Open Beta Version 3.6.0

Damir

Just confirming when using stop to pause on FC choosing another loop and pressing start does not work as expected, the song just continues as normal where i expect it to start from the new loop point selection.

Yes it should start from the pause point if i haven't chosen another loop but if i have gone to the effort to chose another section whilst in pause it means i want to jump to that point on restart.

peter

MasterAnt I felt that if there are only two functions available by clicking on the waveform during playback, why have the option to turn loop on/off in an area which may conflict with the option to seek during playback? A separate loop on/off toggle button near the crossfade button could be a better option.

Did it really collide with the seek action? One is a tap (meaning it triggers when you release the tap) and the other is pan (keep pressed and move to left or right). It never triggered the wrong action for me.

Apart from that an option to show a loop button might be usefull. I will try it out.

MasterAnt The white regions are jumped to as soon as you reach any region's start or end point(?), but only when the white region is ahead of the current playhead position. It doesn't seem to work correctly when the white region is to the left of the playhead

Good find. Definitely a bug!

Damir he highlighting of loop sections is not working on my ipad the song jumps to the loop point but it doesn't visually show the highlight and by the way the

Damir The highlighting of loop sections is not working on my ipad the song jumps to the loop point but it doesn't visually show the highlight and by the way the now selected region is not stand out enough for on stage use you need it to kick you in the face 😂.

You mean when playback is not running? That's right in that case because the playhead is moved to the beginning of that region. So you are already at the start of that region so nothing needs to be highlighted. It works actually the same during playback, once playback reaches the highlighted region, the highlight is removed.

Regarding highlighting: I guess a flashing highlight might be usefull (just like the flashing song ending indicator).

MasterAnt I thought about beat matching for a while. Obviously beat detection algorithms are a well kept secret, but what about very simple tempo controls to do it manually for songs which have constant BPM throughout the loop?

Each song already has a bpm value and the default loop length is calculated based on the 4 measures at the defined bpm value.

Damir The sensitivity of finding a loop point is a bit better and the pre roll of loop ending is great but it is too short it needs to be at least 5 seconds so we can hear a few bars of music so we can check the beat transition between end and start,

This might be highly dependent on personal taste. I will therefore make it configurable. 5 seconds is definitely too long for my taste. Some loops might be shorter than that.

Damir When i go to zoom and the loop is playing i expect the song to start scrubbing so i can place the audio edit point perfectly this is not working.

Not sure I would prefer that. Does anyone else have an opinion about this? Should a running playback be stopped the moment you start moving a region border and be replaced by the scrubbing preview?

Damir Suggestion when naming loops as you choose a loop have it so we just write over the suggested name without having to erase it first

So you want the text field to always clear automatically when you tap on it?

Damir I personally would change the last red colour to another colour as it appears to be the same as the first red, and i would make the first six colours to be as different as possible as they are the default colours and need to be distinguishable and the last two colours to be as an extra compliment to people that have extra requirements.

Stage Traxx is using a predefined palette that works equally well on dark and light backgrounds. These are all the available colors.

Damir Just confirming when using stop to pause on FC choosing another loop and pressing start does not work as expected, the song just continues as normal where i expect it to start from the new loop point selection.

A bug, I forgot to add the changed behavior from the waveform view to the pedal actions.

Damir In actual fact i would not show any waveform information behind loops i would make them solid colour but have a nice bright playhead line indicating play position

I will try if adding a red playhead line like in the audio region editor improves this.

Damir Mouse Click of finger gesture on portable devices
1 loop selected as next
...
4 loop deselected

Interesting approach. I will try out how that feels. Not sure how to map that to pedal buttons though. The loop button should not only work on the selected region, it should primarily work on the current region.

Damir A long press on any loop point selects the Permanent loop feature on that region

I'd rather not go back to a mix of regular and long taps. I like the way that you just need regular taps at the moment.

MasterAnt I found a bug while rehearsing earlier... If you are playing from a playlist with autoplay on, and you hit crossfade at about 4 seconds from the end, with a crossfade setting of 2.2 seconds out 0.0 seconds in, the next song starts per the crossfade but cuts off, autoplay takes over, and the next song starts again.

Didn't manage to reproduce this issue. Can you reproduce it with these steps?

Damir Whenever you choose a loop and hit play you expect to hear it from the begining of loop to end.
If you have finger chosen a point in the loop then it plays from that point.

OK, I will position the playhead at the start of a region when you select it.

DickyDutch In landscape mode the lower region of box does not show

You can scroll that table, but it is not obvious. I need to find another layout that works equally well on small and large screens. That's not so easy.

