• Beta

  • Open Beta Version 3.6.0

Change request in Loop Editor
Hi Peter , I am finding labelling of loops to be very difficult to use.
The colour and positioning is a problem.
The permanent loop indicator is in a bad spot as it gets covered by the loop shift handles at the bottom , so a central position would be more logical as it will always be in view, this applies to loop name it should be central as it’s always best placed no matter the size of the loop.

The colour of both should be bright white so it stands out no matter what colour the loop is, at the moment some colours are so similar it is hard to see and read.

peter I just figured out a nifty trick of repeating a song, you create one long loop of the whole song

I think you missed the new repeat song feature in this version (see changelog in the first post). So you don't need this workaround.

Yes i was aware of the repeat feature, but the loop player repeat feature is much more on stage user friendly.
Example
If you want to loop the now playing song with the old way , you need to swipe left to open a window select the repeat, now that is not possible to do with foot pedal, plus its a two finger operation and its a well hidden option not many people would realise its there to use, plus once you engage it, it is permanent so you have to manually go through a reverse process to disingage it as on stage you definitely would not want more than a single repeat of a song.
Plus your loop of song using this is not very accurate, its as accurate as how you finalized your songs in which case most of us have not created a perfect loop when loading a song.

But with the new loop system has got it all , once you edit a perfect loop of the whole song you have one easy touch of the screen to engage a single loop, you also have a single touch of a foot pedal to do this or if you want permanent loop its another touch or foot hit away so you can practice, you can change your mind on the run and disable the option very simply, when the song replays its a perfect transition from end to begining all simply done in your face just to use, now your song editing process can be a bit sluggish ,no problem the loop editor can fine tune it so you can perform perfect repeats of song.
That was the reason i wrote my previous observation so users realize they can use the loop system in numerous ways to achieve great things on stage without stress.

And thats the reason i was asking for a much quicker access to the loop editor as its going to be something you quickly want to jump to to create or tweak in a song, at the moment it is way to far away to get to quickly.
Forinstance if you are in portrait mode on iphone or even on ipad with lyrics only display, you need to TAP TO CLOSE hit the small INFO circle then thank god you shifted the next step hit the LOOP EDITOR , THATS 3 steps away , by then you would almost forget to why you entered the editor in the first place.
My wish would be when i come across a spot in a song using the player that i feel i need to use the loop editor i just want one action to open it and wherever the playhead is in the player the loop editor is cued up on the same spot, if it hapens to be within an existing loop then i expect this loop to be opened up in the double tap mode zoom point view ready for tweaking of that loop.

This then creates very fast insperational work flow it bypasses the computer torture menue system and allows the musician to be a creator not a slave to the software.
This is hard to do i know , this is what seperates the boys from the men, i know you have proven yourself many times over but im just pointing things out.

    Hi Peter, i got up 3 am and played around with ST3 , and have just figured out what it was that bugged me about it but could not put my finger on it before, i have never liked software that does the same thing in multiple areas as this bloats the software unnecesarily and creates confusion to the user, i rather have one way of doing one thing even if its a bit awkward as you get use to it it never changes.
    Saying that, i noticed SONG PROPERTIES and SONG INFORMATION areas have a number of functions that are the same yet then they have a number of different functions, i believe this adds great confusion to the user as the user cant quickly work out which to use for what.
    The naming of the two headings is not the issue its the fact you have repeaded functions mixed with different function that reside in different positions and are different colour , both areas have a large option selection thats similar yet different, this is frustrating to a logical mind.

    Example in song properties you have at the top MIDI send all notes off, but then in song details right at the bottom you have MIDI Song Select C and Timecode Offset, i know why you did this, but to most users that dont use MIDI at all it is confusing , perhaps all MIDI stuff belongs in one place to avoid confusion.

    The main reason i am talking about this is because we have a much more important function that is looping that has not been thought about making easy access to, also the multitrack users would be grateful if their functions were easier to access just like Lyrics/chord users, yet we have in song properties right at the top a function that most of us will never use.

    My suggestion is especially now that looping is here ,
    When you hit SONG PROPERTIES you get this in Capital letters and different colours for each editor so it is easily seen and immediately recognized

    Song Properties

    LOOP EDITOR
    MULTITRACK EDITOR
    LYRICS EDITOR
    PDF EDITOR
    PLAYLIST EDITOR

    This then gives you quick access to all major editors which is something all users need and not the midi reset function that only a few users might need on rare occasions.
    I personally would have both Song properties and Song info be exactly the same cause they almost are anyway and work out a priority order of the functions which are most important to be at the top.
    Renaming a song name and artist is a once of thing why have it at the top , the editors are frequently used so have tem at the top MIDI belongs to be all together volume setting is unnecessary in that area as it exists on the front panel anyway , Equalizer has its own function button so why hog up this area with it again and create confusion get rid of it.

