• Beta

  • Open Beta Version 3.6.0

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.

                  Looping Feedback,
                  Peter i know you are working hard at the new loop creation system, but in the meantime ive been trying to make a go of the existing system and am finding to what enoys me the most about it when creating a loop.
                  I can not hear the loop point repeat nicely and i can not adjust the loop points accurately while listening and seeing the wavefile , nothing appears to be in sync what i hear and what i see is not correct then whatever i adjust does not seem to sit in place and a correct loop is impossible to make the other issue to consider is we should be able to select another loop and that loop shouls play next so we can play around the loops to see how they work together in different combinations , this has to be priority, its almost like we need the editor to behave like the loop player but it should just play between the loops as thats what we are creating in this mode we should not have to manually move the playhead it should just jump between loops as they are selected, this is important to test them, in the normal playback mode the whole song gets auto played or selections of llops but in edit mode we only need to hear the loop sections not the rest of the song, this gives us final confirmation that the loops will work perfectly.
                  At the moment if you select another loop nothing happens the song just keeps playing , well thats not what we are hear for we want to quickly edit our loops and hear them work correctly then exit to player.
                  I know you are bashing things out but if there is anything you can pick up from this then its worth it to comment.
                  Cheers Damir

                  New beta build 8388

                  This is another build concentrating on the performance side and not on editing. Thankfully there have been no crashes reported for the last version. So from the performance side, I think we are nearly there.

                  Biggest change in this version is the tap handling in the waveform view. It will now behave like this:

                  • Frist tap will select a region to play next
                  • Second and third tap will toggle the loop setting on the region
                  • Fourth tap will deselect the region

                  Exception: When you tap on the currently playing region and it has looping turned on, the first tap will turn off the loop so that you only need one tap to exit the current looping region.

                  Next week I will concentrate on overhauling the audio region editing based on all your feedback. This is quite a big task and I don't know if I can stick to my plan of weekly beta releases but I will try.

                  Added

                  • Playhead indicator (vertical line) in waveform view to better see the current position

                  Changed

                  • Tap behavior in waveform view (see above)
                  • Selected audio region will blink to be better visible
                  • Increased maximum number of audio regions to 12
                  • Selected audio region will be highlighted when playback is not running
                  • Editing audio region name will preselect existing name
                  • Selecting an audio region in editor will seek to the beginning of that region

                  Fixed

                  • Starting a manual crossfade shortly before a track ends sometimes stops playback when new track is displayed
                  • Audio region settings are reset when opening or closing the big player view
                  • Selecting audio region with pedal while stopped does not seek to the beginning of that region
                  • Selected audio region sometimes not played next
                  • +/- buttons in audio region editor not rendered correctly on some devices

                  I’ve had a 10 minute play and quick feedback,
                  I love the new logic it feels you have freedom to create on the run but I will give more critical feedback later,
                  The flashing next loop ❤️‍🩹
                  Highlighted playhead ❤️‍🩹
                  Loop editor is much better but still needs polish,
                  I will give more accurate feedback soon.
                  Great work Pete we are getting there.

                  Hi Pete, I really love the new logic of getting around a song it gives us a lot more freedom to be creative but I found a little glitch and it could be a leftover from when you were experimenting , if you are playing a loop and quick double tap on another region the song jumps to that point on waveform where you double tapped on, it took me a while to realise this unwanted action, I know we talked about double tapping to immediately jump to beginning of next loop and that might be useful but jumping to a place where you tap on is not good as you can end up anywhere plus it is dangerous as you might want to select new region and place a loop on it which means two taps but you end up shifting playhead as well, this is definitely not desired.

                  I love the fact In stop mode I can select any loop and start from there it’s great freedom, the white playhead line is visible even on iPhone in portrait mode I can bounce around even in that mode with finger touch.

                  One small request, when you choose next loops and you decide to tap again to put it in permanent loop then if you decide you no longer want that loop so you choose another loop can you make it so the permanent loop selection is also cancelled, because you want to leave this selection uncontaminated the permanent loop was only put there because you were planing to use this loop now that you have changed your mind it also needs to be cleared if you happen to use this loop again you can always reactivate it.

