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  • Open Beta Version 3.6.0

MasterAnt that’s how I think a lot of singer guitarist would use it me included and the foot pedal is setup perfect for this , I am talking about the interface finger\mouse control on the devices even though it’s good now it still feels like it’s not perfect when you look at it from many different ways of operation.
This might have to be ironed out later when people start using it and finding out the frustrations so I’m trying to minimise these issues before hand but it’s hard with minimal use to fully test.
I think making a loop is most important issue at the moment this needs to be simple quick and accurate.
Cheers Damir

Hi Peter, how do you highlight peoples responses then respond again, i thought you only had the power to do this, but ive noticed others are doing it, how is that done?

Thanks Damir

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:

    Regarding the toggling of the loop feature. The way it is now is actually working quite well in my opinion: A tap on the currently playing region toggles the loop setting for that region. So while you are playing you can decide whether you want to loop the current section up until the end of that region. The pedal action works the same. It will toggle the loop of the currently playing region.

    A tap on any other region will select or deselect it.

      peter sorry Pete dont forget i just discovered the undo function in lyrics edit after a lot of years of pain, so if its not in my face i dont know about it, also i havent used forums before, i dont wast time easily but believe ST3 justifies it, if something is worth doing its worth doing well.
      Thanks il give it a shot next time.

      peter yes it works a lot better now , i think what im not happy with is when you are in stop mode selecting loops does not highligt them it seems to work ok in play mode but not in stop mode.

        Damir i think what im not happy with is when you are in stop mode selecting loops does not highligt them

        Then you will really enjoy the next update 😃

          Loop creation feedback.
          I did a comparison between Twisted Wave app and ST3b
          Same song, same loop point.
          Twisted wave is very fast and accurate i had a perfect loop in no time.
          ST3 didnt do a good job no matter how much effort i put in to it and it felt awkward, it was fighting me along the process and at the end i could not perfect the loop.

          So my suggestion is have a good look at how Twisted Wave does it.
          It has a waveform above so you can travel through the song fast, and another larger waveform is where you complete the edit, but because you can zoom in so much it makes it easy to perfect the loop, the grab handles are nice and obvious and the edit point lines are nice and thin so you can accurately place the edit points, i believe it actually can zoom in too much , while ST3 cant zoom in enough.The audio and visual sync is very tight you actually feel every movement of loop points this perfectly represents what is on screen and what you are hearing, it feels very professional while ST3 hasnt got a good workflow and feels very loose in operation the end result is not perfect and you waste a lot of time getting an average loop result, this definitely needs a bit more tweaking.

          Suggestion,
          Get rid of unnecessary stuff, like the two time location indicators that you can play around with that have no great value to complete a loop.
          Increase the waveform area as much as possible and shrink the delete , loop button, colour choice and rename to the bottom of the window, dont let anything be hidden.
          There needs to be an accurate time display in the waveform so you know where you are.
          Introduce a loop on off switch next to play button and a reset to start point / end point buttons so you can precisely position the playhead to begining of loop.
          When you select a loop it is immediately cued to begining and plays through.
          The loop functio button should have two modes one as normal loop from start to end, the second loop function should be the edit loop function loop which starts 10 seconds before the end of loop plays through to begining of loop for another 10 seconds then it provides a two second silence gap and plays over and over till you are happy with the end result, if your loops are shorter than 22 seconds it just loops as normal because its a short loop , the idea is if you have longer loops you dont have to listen through the whole long loop to hear the edit points it makes it quick and easy to just be creative.
          The reason i would have a two second gap is if the music is very similar it is hard to destinguish where the loop point is if it sounds perfect.
          All these little things make creating a good loop point very easy and fast, at the moment there is no fast logic everything is clunky and awkward.
          Twisted wave is a great example of a well thought of app designed for users that dont like wasting time, so its a good referance point.
          OK! ive had my say from now on its bug reports only.
          Thanks all
          Damir

          peter Now i wont be able to sleep, youre like father xmas, delivering presents every day 😂