    This would make ST3 a lot more simpler and logical to use , i am throwing this idea to you because i still feel the fantastic functions you have created are too hard to get to quickly.
    They deserve a much more obvious place in the software so they can shine.


    I was even thinking a double tap on the songs properties button to get you immediately in to the LOOP EDITOR, as its right next to the waveform where the loops are so its immediate and an obvious fast shortcut especially once people get use to it. But i feel the Lyrics and multitrack and playlist editors need to be easy to get to as well lets not forget the PDF EDITOR so perhaps both ideas would make it really easy to do everything.

    My order of importance

    LOOP EDITOR
    MULTITRACK EDITOR
    LYRICS EDITOR
    PDF EDITOR
    PLAYLIST EDITOR

    Tempo, you can tweak on the run so its one button push away at the top

    Pitch, you can tweak on the run so its one button push away at the top

    Midi, send all notes off, might be used live so its one button push away at the top

    Pan, normally used in editing process its not that iportant so it can afford to be a button push and scroll away

    Transpose chords , normally used in editing process

    Playback Trim, normally used in editing process

    Keywords, normally used in editing process

    Colour, normally used in editing process

    Midi, normally used in editing process

    Title, set once and forget
    Artist, the same as title
    BPM, its fine under Artist
    Play Count, nice to have
    Duration, is already visible on the interface anyway but nice to have
    File, unimportant cant do anything with it anyway nice to have at bottom or perhaps under Artist

    Anyway its 4am now i might get back to bed i hope this helps to improve ST3 or gives you some more ideas for later tweaking.

    Generally speaking, you are right. That's due to the fact that most of what you mentioned is functionality that was added during the lifetime of version 3. Version 3 has learned more new features in its lifetime than version 1 and 2 combined. The UI was simply not designed for this in the first place.

    The correct step to solve all these UI inconveniences is to completely overhaul the UI with all the functionality in mind that you can currently do in Stage Traxx. And this will be the major goal of a version 4 that I will start working on after update 3.7 next year. Currently I will only try to improve some issues that will not break existing workflows.

    EDIT: I meant update 3.7 not 3.6.

    New beta build 8580

    I think we are very near to release. The stability improves more and more and I hope there will be no more crashes after this update. I am confident the final version can be released until the end of the month.

    Changed

    • Improved readability and positioning of region title and loop icon in editor
    • Audio region editor will now always use track 1 by default for waveform

    Fixed

    • Possible out of memory crash with high zoom factors in region editor
    • Audio region scheduling does not work in multitrack songs
    • Another logic issue tapping on audio regions
    • Undoing a region change is not immediately audible in playback

    Did a 15-minute bug search. Overall, things are working quite well!

    A few noteworthy things I came across:

    1. While moving the endpoint of a region during playback in the editor, the endpoint isn't updated until my finger lets go of the marker. This is similar to how UNDO wasn't working in the previous version. It should be syncronised—the marker moves on screen and the playback engine should loop at this current marker position.

    2. This one was quite difficult to put my finger on... I created a short region around the count-in, 1-bar at 90bpm starting about 0.5 seconds into the song, with loop=on as default. My (testing) idea was to have an intro count-in loop by default until I hit the unloop pedal button, which I'm testing by using the assignable on-screen buttons. Practically, this allows me to mess around on guitar to a "metronome" before starting the song seemlessly in the same bpm.

    The problem presents itself when disabling the intro loop, stopping the song, going to another song, playing that song, then crossfading back into the original song. What happens is that although the intro is set to loop, and it shows an infinite loop icon in that region, playback does not loop and instead plays right through and out of the region.

    After a lot more tesing, I think the problem is in crossfading into a loop. My xfade is 3-seconds out, 0-seconds in. Dropping the xfade to 1-sec fixed the issue. I set the xfade to 10-seconds and made the region longer. Same problem occurs. So xfade appears to be ignoring the loop instruction.

    Otherwise things are working well. I can't wait to have the crossfades in the official, stable version.

      I am loving the loop playback logic now it is becoming stage friendly, the issue of starting any loop and playing on has gone, and getting around a song now seems to be effortless and reliable and a joy to use specially if your loops are perfect, which also isnt that hard to do anymore, there are still some logic improvements that can be done which i will mention in another thread but this is just confirming one issue that now seems to be perfect.

      Centre placing the loop and name is now more pleasing but the colour contrast is still an issue i believe it still needs to be like in the player, white so you can more easily see the writing.

