Open Beta Version 3.6.0

peter Added

Ruler above the waveform

Errors aside, this works very well for testing the loop point, along with the pinch zoom.

peter Giving me loop option sizes just creates another unnecessary step as the bar count choice will never be accurate anyway

That's not true. If your bpm setting is correct, the loop length will be perfect and you just need to slide it into position (with the lock enabled to keep the length constant).

Perhaps i should have elaborated with my comment, yes your idea will work and speed up workflow if all your songs have been created using a click track and you dont have tempo changes in other words you have a very robotic song, also your timeline also shows bars and beats yes this could work, but as we know most good songs are from the past and have not been recorded in that way they vary slightly in speed and tempo to create feel which is something a lot of new stuff lacks, to make this work ST3 needs to be able to recognize bars and in a song no matter what then this idea might work, you still have a problem where some loops need to be 7 bars or perhaps 12 or 32 or anywhere in between otherwise you have not achieved a time saving option.
This gets very involved yet returns gained are very little.
The path you are on now is going to make loop creation very eazy and fast so why complicate things, when more effort is needed in other areas like the logical behaviour between the playhead and the pinch zoom and the swipe, method of testing already created loops etc.

Instead of the +- button idea, how about a switch to Snap to BPM (bars). Then, you can continue with the dragging mechanism, but releasing it snaps.

MasterAnt Thanks for adding this; I think you should make these options post-creation and not be shy to include them. I'm writing this reply in response to the comments against doing this

Thanks Ant, if you look at a few years history I’m the least shy person in the forum and have always encouraged users to put their ideas forward, that said all I want is a simple and quick precise way to create loops the playback function is virtually ready , the problem is the loop system was an unknown till now so input was not possible now we have some idea what is possible we can suggest things and I have done more than expected but my vision seems to be too advanced for what can be delivered so we have to make do with what we have , which is not too bad I love things that work well but I absolutely hate things that waste my time.
I am more than happy to have a system that helps those that need loop help but as long as it doesn’t effect the simple fast way I like to operate , yes before we had a very awkward system so any other help ideas like locked bars was possibly a help, but with this new way of accurately being able to create loops I believe my way will be much faster specially when all the bugs are ironed out , mixing bars and time way of operating is not good unless you do it properly, what we have now is only geared up for time way of doing things to introduce bars would need a lot more than a window that moves around , the songs have to be broken down to bars and then beats the bars to be numbered and then you have a way of operating , but this is not the case , not everyone has used logic and a click track that is perfectly timed so then it can be manipulated in ST3 easily, so why stress out when you can just slide a fader hear the end result a use it, this applies to any song which ever way it was recorded.
Let’s wait and see what Peter can come up with before we get to excited but I have a feeling he is slowly heading in the right direction and we will end up with something that will be very usable.
Cheers Damir

peter I don't have beat detection so I can not show bars on the waveform but I could draw some markers on the active region that would indicate beats at the given bpm value. Maybe even activate a snap functionality although I think that that might be too invasive.

For the purpose of snapping, seeing the beat markers within the region might be useful.

Improvement ideas
How can we get to the loop editor easier and faster? To tweak it.
Is there a gesture left we can use to get us there quicker? like a long press on the waveform,
i know this section uses a lot of gestures already but surely theres a better way than what we have now its something that is going to be continually used a lot as people might rearange their loops or just tweak them a bit, at the moment you have a touch to enter a menu that does not show anything so you need to scroll down then look very carefully to spot tha loop feature that is labeled poorely and sits in a very unusual spot.
Surely the loop system deserves a much quicker access method.

As i mentioned earlier shifting it next to Edit Lyrics and renaming it to something more relatable like LOOP EDITOR , LOOP CREATOR, or whatever as long as there is a LOOP word in it so we can relate to it.
But eaven that is still two push buttons away, can we make it a one something away as it deserves to be very accessable as it is THE MAIN ATTRACTION of the show in this software followed by LYRICS EDITOR, than MULTI TRACK EDITOR, these three features are what makes this software so uneque at the moment for on stage.use and should be easily available.

Suggestion
To avoid having to hunt down your basic needs, the three features should be next to eachother and labeled consinstantly.

Just below PLAYLISTS

LOOP EDITOR
LYRICS EDITOR
MULTITRACK EDITOR

This keeps the naming of features consistant and in one area so no hunting is required and its very logical, if its not a multitrack song then that label is removed.

At the moment everything is all ove the place and is labeled poorely.
It takes work to get to these features.