          Then you will really enjoy the next update 😃
          I am trying this Quote thing!
          I wonder if its worked?

          peter Then you will really enjoy the next update 😃

          Ok here i go again, has this worked?
          Stop laughing

            Damir Ok i think i got this , thanks and good night 😭😵‍💫

            Yes, you got it 👍

            WOW!!! A perfect loop! I set the BPM to match my song and hit + and my loop was perfect... (I'm being serious; I was impressed!) Except it didn't start on the beat. Now how do I move my perfect 4-bar loop to the correct starting spot? I naturally expect to be able to pick up the region and move it left and right, but that doesn't work. I feel like I'm in BPM mode where the controls should be BPM related. In BPM mode, dragging the left/right indicators could snap to beats, since you already know how far that is in milliseconds. Now that would be lightning fast loop creation! But then there are times when you want to be in TIME mode and adjust with the +- buttons...

            Looking forward to what you have in store for the next update... 🙂

              MasterAnt I guess it makes sense to shift the whole region left and right. But I can't use the pan gesture for that as this already moves the playhead. So something like the +/- buttons on the start and end times would be needed. I guess I need to get rid of that table and rethink the interface below the waveform view completely.

              MasterAnt 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.

              The two options you have are actually infinitely loop or repeat loop once, this is already easily available on the foot pedal already , if you have two foot switches, one is permanent loop on or off on the loop section you are in, the other option just use the loop selection foot switch this allows you to choose the now playing loop again meaning it will replay once more or as many times as you choose but the advantage is you don’t need to switch it off when you choose not to loop anymore just let it run out to next selection, it means you virtually only need one foot switch to get all you need, the advantage of having permanent loop engaged instead is if you have very short loops like 4 or 8 bars then you are better off with this loop method, the beauty of this system is we all have a choice to setup what works best for us.
              I think the foot pedal options of loop options are more than good enough for me.
              But I am not yet sure of the interfaces loop method I need a bit more time to play with it to see if it can be operationally improved I know the single touch has improved things greatly so we shall see in time what we end up with but I am sure it will be very useful.
              Cheers Damir

              Sorry Pete I couldn’t sleep, so I started playing around on my IPhone 11 ST3b.
              I have possibly mentioned this already but here it goes again it might be more clear this time.

              What I expect and what I get.

              When in stop mode.
              I have 3 loops in first half of song
              I can long press and drag waveform to any point to start from, even in the loops , this is good.
              So I drag the start point to waveform in the second half of song where there are no loops but then I single tap on any of the three loops yes this loop gets selected and cued up to play from its beginning, but then realise it is not highlighted as it should be and I also realise I can not tap on this loop again to place a permanent loop point on this loop, I guess it’s because it’s not playing, but this logic is limiting, I should be able to highlight a loop then with another touch set it to loop hit play and I have what I want.
              So as I mentioned before

              One loop Logic
              Tap 1 selects and highlights
              Tap 2 enables permanent loop
              Tap 3 disables permanent loop
              Tap 4 deselects and removes highlight and auto returns to last start point selection but only in stop mode in play mode it just keeps playing through to next selection if no new selection is used it just plays on through to end of song.

              This then gives you great flexibility, normally you only need to tap once to select and hit play but you have more options two taps away, yet you can pull out of them with a couple more taps

              Now the other logic I would have is if I decide to go to a completely new loop and move away to it with a single tap whatever permanent loop setting I had chosen in the last loop point would be canceled and if you disable all loop points the last wave selection is remembered.
              This means if I was in the second half of my song and I paused and have chosen loop points with any permanent loops engaged as long as I don’t have any loop points selected I can continue from my last waveform position.
              I haven’t lost my place.
              This means total freedom to hit loops and change your mind on the run with very quick operation so you can manipulate you show on the run without fear you might stuff it up.