      This was a 5 minute test so i will report on more as i play along.

      Logic suggestion
      Request
      When you select a song and play it and you stop in the middle somwhere in the song a tap on the same song reselects it to the begining again just like selecting another song.
      At the moment if you quickly want to recue a song to begining the fastest way i found is select another song then get back to song you need, this should not be necessary, i should be able to select the same song and this should reset everything to begining of song and play it as a new selection saving unnecessary processes to achieve a basic need.
      This only applies when you are in STOP mode.

        Logic in Loop Edit
        When you are on a loop and you engage the permanent loop, which means you want to permanently loop when playing live, BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU WANT TO PERMANENTLY LOOP THIS LOOP WHILE EDITING LOOPS,
        As you choose a loop to edit it is a permanent loop anyway you dont need a double permanent loop which one of them does not allow you to move on with the editing of other loops.
        As i said before in the loop editor the permanent loop selection should not be used while editing, it should be a choice only active while in playback loop mode , the reason for this is you dont want to disengage the permanent loop because you need it on stage yet you want to get of this loop so you can edit other loops.
        Thats why i am suggesting the permanent loop selection in the editor is egnored by the player in the edit loop mode only.

          Problem found
          In loop editor if you double tap on a loop then keep changing screen orientation the position of the loop changes every time you do this to the point where the loop goes out of screen view.
          This is a fault, the loop should not move position at all it should remain central on screen.

          Double tap on a loop in landscape mode now flip to portrait mode, now keep flipping back and forth and observe the loop position you will see the loop creeping out out of view.

          Zoom in loop editor logic

          When you select a loop you expect the zoom to use the centre point of that loop to be used as the focus point , once you use the pinch gesture and position you expect the middle point of that view to be the centre point of the zoom, if you have no loop selection or pinch gesture than the playhead position should be the centre point of the zoom and central to the screen.

          At the moment there is no logic to the zoom and it’s confusing as you never know what will happen when using the zoom buttons.

            End of song loop problem

            If you create a loop right at the end of song and the loop finishes at end of song, when you choose this loop it does not loop play, it plays once and stops, this is wrong it should loop play continuously like all other loops when selected.

              Feedback

              Well done Peter with the loop labeling in the loop editor i just played around with it and noticed when you zoom in on a loop and move around the loop the name and permanent loop indicator follows you so you always know the loop you are on and the status of permanent loop selection, this is really great work.

              I just noticed after i created the drawing that the loop editor has the name of loop above and the permanent loop below, perhaps i should have changed my drawing where the player is also setup that way so there is consistancy of operational screens , the reason it might be better for song loop name to be above is in the editor the side handles will crop the name on smaller loop sections , by being in the upper region this cropping issue is reduced , as the permanent loop indicator is quite small it does not get effected as much on small loop aread with the loop handles open.
              So the loop player might be better to place the name of loop on top to maintain cosistancy of layout, the main thing is its nice and bright white to stand out in both screens and its centered and as large as possible so it can be seen at a distance especially in the loop player.

              Loop editor logic problem.
              Hi peter i found a logic change issue that happens when you use the timeline playhead shift.
              As you enter loop editor and select your loops in play mode everything works perfectly , but as soon as you drag and drop the playhead in the timeline the logic changes , where some permanent loops take over in loops and the select next command is not obayed, this seems to happen only after using the timeline playhead shift if you dont use it permanent loop selected ln any loops are ignored which is correct and jumping from loop to loop is working as expected.

                Thanks for the feedback so far. I will not comment it now as I am currently focused on updating the manual.

                I just want you to know that I will try to address most of it in the next update which will be the release candidate for version 3.6.0. I aim for the release of the final version in about a week.

                Peter

                About the playback feature, you wrote:

                You can also map these actions to remote pedals or MIDI. There is one command to toggle the loop status of the currently playing region (will do nothing outside of a region). Another command will cycle the next active region to rearrange the song.

                Wondering if these two actions could also be assigned to the Assignable Buttons... I'm thinking of this because these two buttons are big. I'm a bit afraid to click on the small wave in live condition and using the big buttons seems safer for me.

                Thanks.

                MasterAnt While moving the endpoint of a region during playback in the editor, the endpoint isn't updated until my finger lets go of the marker.

                I can't do that because for each adjustment of the region border in the audio player, the playback must be stopped and restarted. This no problem if it is done from time to time, like when you release the handle or press undo but it is a problem when done 60 times a second while dragging the handle. So this will remain to be a known limitation.

                MasterAnt After a lot more tesing, I think the problem is in crossfading into a loop.

