Open Beta Version 3.6.0

peter

DickyDutch Can confirm the bug. Will fix it in the next update.

Damir OK, I bought Twisted wave and played around with it. It is indeed easier to define loops. Although I find the positioning of the play marker a bit cumbersome and it often clears my loop region. But I will to build something in that direction in the next update.

So from what I gather is that the overview could stay more or less the way it is but instead of loop start and loop end, there will be a single detail view which can be zoomed freely via vertical pan and scrolled left and right.

MasterAnt I checked with a click track and for me the loop starts and ends at the thick yellow line. But these views will be replaced anyway.

MasterAnt

peter Weird that mine doesn't correspond with a click track; it definitely plays from and to the right of the view and not the centre. I was wondering if it could be a larger buffer setting or something. Anyway, not important.

Damir

peter OK, I bought Twisted wave and played around with it. It is indeed easier to define loops. Although I find the positioning of the play marker a bit cumbersome and it often clears my loop region. But I will to build something in that direction in the next update.

Yes Defining of loops is easy and that’s why I wanted you to see it and the clearing of loop is there because it’s not meant to be a loop player so it assumes you save your loop and move on to next creation, this would need to be setup differently in our case but I wanted you to get the feel of the programs function in achieving a very accurate loop with ease . I created the pictures of that same interface but modified to our needs and to me it would work perfectly as a layout because you see everything at once , the status of all loops permanent loops their colours and the less loops you use the bigger the buttons so in the case of extreme 12 loops you can still use iPhone in landscape and get the job done in portrait mode the buttons might be crowded but I still think might be usable even there, but I can guarantee you not many people will use 12 loops as normal song breakdown 6 to 8 loops is more than enough otherwise you have too many to deal with and it becomes real brain power to remember them all for many songs and it becomes a nuisance than a benefit.

I believe your last idea would be great as a second loop option where last 2 bars of loop is heard and seen and the first 2 bars of the loop beginning with an insert of 2 second silence in the middle this would give you a loop option to work just on the loop point itself very quickly to perfect it, the third loop option allows loops to play on to next selected loop this allows for checking of loops between themselves to make sure no matter what order of loops you choose they work well.
This is important.
And of course the first loop selection is standard loop mode where the whole loop repeats itself, unless you haven’t selected any loops in which case the whole song is displayed in all waveform window and all loop selections behave as if a loop was selected except it works on the whole song.

Getting the basic layout is most crucial, with my layout it almost feels like the main interface, all the buttons and visual needs are right there in your face , turning permanent loops off in one hit they are all seen immediately as you enter the interface all colours work for you immediately everything you need is in your face for quick tweaking it would just work like you were in the main screen of ST3 .
Keep on Rockn!

Damir

peter So from what I gather is that the overview could stay more or less the way it is but instead of loop start and loop end, there will be a single detail view which can be zoomed freely via vertical pan and scrolled left and right.

Yes that’s correct, but it needs to be as accurate and easy to use as Twisted wave otherwise it won’t really work if we don’t have that accuracy.Basically twisted wave would be perfect if it just saved the loop created and allowed us to create up to 12 loops , instead of having a stereo top waveform a mono is good enough to move generally around the song , and the other channel space gives us a great spot for loop buttons, I have put in a volume as it’s handy to set a quick comfortable volume when dealing with loops as it’s irritating if too loud or too soft but this level to have no relevance to any other volumes it’s purely this interfaces setting.
Same with permanent loop buttons , the settings are purely just a setting choice for playback, the choices made here do not get used in this window as you are concentrating on loop creation only but you have the easy choice to setup how you want the performance to go.
You have your big loop button to setup 3 types of loop methods and the fourth deselects all loop options. In portrait you have 1 button and switch through it, in landscape you have all thee button options as you have realestate for it and it’s easily seen to what options you have, one push selects a button another deselects it.

