Stage Traxx beta version 3.0.0

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?

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.

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 🙂

wakevortex

Quick Question...If I install the BETA, will that affect my current V2 installation in any way?
Im installing beta on my GIG iPad so dont want the current version to get messed up if that makes sense!

Thanks

Bill P

wakevortex

Perfect. Thanks ..look forward to seeing it !

peter

Version 3 and also the beta version are separate apps and you can run them in parallel with version 2.

The release version 3 will also be a separate app and independent from version 2.

peter

New beta build 2509

This build is the biggest update in this beta cycle. The big new feature is backup / restore / migration of data.

Backups in version 3 contain everything. They contain song specific settings, the songs themselves and also your app settings. Therefore you now only need to copy a single file to your computer or another iPad and can restore everything with this single file. The downside is that this backup file is pretty large. You need the same amount of space to create the backup as your music collection in Stage Traxx needs.

Migrating your data from version 2 is done by the following steps:

creating a backup in version 2 and uploading it to Dropbox. Make sure that all local files are also available on Dropbox
Open the Files app and copy all songs that you were using as local songs in version 2 from Dropbox into the Stage Traxx 3 folder.
Open Stage Traxx 3, go to settings and select "Restore backup".
Select the backup file from version 2.

Now, Stage Traxx will import the database contents from version 2 and also import all necessary songs from the iTunes library.

Now I will focus on improving the usage of the app. First steps have been made by changing how you add songs to the queue and improving the fonts.

The next updates will continue with these usage improvements and once usage is fine will also improve on the visuals.

Changes

Fixed possible crash when clearing the queue
Fixed bug that prevented adding a song multiple times to a playlist or queue
Fixed multiple concurrency issues
Hopefully fixed core data error when adding songs to a playlist
Fixed a crash when running out of free space during song import
Added backup and restore functionality on settings page
Added restore of version 2 backups to migrate data from old version
Added option to automatically open lyrics view when pressing play
Changed fonts in song related list views to same font as in version 2
Changed default action when tapping on a song or playlist to add that entry to the queue instead of opening the detail views. Detail views now need to be opened by tapping the detail disclosure icon.
Loading a playlist into the queue will automatically open the lyrics view
Replaced the continous play button with a playlist and queuespecific continuous play option displayed on top of playlist / queue. Loading a playlist with active continous play into the queue will automatically enable continuous play until you disable it or load another playlist with continous play disabled.

Bugs in this version

~~crash when importing songs from iTunes library that are not downloaded to the device~~
~~inaccurate popsitioning of 48kHz tracks~~
~~tapping in song view edit mode does add songs to queue instead of selecting them~~
~~swiping lyrics in portrait view does not work after opening lyrics view~~
~~crash when deleting last song from queue in lyrics view~~
~~restoring backups does not check for iTunes access rights~~
~~importing lyrics with other encoding than utf-8 fails~~
~~crash when an audio file has been deleted and the song list is refreshed~~

Next changes planned

improve user interface
improve visuals
~~add session timer~~
network session functionality
find a way to select next song via pedal commands
add ability to view played songs
show tutorial on first start of app
add payment options

musicadi

peter

Wow, that’s great! I love those fonts 🙂 I also find tapping to add to queue is way way better than swiping! Thank you for that!

A few bugs:

Seeking through a song:
- play a song then hit Pause
- swipe over the waveform and seek a position
- hit Play. Playback starts later than it should (with about 9%)

Tapping action conflict 🙂
- in the Songs window, tap Edit
- try to select a song. The song is being added to the queue instead of being selected

Swipe through lyrics in portrait mode
- initial swiping through lyrics in portrait mode is not possible, unless you change the font size or you turn the device in landscape mode and then back to portrait mode

Empty queue crash is still there in build 2509
- the crash occurs when manually removing the last available song from the queue in the lyrics/songlist window (portrait mode). It does not occur when removing the last item from within the Queue window.

A few suggestions:
- instead of having to manually add lyrics to songs, it would be cool if the app would automatically add the lyrics when importing the song, if a .txt/.lrc file with the same name exists in the same folder.
- closing the lyrics window is done with double-tapping. At first I assumed you have to swipe down for that, that might be handier (of course, that should only be active on the “waveform” part, to avoid opening iOS notification center 🙂 )
- queue duration. Might be better to add it to the top instead, so you don’t have to swipe to the bottom of the queue to see that info
- number of songs in Songs window could also be added to the top instead
- Window titles. Using all caps might have a better visual impact. Also, maybe some other background
- Lyrics scrolling visual coolness 🙂. Would be super cool if the highlighting of the current line would “slide down” instead of just appearing at the given timecode. Maybe a semitransparent rounded background or border could also be used to emphasize the current line. Alternatively, some sort of scrolling effect could be used like the one in the iOS Clock app (when selecting the alarm time)

Thanks again! Will continue the testing 🙂 all is a lot better now with this build

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