DickyDutch In portrait mode the wave file view doesn’t zoom when holding finger on it.

I can't reproduce that. Zooming works for me in both orientations.

Damir

Foot pedal logic is very good now but as i said before an arrow indicating that if you stay on the existing playing loop as a next selection should appear on that loop point for visual feedback.
The names of loops need to be full brightness and the song playing position needs to be very dominant , the loop colours more distinguishable and the waveform is really unnecessary as we are in loop mode and loops are whats important so bright colours and a well defined next selected loop needs to stand out, its all washed out at the moment and blends too much , it needs to kick ass from a distance.

In actual fact i would not show any waveform information behind loops i would make them solid colour but have a nice bright playhead line indicating play position, the waveforms would only appear where loops are not present this would make everything stand out better.

At the moment playhead line is impossible to see so youve got no idea where you are in a song.

Damir

On iMac if i choose a loop with my mouse it does not highlight that section as the next choice and i cant tap it again to introduce a permanent loop of that section but the actual lyrics jump to this selection as expected and when i hit play it starts on that section ok, so its just the highlighting that doesn't appear.

If a song is not playing i expect to be able mouse click a loop selection it highlights and if i click on it again a permanent loop should appear so i am set to how i want that loop to play when i hit start, if i haven't started this loop yet another click on it deselects the permanent loop and the fourth hit cancels this selection.
So the order is

Mouse Click of finger gesture on portable devices
1 loop selected as next
2 permanent loop selected
3 permanent loop canceled
4 loop deselected

If a song is playing
Mouse Click or finger tap
1 loop selected to be next and will play after now playing loop
2 permanent loop selected
3 permanent loop deselected
4 loop deselected

This logic gives you the power of preparing your next loop exactly how you want it,
If you don't expect to permanently loop the next loop just tap it once but if you want to be in permanent loop because you are going to do a 2 hour solo and show off you hit the same loop the second time and you are set, if you've just chickened out tap it again to cancel the permanent loop and if you totally lost the crowd just tap again to forget this brilliant idea that just fell apart, this gives you lots of options if you need them yet keeps it really simple if you don't.

OK change of mind, as I'm writing these ideas on the run its hard to fully concentrate, but here it goes again.
Single tap/click selects a loop section
Single tap/click again deselects a loop section
Change of plan
A long press on any loop point selects the Permanent loop feature on that region
And another long press on a loop that has the permanent loop enabled deselects the permanent loop. Meaning placing permanent loops is possible but cant be accidental like it was before.

A permanent loop can be set as default in the songs loop edit area which can be temporarely canceled by a long press but when the song gets played next time all permanent loops are remembered and can be permanently canceled in the loop editor.

This then makes device control of loop points easy and permanent loop activation safe because you don't want accidental activation of the permanent loop or it could get embarrassing.

Foot control of selecting loop points and adding permanent loop is now getting great.

Damir

Update of a problem, on iPad when i pause the song and i choose another loop it is not highlighted but it does start correctly from the beginning of this loop, i think i reported this already when i was on my iMac.

PETER I AM LOVING THIS NEW LOOPING FEATURE IT IS BECOMING EVERYTHING I ALWAYS WANTED 10 YEARS AGO so thanks for making it possible i cant wait to use it live, YOUre THA MAN!

MasterAnt

I found a bug while rehearsing earlier... If you are playing from a playlist with autoplay on, and you hit crossfade at about 4 seconds from the end, with a crossfade setting of 2.2 seconds out 0.0 seconds in, the next song starts per the crossfade but cuts off, autoplay takes over, and the next song starts again.

Damir

Loop Editor feedback.
The editor is better but still clunky.
Why?
As you drag the sides to move to a point where you want to end the loop like 60 sec mark the song should stop playing because it is no longer relevant now you expect to hear scrubbing to locate this end point as you aproach the 60sec mark you release the side bar now you expect to hear the song to start playing from the 40 second mark giving you 10 second preroll and run through the begining of loop play to the 10 second mark then jump to the 40second mark and repeat till you change the front or rear end points this loop playing mode remains till you are reasonably happy of the end points, this loop play is canceled once stop is hit, if start gets hit the loop plays in full from start to end as soon as you change your left /right locators the loop is established again, this gives you very easy way to find your loop points, now that you have got a rough edit, when you long press the sides of your loop the ZOOM function appears and allows you to accurately drag the sides using the visualwaveform as well as the scrub audio is enabled allowing you to hear your audio , the visual waveform and playhead have to be perfectly in sync for easy final selection of edit points once you release the sides the song plays automatically with 10 second end of loop preroll, it plays throug the edit point for another 10 seconds and loops again till you fine adjust both sides to create a perfect loop.
You cancle this loop by hitting stop then start again to hear the whole loop.
I believe this to be a very fast and workable workflow with what we have to work with at the moment, i have made some almost perfect loops but with lots of hard work, but most of my loops are not perfect because the software is still not accurate enough , its almost there but not yet.
I dont mind its basic principle as long as it can be more accurate and efficient.