                  I also have an idea with the foot pedal control which I already mentioned but I just thought it might be useful for both looping foot controls switches,
                  When selecting loops you don’t have an extra foot hit to clear loops you instead have a long press clears loop selections, this should apply to all permanent loop selections foot switch, if you have pre programmed permanent loops they can be all temporarily cleared by a long foot press but if you long press again they can be put back, this then gives you easier and more powerful control over your performance.
                  Let’s say it’s a dead crowd and normally you have a permanent loop setup on your solo but you can see this crowd sucks and you don’t want to bore them with it all you need to do is long press your permanent loop foot switch and you are done the song plays as is that’s one example but there are many more scenarios that might require this simple operation.

                  I really appreciate you making the playlist button a two hit option between songs in playlists and playlists themselves this is so much more convenient thanks.

                  As you are aware there is one more issue that exists which greatly limits looping playback and that is after you pass the last looping point you can not use the loops again, I don’t know how it can be easily fixed but I had a thought the MIX feature seems to work really well now that we can mix out and cut in to next song, perhaps something similar, I just had a thought, what if a double tap on a next selected loop region initiates an instant play of that loop, meaning you can select a loop you want to go to then double tap on it at a time you want to x to it, this would allow us to leave a non looped area of a song and if it can leave this area on a next beat point meaning it will be in time when joining a loop point.
                  Just a thought as this is the only bigger problem I can see in loop playback.

                  Ok bye for now and great work so far ❤️It.

                    Hi Peter, after playing with the loops new logic which i think is much more user friendly i think there is one change i would make, that is when you are on a loop and you have permanent loop selected, if you choose a new loop selection this takes priority as thats what you want next, you should not have to disable the permanent loop manually this should be done automatically, because if you want to permanently stay on that loop you dont do anything, if you want to move as normal just tap the section it cancles the loop and moves on or if you choose another loop elswhere just select another out of sequence loop this should immediately assume you are done with the permanent loop and move on to this new loop and auto clear the just played permanent loop selection, this then does not leave a contaminated loop area you just left. This means a next loop selection takes priority over now selected loop and its permanent loop selection.

                    The looping idea is sooo good now all we need badly is a method of easily creating accurate loops that work, the playback logic is almost bullet proof and functional on both the foot pedals and the interfaces, well done.

                    More Looping suggestions

                    Editing loop selection is much better where you just select a loop and hit play and it plays from begining of loop, this works well, but its only a start to a better experiance, touching another loop should playout the now playing loop and jump to the newly selected loop, this then allows you to test the transition between loops which is crucial for testing all loops against each other in case there is a bad loop point that could cause an on stage embarrasment.

                    On iphone 11 max pro in landscape you can not do anything when in loop edit mode, there is no play button visible, this makes this window absolutely useless.

                    My suggestion for the loop editor is the whole screen should be used and not a pop up window , this gives users maximum screen space on small devices.
                    The interface should be devided in to four sections, a narrow menu line on top to exit to settings a + to create a new loop, an undo redo function and an exit to main player button, below this line should be a narrow waveform that basically is the same as the normal waveform player this displays the whole song and all loops are shown there , this is where you can test all your loops to how they work togetger in any order, there you can select a loop and this song position is zoomed in the section below which is the largest window which allows you to see only the one loop point but very accurately to be able to change the zoom point so a very precise loop point can be achieved.This third section is the main loop editor , all the windows are always present for quick operation, the fourth section is just below the main editor this is where you have your green play button that looks like the main players green play button but it is much smaller and it is in bottom left corner, next to it is a permanent loop button which is where you turn on/off for every loop, next to this is a naming of loop area , this is where you change the name of the loops , next to that which is actually the bottom right corner is the colour selection button, when selected it pops up a colour selection window to choose a colour for the loops ,

                    The interface looks very similar to the ST3 main player window but has different function, it is designed for easy loop creation, the play button is roughly in the same spot, the loop waveform window is basically where the normal waveform window is and the precise loop editing function is where the song playlist / Lyrics screen is, the loop editors menu is where the clock timer song name area is in main player, this maintains a similar work flow area but is rearranged to suit the loop function, the loop function editing deserves a full screen operation to make it very easy to create loops even on the smallest devices.

                    Basically it is similar layout to TWISTED WAVE software but designed for loops, if you notice ST3 is already layed out like that as well its just setup as a player, just stick to the same layout and give us the looping editing features in a same layout.

                    You might be already on to this but i thought id throw in some more ideas.

                    I could almost get on stage with the last beta update if i had accurate loops.

                    Great to see where its heading i think its going to be fantastic when its completed.