              Here is another idea to make things quick regarding the foot pedal loop selection switch, I know it works great but this might make it even better, imagine you are stepping through the 6 loops with the foot switch and the now playing loop is coming to an end yet you left it a bit late to search for next loop and you are out of time or just confused to which loop you should choose so you ended up on the wrong loop and it’s totally inappropriate IF YOU LONG PRESS ON YOUR FOOT SWITCH IT CLEARS THE SELECTIONS and gets you out of the poo, it’s like slamming on a brake before an accident.
              A long press is a lot quicker than six taps.
              Now that I think of it why have the seventh hit? it makes more sense to have 6 hits to choose loops and a long press to cancel selection.
              I think that would speed things up even more.
              So as you load a song no loops are selected first hit chooses the first loop and so on till you get to six then it goes to first loop and a long press clears the selection.
              Yes I think that is a lot more practical,
              What do you think?
              Ok Im back to bed.

              MasterAnt <- referring back to my screenshot of AnyTune's loop controls, they have the selector on the left for A, LOOP, B, and the +- buttons on the right. I never used the region shifter because the loop was always set by ear, not BPM. But that's very compact and works well on an iPhone. I liked adjusting start and end with your explicit controls. You could probably come up with something better with all the real estate on iPad...

              Possibly a region bar on the top or bottom of the waveform similar to the side bars which could be moved when holding down and dragging? I know you just said that would conflict with the current way the playhead is moved... Maybe then...

              ...if you had a ruler (timebar) above the waveform, like many video (and audio) editors work, that could be used to move the playhead giving you many options within the waveform area.

              Finally getting some time to play with the loop functionality (Probably my biggest want out of the app).

              Like others, I am still struggling with the loop creation/definition piece. I can get acceptable loops on my Mac, but have not had good success on the iOS platforms. I am worried I will spend more time fine tuning these than I can afford. @peter you challenged "How to make this less complex?" Before ST3 I used Apple's MainStage for my backing track rig. (Glad to have a mobile option now) It was very easy to loop (Apple calls it "cycle") sections on the fly. I believe this is because of 2 things.
              1) The use of a .caf file format allowed for markers from Logic to be embedded and used as sections when playing back. They where visionally displayed as part of the timeline. (No need to have an editor to create a loop region)
              2) Simple transport controls (buttons) to enable/disable looping (Cycle) between the markers. When enabled, playhead would cycle back to previous marker when it hit the next marker (includes auto crossfade). Disable, the playhead would continue as normal. Nothing fancy. It also included next marker and previous marker buttons for those that like to jump around.

              My use case is very simple, ability to toggle an intro or solo section to repeat on the fly and then continue when ready. I will do this almost 100% from a pedal control. Having a bigger indicator on the screen confirming I have engage the loop functional would be helpful. (I like having that as a transport button)

              Not sure how viable the .caf file format is to work with, but maybe something to look into. Apple dev documentation here. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/MusicAudio/Reference/CAFSpec/CAF_overview/CAF_overview.html

              I have also included a couple screen shots of MainStage and the transport/cycle information.


              I love the app and it has been a game changer for me. I recommend it to all my musician friends as the backing track app to use.
              Thanks for all of your hard work Peter! I hope my comments help.

              Feedback
              Because LOOPING is going to be the most unique and popular feature on ST3,
              I think when you open song details the Edit audio regions is named wrong and it resides in the wrong place.
              It should be next to Edit Lyrics and it should be called Edit Loops, because it feels like it belongs in that area and the name says the truth and is simple , you are not there to edit Audio you are there to edit loops so why not call it that Edit loops its simple and consistent with Edit Lyrics and it’s to the point plus it is in clear view as soon as you enter the interface you don’t have to scroll down to find it and it does not confuse people not familiar with ST3 as they might think that ST3 can actually EDIT AUDIO which is not the case you are just creating loops.