Loops Feedback
I am absolutely loving the loop playback when all the loops are perfect, you can not tell where the loop points are yet you can mess around the order of song till the cows come home.
This should work really well on stage.
Suggestion
The name of the loops to be central to the loop segment and to be bright white so the names stand out more.

peter Regarding the bug report: I suspect this happens when you select the next region to jump to just a fraction before the current ends

No that’s not the case, I said when you are in STOP mode then select a loop , then hit play , some loops replay twice before they move on.
This should not happen they should all always play through once only.
This seems to happen in some loop selections but not in others.
It has nothing to do with close to end of loop last second selections, so far I haven’t had those issues even though I have tested for that.

peter Early jumps: I can't do that. There is exactly one timeline that keeps running during playback and everything (scrolling, midi, playback) is controlled by this timeline. It is not possible to keep two timelines in sync while having one schedule events earlier.

I don’t know the programming capability of your system but surely you can program a certain condition to happen when you approach a certain place.

If in a loop you get to 2 seconds before the end of loop you jump the visual screen data to show early the new selected loops beginning visual data, then when that loop is active you allow this loop to take control of the visual data again.
If that can’t be done I can’t understand how we managed to end up with such a powerful useful tool so far.
I wish I knew more about the programming process it would be so much easier to come up with good useful suggestions without wasting your and mine time.

The most important thing to me now is for the pinch zoom not to be related to the playhead, it is still pulling towards the playhead and this is frustrating as you can’t freely zoom to a point of interest.And of course the dreaded crash when zooming right in.
Good luck with all that can’t wait for new update.

Have a good rest, Peter!

For when you're back...

Bug, or by design? While playback is stopped, when I first switch to a song and tap on a region for the first time, I alternately get a continuous repeat or a single repeat.

Or more clearly, here are the steps:

Stop playback. Go to song mode.
Click off the song you're testing to some other song.
Click back to the song containing regions.
Tap on a region. Note what the region does: enable continuous or single loop.
Repeat the process. Notice then next time, it doesn't work the same.

Sometimes the first tap gives you the permanent loop icon, and sometimes it flashes for a single repeat. It seems to do this based on what you did last.

I'm not understanding the logic behind the flashing region in the editor. It seems to get stuck on continually flashing.

The beat grid is proving to be really helpful. Good feature! Please don't remove it.

I was thinking about @Damir 's point about songs not having a single bpm. Probably the region will have a fixed bpm, even if it's different to the song's bpm. Therefore, it could be useful to have a bpm override linked to each region which could be set in the region editor. This would then make the beat grid more useful for any song. It could be displayed as BPM = SONG by default and when changed, just show the number eg. BPM = 96.5

peter wow! Peter you have certainly been a buzzy bee this is another 200% improvement in all respect.
You definitely deserve a break , i am increasing my score to 8/10 the other 2 points are for all the bugs that are still there but the general conceipt and how it functions is now very usable, i love the double tap on loop to zoom this is really fast operation, the pinch zoom now seems to function well , the controls at bottom are great, being able to jump around loops is great to test them, really if i overlook the little bugs that are left the software is very usable to create accurate loops , here are some things i found after 5 minutes of use,

On ipad, when in play, selecting another loop than changing your mind and selecting different loops seems to confuse the playing order , it still wants to follow all previous selections instead of just going to the last selection.
I tried BPM again and find it has potential but needs a really good look at, there are lots of issues with it to make it work, firstly you need the BPM display and adjustment in this window, you need a simple way of finding the beat even if its a simple tap button next to the BPM window, perhaps when you double on a loop play it, tap the beat button it creates a beat pattern on screen then you can adjust the end handles to adjust to the beat points, just a thought.
I tried using external software that works out the beat for you and entered this in to ST3 the beats were only ok in some places, i then used a simple metronome and tapped to the beat it gave me a rough average beat i entered that to ST3 this prooved to be more accurate throughout the song and yes it could be helpfull, but if we hat a tap button and when zoomed in on a loop if each loop had its own BPM memory we could just tap through the loop once get all the beat points and then use the side handles to snap to those beats, just another suggestion, this way every loop would have its own BPM allowing for change in tempos in songs, you would have all the tools you need in the window you are working in.

Anyway back to things right im off on holidays to Bali for a couple of weeks myself but will use all my spare time to provide feedback , i might be even be performing there as its my sons wedding so no rest for the wicked, overall i think the loop idea is a big winner, i am even considering approaching my ABC radio manager to consider using an ipad hooked in to our radio switching panels as an emergency playback system where i can create 12 emergency loops for all our broadcasts and when shit hits the fan i just choose the appropriate loop and insert it to the transmitters for an appology for that channel.This is so much better than the shit we have now would you believe we still use CDs we have a cd player i have to load the appropriate cd .

On iphone, i crashed the software a couple of times when zooming right in then moving around, the waveform still looks very narrow in landscape yet there is plenty of wasted space.