                Excellent find and it only happens if you have already played the destination song at least once. Will be fixed.

                Damir When you select a song and play it and you stop in the middle somwhere in the song a tap on the same song reselects it to the begining again just like selecting another song.

                Actually, there is the stop mode Rewind for exactly this purpose.

                Damir When you are on a loop and you engage the permanent loop, which means you want to permanently loop when playing live, BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU WANT TO PERMANENTLY LOOP THIS LOOP WHILE EDITING LOOPS

                Right, I had it working like you described some updates ago but I guess one of the updates broke that. Loops are not played by default in any of the editors in Stage Traxx and the audio region editor should be no exception to that. Will be fixed.

                Damir Hi peter i found a logic change issue that happens when you use the timeline playhead shift.

                I believe this is the same problem as above. I'm confident it will be resolved with the above fix.

                Damir At the moment there is no logic to the zoom and it’s confusing as you never know what will happen when using the zoom buttons.

                There is a logic: The zoom will always happen at the location of the pinch gesture. This was an explicit change request (not sure if it was your request or not). Only exception is when using the zoom buttons, then the zoom will happen around the playhead.

                Damir If you create a loop right at the end of song and the loop finishes at end of song, when you choose this loop it does not loop play,

                Damn, I had this problem fixed two versions ago and now it resurfaced. Will take a look at it.

                                I think the waveform view in the player does improve with the following change:

                                But I am completely at a loss as what to do in the audio region editor:

                                I can't color the text black as that would not be readable with the waveform in the background and I can't color it white as that would be pretty much unreadable everywhere except directly in front of the waveform. I just made the color a bit more intense but apart from that, I don't think I can change anything here.

                                  peter When you select a song and play it and you stop in the middle somwhere in the song a tap on the same song reselects it to the begining again just like selecting another song.

                                  Actually, there is the stop mode Rewind for exactly this purpose.

                                  Yes, i am aware that stop can auto recue to beginning, and thats good for some users, but my prefference for this is to use the PAUSE when performing live, to be able to just reselect the same song to cue it up from beginning when in STOP means its using this songs button usefully as at the moment it does nothing which is a pitty since all the other songs logic is when you select them the song is cued up and ready from begining so why not make the now selected song selection do the same , it makes a lot of sense and a logical option to quickly recue your song, at the moment my way of doing this quickly is to select a neighbouring song then reselecting the actual song i was on, this works but why should i have to do that when i should be able to just reselect the song again and hit start to go fom begining.
                                  I know some people use the drag the playhead and thats fine but a tap on the same song if much quicker and more reliable. STOP recue to begining forces you to the same action every time , now this is fine for some on stage users but not a great choice when at home and creating a workflow as sometimes you dont want this action so by having a quick logical return to begining gives you freedom of choice and a fast workflow.

                                    peter There is a logic: The zoom will always happen at the location of the pinch gesture. This was an explicit change request (not sure if it was your request or not). Only exception is when using the zoom buttons, then the it will work around the playhead.

                                    The zoom i am talking about is when using the zoom buttons only.
                                    Lets say i open a song with loops and the playhead is at begining, if i now use zoom buttons only i expect the extreme zoom to zoom in on the playhead only which it actually does this , but if i select a loop and pinch to zoom in on a section of this loop then use zoom button then it defaults to playhead which might be at begining of loop this then takes me away from my place of interest, once a pinch gesture is used the zoom buttons need to remain on that zoom point not revert to playhead position.

                                    The Logic is almost perfect but not quite there.

                                    I have just noticed another issue when Zooming in on selected loop, the playhead is not in line with the waveform begining but on the movement handle position.

                                    Zoom logic when using the buttons only.

                                    If no selection of loops is present zoom buttons focus on playhead position and place this point to MIDDLE of screen.

                                    Selecting a loop the zoom buttons focus in on the loop untill the loop is full on screen, any further zoom using buttons then focuses on the begining of the loop where the playhead is and places the focus point to the MIDDLE of screen.
                                    In other words the zoom point is allways in the middle of screen it never shifts to the sides, as this creates confusion unless its at the songs absolute begining or end point.

                                    Once you double tap a loop and it is zoomed fully on screen further zoom with buttons focuses on the playhead position.

                                    A double tap on loop and a pinch gesture focuses on the pinch gestures centre position and keeps that centre position when futher button zooms occur.

                                    The button zoom buttons will alway follow a pinch gesture point and will change logic to follow playhead once a loop is selected or a timeline playhead andjustment is made.

                                    The zoom point should always be to center of screen unless you are at extreme ends of song.

                                    There is a problem when using the pinch gesture than using the zoom buttons the positioning of zoom point is lost.