what is happening, the actual importing starts several seconds later.

Actually, ST2 is the perfect app for what I need, the only things I was missing were:
- unicode support for lyrics
- customising colors
- importing songs using the "Files" app
- a "Songs" section

I hope my detailed review is helpful 🙂

Damir

musicadi I feel exactly the same but stage Traxx 3 has got some great improvements like tempo change and pitch shift these two things could possibly get me to use the new version but not the way the logic is at the moment on the new version.
ON STAGE USE should be main priority of its logic so far it does not cut the mustard.
Here is one issue you will not like when you go to choose a song to add to your playlist and easily hit the STOP button while performing.
Solution shift the play button to the other side and keep anything that can stop your performance away from this button VERY LOGICAL something that was seriously thought about in the old version, that’s why it is almost bullet proof.
I have many more critical problems new version suffers from for on stage, perhaps the old version should have been beefed up with tempo/pitch and all other niceties version 3 has but left alone with its one page setup just turn it on and hit play mentality.
This is missing in version 3 and will put off many serious on stage users

peter

Thanks for the detailed posting.

You are acutally comparing different tasks. You need to understand that the contents of the songs tab is what previously has been your iTunes library. So on the Songs tab you have usually all the songs of your whole repertoire. And changes here occur much less often than creating playlists.

So let's take a look at your workflow for ST2 and compare it with ST3 once you have imported your songs (which you only need to do once):

Open playlist tab
create playlist
open playlist
tap + button
select songs in correct order
tap done

Your step 8 is not correct because you forgot to load the playlist. So what you need to do in ST2 is

exit playlist
select playlist for playback
hit play

And here are the corresponding steps in ST3:

exit playlist
swipe playlist to the right
hit play

So, this is actually a step less.

Regarding the other points:

(13) The play button is blue when the mp3 file is missing. It means you can't play that track and hitting it will move to the next. The button will be green if you can play that track.
(15-19) Seems like you add only one song to the queue instead of a playlist
(20) Current playing song is marked with a blue background. Next song is always the 2nd song of the queue
(21) There will be a setting to open this view automatically when hitting play. But the portrait view has been deliberately reserved for lyrics only as I had a lot of requests from people who want to see lyrics on as much screenestate as possible.
(22) Your playlists will stay the same. The song is only removed from the queue.

The queue is a flexibel way to change playback order on the fly. It is another way of selecting the next song you want to play. If you work primarily with predefined playlists, you can consider the queue being the songlist in the main view of ST2. Anything you do there will also not change a playlist you have loaded. Just like with the queue.

I am aware that the swipe gestures are causing a lot of questionmarks in how to use the app so I will replace them with something more obvious. But the queue mechanism is something I will stick to.

coopdawg

There are a few things I wish could be done, but after getting use to ST3 I’m really beginning to like it.
I create all my playlists in the order I sing them; I like being able to load the whole list by swiping the playlists title. I also create a playlist with the favorite songs that I know people request, that way they are easily accessible when needed.

*I wish we could assign continuous play to a song and save it in the song details (or somewhere) so it could be setup before the performance. Sometimes it’s inconvenient having to walk to the iPad and select it on the move.

*I DON’T KNOW IF THIS ONE CAN BE DONE, but it would be a great if there was a way to place a marker in the song for second verse encores. There would have to be a way to trigger the marker, but only when needed.

*Being able to assign an additional color for two singers

Again, I like what you’re doing with the app.

peter

coopdawg Thanks a lot for your feedback. I really appreciate getting at least one positive feedback regarding the new UI. Which does not mean that I won't try to improve in that area 😉

Regarding your requests:

I thought a lot about the primary use case for continuous play. Personally I only use it for break music. If I want to play 2 songs seamlessly I usually combine them in an editor. That way I have more control about the transition. For break music, a global switch to enable continuous play is the best option I guess. So do you use it really for specific songs?
So you would like a way to enable a loop in the playback?
I hear you. This is a request I get often and it is definitely on my todo list.

rumbakid Yes, I agree. The old interface was more pleasing to the eye. But the old interface is basically just a big image behind all the UI elements. The problem with this is that it has a fixed size for everything. That used to work in the old days when there was a fixed size for all iPads. But now even if we take a look at the iPads there are already 3 different resolutions (and formats) and when you add the iPhone you get another 4. Now consider different layouts with landscape and portrait mode and you have 14 variants.

Now the fun starts. ST3 has a dark mode and a light mode. And in each mode you can choose between 8 tint colors. That makes 224 UI variants that ST3 currently supports. That's not doable with fixed layouts.