Damir

Loop efficiency suggestion.
Whenever you choose a loop and hit play you expect to hear it from the begining of loop to end.
If you have finger chosen a point in the loop then it plays from that point.
If you choose another loop and hit play it plays from the begining of that loop to end and repeats if i then choose another play point in another play loop it jumps to that point goes to end of loop then repeats this loop , if i hit stop and choose a loop the loop imediately plays from that loops begining to end and loops.
If i drag loop sides it auto switches to scrub as you release the sides the audio plays in a 20 second loop with the centre point beeing the edit points that plays repeatedly untill stop is hit or if you long press the sides and enter zoom the same principle occurs but gives you a very fine adjustment of the loop edit points, its cleared by the stop button.

I know i sound like a stuck record but i write things down as my brain cogs are working sometimes good shit comes out in this process while other times its total crap but most of the time i seem to hit it on the noze.
Just filter out the crap.

DickyDutch

As previously mentioned on iPad

In landscape mode the lower region of box does not show

In portrait mode the wave file view doesn’t zoom when holding finger on it.

MasterAnt

peter Didn't manage to reproduce this issue. Can you reproduce it with these steps?

Yes quite easily. I'll try record it and email to you.

MasterAnt

peter Each song already has a bpm value and the default loop length is calculated based on the 4 measures at the defined bpm value.

You're a step ahead of me then. I'll give this a try. Was just firing blind at regions.

MasterAnt

MasterAnt peter Each song already has a bpm value and the default loop length is calculated based on the 4 measures at the defined bpm value.

So if I want 16 measures, do I have to do the math on the times myself?

Damir

Damir The highlighting of loop sections is not working on my ipad the song jumps to the loop point but it doesn't visually show the highlight and by the way the now selected region is not stand out enough for on stage use you need it to kick you in the face 😂.
You mean when playback is not running? That's right in that case because the playhead is moved to the beginning of that region. So you are already at the start of that region so nothing needs to be highlighted. It works actually the same during playback, once playback reaches the highlighted region, the highlight is removed.

Regarding highlighting: I guess a flashing highlight might be usefull (just like the flashing song ending indicator).

No you didnt understand, there are two issues one i believe is a bug and the other feedback.

Bug,in stop mode when you touch a loop the song starts from the begining of loop as expected but it should also be highlighted to indicate it has been chosen at the moment it does not also highlight, but in play mode it does highlight this is inconsistant, and visually not helpful , you want a loop section selected to highlight in all modes no matter what playing condition.
I might want to start on a verse or i might pause in the middle of the song addlib than choose solo to get back in to backing so i expect SOLO to be highlighted and ready from begining of loop to assure me it is the next selection for when i trigger start again.
Here is my ideal situation.
Whichever loop is playing should have a bright colour box surround it and a nice big bright playhead playing through it, a newly selected loop to be obviously highlighted in both Play/Stop mode once a newly selected highlighted box is started to play it gets the standard bright box around it allowing you to look for another loop section.
At the moment you can hardly see where your playhead is and when a loop point is playing you have no idea which part is playing, the only good thing is a newly selected loop does highligh reasonably but it s still not good enough for on stage.

The other feedback is i rather have really sharp full colour loops sections without a waveform behind them thats white and destroys the contrast of all loop colours, when all we need is a STAND OUT PLAYHEAD, so we can clearly see where we are in the song and in which loop point were in, waveform elswhere where there are no loops is fine but loops its more important to recognize your loops and where you are in a song at a distance.
Thats why i was suggesting different colours , the two reds are too close to see a diference the orange/yellow is similar the two blues are close, especially when you have a white waveform in the background washing all the colours out, my point is to try to make the loop point pop out on the screen to be able to be easily seen on stage at a meter or two distance from the device
At the moment it all looks good at home with a screen right in your face.

peter

Damir Oh my god please please please use the Quote button when quoting something. It is not possible to distinguish what you are quoting and what you write yourself. Just mark the text and tap on the quote button:

Damir Bug,in stop mode when you touch a loop the song starts from the begining of loop as expected but it should also be highlighted to indicate it has been chosen at the moment it does not also highlight, but in play mode it does highlight this is inconsistant, and visually not helpful , you want a loop section selected to highlight in all modes no matter what playing condition.

The play playhead is already at the beginning of the region. That's the same behavior as during playback. The highlight is only visible as long as the playhead did not reach the beginning of the region. Or would you rather like to see that the highlight is removed once you press play?

MasterAnt So if I want 16 measures, do I have to do the math on the times myself?

You mean you would rather like to create 16 measure long audio regions by default? In most cases you have to adjust start and beginning afterwards anyway. So 4 measures seemed like a sensible default length for me.

Damir Yes if i select rename section it should highlight the NEW REGION and immediately write over it, if you dont change anything selecting another loop leaves that as was.

But then it would delete your custom defined names any time you tap on that field.

Damir

Not sure I would prefer that. Does anyone else have an opinion about this? Should a running playback be stopped the moment you start moving a region border and be replaced by the scrubbing preview?

Why would you not want this after all you are creating a loop so once you have chosen a side bar it means you are looking for the new loop point why would you not want to hear the scrubbing as you are searching, you definitely dont need to hear the middle of the loop playing you a interested in finding the start and stop of loop points at the moment you are dragging the sides without any idea where you are and just guessing to where you need to stop than having to manually select the last portion of that point to check if youare anywhere near, this is VERY BAD , time saver is you grab the sides the end of loop becomes your playhead position and scrubs the audio for you to hear your new loop point once you drop this then zoom in you should also be in scrub mode to fine tune the edit but whats most important is to hear a preroll of the end of loop through to the begining of loop this has to be long enough so you can hear a couple of bars before and after the loop point so you can feel the beat and easily hear if the loop works.
At the moment this is very bad there is no easy way to get to a rough loop and the fine tune section is useless as its pre roll is so tight you cant use it its an actual nuecance .
We need a loop system that plays through the edit point and a fine tune means to adjust the in and out point.
Your existing system generally is fine it just needs to be made to do those basic things.

The other issue i have with it when in zoom and moving through the waveform you have a very narrow movement then you hit a brick wall, the waveform should keep on moving to allow you to choose all the acessable waveform not just the immediate area.

MasterAnt

Damir Does anyone else have an opinion about this? Should a running playback be stopped the moment you start moving a region border and be replaced by the scrubbing preview?

I really like the scrubbing preview. The purpose of this screen is to find the region borders and as it is it is focused on doing that. It plays the loop when you leave it alone. Maybe there should be other buttons in-line with the play button to enable/disable loop preview mode, then play can just play without being interrupted with preview mode off. Also play then wouldn't need to start when you move the markers with playback is off unless you turned preview on.

Damir

So you want the text field to always clear automatically when you tap on it?
Yes if i select rename section it should highlight the NEW REGION and immediately write over it, if you dont change anything selecting another loop leaves that as was.
In other words dont bother us with things that you know have to happen, if we have chosen rename it means we want to rename, if we have chosen another loop it means save my renamed section and let me get on with my next renaming.

Damir

Mouse Click of finger gesture on portable devices
1 loop selected as next
...
4 loop deselected
Interesting approach. I will try out how that feels. Not sure how to map that to pedal buttons though. The loop button should not only work on the selected region, it should primarily work on the current region.

This was only meant for devices, the foot pedal is fine as it is, as its different in its performance.
Actually this is already in use when in play mode, but what i was referring to is when you are in stop mode, and now i know what was my issue the selected loop did not highlight, and thats the point, perhaps this is something that has to be closely looked at once everything more important is working
The idea is to be able to easily chose a new loop point and then to be able to cancle it easily if needed, this gives more operational freedom, perhaps as you cancle the loop point the playhead position gets restored to the previous position if start hasnt been activated.
This means if you were in a non loop spot and you select a loop it cues up the begining of loop and highlights it but if you press the loop again is deselects the loop and restores the old playhead point.
Just a thought , something to think about after more tests as a player.

Damir

peter No you don’t get it,as you select rename it just highlights the old name but if you don’t change anything it remains as was as soon as you enter a letter it selects the old name and allows you to write a new name and as soon as you exit to the interface it saves this change. In other words you don’t need to erase the old to enter the new it’s automatic and also you don’t need to hit enter to save its automatic.
This just creates a faster workflow.

MasterAnt

peter You mean you would rather like to create 16 measure long audio regions by default? In most cases you have to adjust start and beginning afterwards anyway. So 4 measures seemed like a sensible default length for me.

No, the default can be anything; maybe your 4-measures is best. (I'm yet to test actually creating a region based on bpm, but will test that later today.)