In any case when you perform, do you care so much about high end buttons with 3d-effects? I don't! Important is that you get all the information you need in a way that you don't need more than a glance on the screen. And the important buttons need to be large enough.

So if you feel that the play butten for example is too small, I will definitely try a larger size.

rumbakid

I have to admit (all functionallity issues aside) that ST2 just looks better than ST3. ST2 looks high end with big buttons and colors. ST3 looks similar to the backing track app that I bought for 99 cents. I understand you cannot use the same UI from ST2 to ST3. But certainly you can make ST3 look similar with more colors and bigger buttons?

DickyDutch

Hi Peter - used ST3 for a gig last night all was fine - have now got used to swiping instead of tapping! However the one thing I did miss was the session timer that seems to be missing from ST3. It doesn’t look very professional to keep looking at your watch to see how much gig time is left! Could it be added please?. Regards Richard Holland

peter

DickyDutch I have never received much feedback about the session timer. So I thought, no one is using it. Guess I was wrong 😉. I will try to add it to the main player view.

rumbakid

peter Look at the app called “BackTrax” in the app store. It looks nearly identical to ST3. And that is a cheapo backing track app. This is not good for ST3.

coopdawg

peter Regarding your requests:

I thought a lot about the primary use case for continuous play. Personally I only use it for break music. If I want to play 2 songs seamlessly I usually combine them in an editor. That way I have more control about the transition. For break music, a global switch to enable continuous play is the best option I guess. So do you use it really for specific songs?

Let me clarify. I sing in Christian venues with two others (trio). Sometime there are time restraints, and in those times we usually sing two songs before pausing to interacting with the people. Throughout the year our lineup may change a bit, especially in our local area because of those that follow us. So the songs we use “continuous play” on maybe different, because of this, combining the two songs will not be an option.
Let me stress that this would not be a deal breaker for me, though it would be nice to have.
Thanks again for your hard work

DickyDutch

Hi Peter the other thing I miss with ST3 is not having the large volume up/down buttons. When you’re singing and playing and need to make a quick volume change the current small buttons make it more difficult. Oh and the other thing I thought was that a further improvement to user interface might be to provide an option whereby when a playlist is swiped to load songs to the queue that the queue opens immediately including the lyrics view. What do you think? Regards Richard Holland.

peter

DickyDutch So the current volume buttons are too small?

The default swipe action for playlists is the same as for songs which means adding the playlist to the queue. I guess for a playlist it might make more sense to replace the queue with the playlist. I have also added an option to automatically open the lyrics view when you hit play (will be in the next beta). So I guess if I change the defaults behavior for the playlist swipe. It would be a swipe and then hit play and you would be in lyrics view. Would that work?

DickyDutch

peter Hi Peter yes that would work but it would be better if the lyrics view is already open (by default) before having to hit play. The reason I say this is that sometimes I add notes at the beginning of the lyrics e.g key, Capo position, guitar fx settings etc that I need to consult before I actually start playing the song.

DickyDutch

peter Yes that would work, but for me I would much prefer that the lyrics are automatically displayed as well. The reason is that I sometimes add notes to the lyrics for info such as the Song key, song history, guitar Capo position, fx settings etc which I would like to see prior to actually starting the song, so that I’m organised before pressing play.

peter

DickyDutch So which actions should automatically open the lyrics view? Only when loading a playlist into the queue? Or also when adding a song to the queue? And what would you do if you would like to add multiple songs to the queue?

peter

rumbakid You are right. Typography is currently not good. Version 2 was much better. I will try to improve this in the next beta (quite possibly tomorrow).

DickyDutch We will try that out in the next beta version.

Bazz02

rumbakid
Yep and look at the reviews.Kinda says it all.
Cheers Barry

Damir

rumbakid BackTrax is a program I was going to use for on stage then I found Stage TRAX in its early stages I helped develop Stage trax2 which ended up leaving Back Trax for dead and it still does I would still pay ten times more for Stage traxx2 , Stage TRAXX3 needs more thought by people that have greater logical thinking and on stage experience to make it pass the old version this will take time and might still never be as good if the wrong people are suggesting ideas that seem good but are not practical on stage.
As I am in the middle of building a house I am monitoring its progress and hope to have some input soon before things get beyond change.
Suggestion to Peter , double hit the volume bar to change from song volume to Master volume could greatly improve its on stage use.
Make it possible to change tempo in real time, suggestion, replace text size buttons with tempo change as an option , replace scroll speed buttons with pitch shift as an option, or any combination the user might want, make it possible to do this with foot control.
These changes would be the sort of thing that would start beating the old version.
Text size can be adjusted by pinching the screen so why have buttons, make it as you change text by pinching a text size display number pops up in corner to see a value and disappears after a few seconds of pinch release, that’s all we want ease of use and out of our face to get on with music, most heavy users have their text setup prior to performance and probably running with time code.