Just wondering if I were to go setting regions with bpm and beats versus selecting a region by ear and waveform spikes as I do now, would it then make sense to have some controls over the number of beats? (Such as a quick way to double/halve region length, etc.)

peter

I already told you how to do it:

peter Oh my god please please please use the Quote button when quoting something. It is not possible to distinguish what you are quoting and what you write yourself. Just mark the text and tap on the quote button:

Damir

Peter after some playing around , i have realized some things that i never considered and ithink its well worth bashing out as it is most important we get the logic of operation perfect for on stage use everything else will fall in to place.
I know i suggested a single tap to enable a loop and another single tap on that loop while its playing enables the permanent loop option, and yes this seems good but it also creates a limitation to other important ways of operation.
Perhaps if i mention them you might reconsider a long press for activating/deactivating a permanent loop.
As you select a loop you should be able to deselect a loop just as easy,once you have selected a loop and a new play point is created a deselection of that loop should alwas go back to the last playhead position as you have changed your mind , at the moment you have it so you are locked in to that first selection, this is BAD , when i load a song it is cued up from start if i press a loop point i want to start from i have no choice now i am stuck on that starting point, but if i deselect that loop i should be able to start from the begining of song .
By keeping to a simple consistant logic you can give us a lot of freedom yet keep things very easy, by introducing, perhaps we can still keep the single touch on the now playing loop but we need to think of outside the loop freedom as well.
So the question is, can we make it so while i am playing or not playingthe a song we have full freedom to easily choose what we want?
I think we can we just have to think in different ways untill we cant push the system anymore.

Some logic thoughts.
I load my song the first loop starts 3 seconds in as that was the best looping point as it has intro instrument part that does not make a good loop or perhaps it has a count in i have left out of the loop, the point is if i select that loop it will leave out this front area but if i now change my mind and deselect this loop it wont go back to my beginning now this logic needs to change, this applies to all other loops especially when in stop mode as you could be paused in the middle of a non looped section and then you choose a loop then you change your mind and deselect it you would expect to return back to the old non looped play point, this should apply to any amount of loops you engage the bottom line is if no loops are engaged you allways return to the last non looped song position, this gives you freedom to selelect and deselect loop points but still keep your paused position if you end up not choosing to use loops at all and just continue.

Going back to single selecting logic, what i think would work better.
Permanent looping feature is not really the bees nees way of looping as i dont see the point of permanently looping a point you have to get off it eventually, but what i find usefull is perhaps singly repeating a section to either repeat it cause the crowd loves it or extend it so you can show off with your solos, so a better way of doing this is just selecting the same part again this creates a single loop and does not make you do another foot switch to turn off permanent loop, which could be dangerous because you are so engrosed in your solo you forget to turn it off, so my idea os a single tap to choose a loop and another tap not to choose it works much better because you dont get a permanent loop point option poping up to confuse the flow, a permanent loop on foot switches is still available for eveyone to choose but it also allows others to just use the select switch to choose the same loop your on and they end up with a single repeat , because its so easy to do this they can do this a few more times but knowing if we do nothing at the end of the loop it will get of the loop automatically , i think this gives freedom to everyone whichever way they might preffer.
But the operation on the interfaces is much better as you single tap to choose the same loop area it repeats once and moves on but if you select it again but change your mind you can undo it at the moment you would create a permanent loop instead but this is not really that hard to do with a long press if you really need a permanent loop, its almost better to make it a bit harder because you dont want accidental permanent loop to happen as it could be embarrasing, so i would rather have really easy single selection/deselection than permanent loop popping up when you dont want it.
I hope i have described things clearly , the idea is to make ST3 simple , powerful and easy to use and to please the majority of users.

Permanent loop is not something a lot of users would need but a single repeat function is very usefull, both functions are perfectly available on the foot pedals but i feel as though on the interfaces the operational logic is not perfect.it could be easier.

MasterAnt

Damir Permanent loop is not something a lot of users would need but a single repeat function is very usefull, both functions are perfectly available on the foot pedals but i feel as though on the interfaces the operational logic is not perfect.it could be easier.

As a singer/guitarist, the initial way I see myself using loops is to extend a guitar solo IF I feel the need to at the time. I realise this is a very simple use for loops. The two default options I could use are NO LOOP or INFINITE LOOP, and a pedal would have to be assigned to toggle. I have tested this and it works very well. I can't see myself favouring a single loop. If that were the case, I'd edit my backing track. For people who buy backing tracks and would like to lengthen sections, they'd probably want to enter a fixed number to the loops. As music performance is very creative, there is no best way to do this.

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