DickyDutch

What I’d like is to be able to select a playlist, swipe it and for both the queue and lyrics view to be automatically visible ready to press play.

musicadi

Hi Peter,

Thank you for the detailed answer and of course for your time 🙂

I now get the logic of ST3. However, there are still quite a few very useful things that I’m missing and that are there in ST2:
- automatic loading of a playlist to the queue, when selecting (tapping) it
- since the lyrics now appear in a new window, automatically open that window when loading the playlist, so you basically only have to hit “Play” without needing a second tap
- session timer/clock 🙂
- songlist in portrait mode. Since you said a lot of people asked for a full screen lyrics view, there could be an option to show/hide the songlist in portrait mode
- being able to select the next song in the queue. This is very cool in ST2, that’s why the next song has a different backgound, since it can be changed. The logic behind this: say you have a playlist, but you are out of time or you just want to skip a song. then you just tap whichever song you want to be next in line and the queue will continue from there.
- big nice looking buttons and bigger/nicer fonts
- more attractive, colorful interface. I’m pretty sure that you don’t need fixed size images to achieve that. There are countless apps that look nice and work on all iPads/iPhones. I know that takes a lot of work, but that will definitely make the app look more “professional”.

Some other things:
-In a live situation, it’s highly unlikely that you need to edit a song/playlist on the fly, but you do want to add songs to the queue on the fly, so it’s more logical to add songs/playlists to queue with tapping and editing them with swiping and then tapping, rather than the other way around.
- you mentioned that the new “Songs” section is like the iTunes library. In ST2 however, you could add songs to the playlist from the iTunes library OR local files. This is missing in ST3, as you can only add songs from the library. Say you made some new songs or changed something in an existing song and you want to replace it. Now you have to first import it to your library and then import it from the library to your playlist. Would be a lot quicker/handier to be able to import external songs from within a playlist, which would automatically be added to the library (of course, you would be asked if you wanted to replace any existing songs with the same filename)

I hope these things can be done without too much extra work. I know you can’t make everyone happy, it’s the same thing as with making music 🙂

Thank you again and have a nice day!

peter

musicadi - being able to select the next song in the queue. This is very cool in ST2, that’s why the next song has a different backgound, since it can be changed. The logic behind this: say you have a playlist, but you are out of time or you just want to skip a song. then you just tap whichever song you want to be next in line and the queue will continue from there.

I guess I need to explain the concept of a queue. A queue is always a list that shows songs in the order that they will be played from top to bottom. If you want to jump to another song in the queue. Just swipe it to the right and it will move to the top of the queue. If you want to remove a song from the queue, swipe it to the left. And if you want to change the order drag and drop a song. Because of this, there is no need for a "play next" indicator. And keep in mind, a playlist is a different thing. Anything you change on a playlist is stored in the database. Things you change on the queue are not persisted.

musicadi - you mentioned that the new “Songs” section is like the iTunes library. In ST2 however, you could add songs to the playlist from the iTunes library OR local files. This is missing in ST3, as you can only add songs from the library. Say you made some new songs or changed something in an existing song and you want to replace it. Now you have to first import it to your library and then import it from the library to your playlist. Would be a lot quicker/handier to be able to import external songs from within a playlist, which would automatically be added to the library (of course, you would be asked if you wanted to replace any existing songs with the same filename)

All songs are now stored as local files in Stage Traxx. If you want to modify them, you can just overwrite the song file with a new version. You can do this in the Files app or via iTunes Filesharing. This is in my opinion a big improvement, since you don't need to import them into iTunes, sync to the iPad and then reimport into the app.

musicadi

oh.. one more thing. In ST2 I am having caching issues, not sure if this is there in ST3, will need to test it. So, when I make changes to a song (duration, tags aso.) and update the file, the playlist still shows the duration and tags of the old file. The player even plays for the duration of the old file, even when the new file is shorter 🙂 A workaround is to first remove the song from the library (iTunes File Sharing), trying to play it in ST2 (it won’t find the file, so it will get a red background), remove the item from the playlist and then readd the new file 🙂

musicadi

peter

Doh... sorry, I didn't try swiping within the queue. That’s actually very cool and a lot handier. Maybe it’s just me, but I would still prefer tapping over swiping for such actions 🙂 It’s just a matter of getting used to it

About the “Songs” section, it is a huge improvement indeed, what I meant is the possibility to add songs to the database from within a playlist also. This way you could populate a playlist and import those songs to the database in one action.

Thank you 🙂

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