Loop button operation
As you create a loop
First loop option is a standard loop that loops a selected loop or the whole song if no loop selection

Second push on loop gives you 2 bars of end of loop and plays through to 2 bars of beginning of loop has a sound pause of 2 seconds then plays the last two bars of end of loop again.If no loops are selected it does the same but using the whole song.
Choosing another loop while in this mode starts a new playback from the 2 bar end of this loop to the beginning of next selected loop this gives you a test between the two loops and maintains the same logic on the next loop.

Third push on loop button allows the loops to play through if no selection of next loop, but jumps to next selected loop after it’s played through, this allows for all loop testing against each other.

Fourth push on loop button cancels all loop functions and behaves as expected , plays through once and stops.If no loop is selected it plays the whole song and stops.

But the first loop option is always created when creating a new loop this is the normal starting point it assumes you are finding a rough loop point once you found it you go to second option to fine tune it, once all loops are created you go to third option to test all loops against each other and you’re done.

Cheers Damir

MasterAnt

I'd still like to see an option to halve or double the length of the region. This would make it super easy to keep the regions tied to the bpm of the song. Locking the length, as you have implemented it now and enabling it to move around, is great for a region linked to tempo.

peter

New beta build 8496

Another try at audio region editing. I really hope that this is the one that works. Because I am starting to run out of ideas what to change at this point. The key improvement is that you can zoom and pan around in the waveform and you always see the song position pointer in sync with audio playback.

All changes are immediately reflected in the playback. So no need to restart playback after changing an audio region.

Please note: you need to swipe with 2 fingers to scroll the waveform as the one finger pan gesture is used to position the playhead.

Some things are still missing, like testing transitions between 2 audio regions and the faulty looping behaviour at the end of a song that Damir reported.

Added

Length of a new audio regions can be specified
New assignable button commands to cycle through audio regions and toggle loop settings (useful when working with very short audio regions that are hard to grab)

Changed

Redesigned audio region editor
Improved accuracy of waveform

Fixed

Opening song details when searching in song list immediately closes the new view

Damir

peter Good news is you are on the rigt path, in a few minutes i have corrected all my best loops to be even better with ease, i definitely like this because the waveform view actually zooms so you can easily recognize visually your edit points and hear the end result, plus i like the colour coding of loops and the grab points and edges of loop points.
This i noticed as soon as i started using the interface and within 5 minutes of using the inerface am reporting this , but the bad news is there are major issues with the pinch and zoom and playhead operation , firstly i crashed the software while using the pinch zoom and it has sent a log to you, secondly the playback head seems to have priorety over moving freely to around the waveform when zoomed in, this is wrong i need the loop to be looping automatically i dont care what the playhead is doing i care about getting to my in and out points with ease while zoomed in because i now want to accurately edit my edit points the playhead is hogging the show it wont allow me to work on my loop with freedom.
Once the pinch zoom is used i expect to touch the screen and move about in the waveform so i can accurately position my point of interest.
Perhaps a long press on the waveform brings the playhead to that point but a quick swipe left or right moves the waveform left or right. Also while in loop playback pinch zoom is a bit unstable when zoomimg in on the ends of a loop where two loops meet this needs to be very reliable.
So in 5 minute test i love the idea it works very nicely but i hate its behavioure as its fighting me all the way , its very close to be great but needs a closer look at its operational logic, i could definitely create fast accurate loops if it only behaved better, i will give it more time to work out its reason for my dislikes, but generally i like it the best of all your other tries, well done Peter youre on a winner here.
Great stuff
Cheers Damir

Damir

peter Hi Peter, yes i can confirm after another 3 minutes of use of the new update the most annoying part of it is when you zoom in on a section you expect to be able to move the waveform not the playhead.This is the biggest immediate problem as you cant do any work on your loop with ease.

You are giving the playhead too much priority its not that important what is important is getting to your loop points with ease.
A pinch to zoom and a swipe to move is more important than placing your playhead.
Long press and move of playhead is good enough to create a loop in a spot after that the playhead is not that important as you are homing in on the loop points thats the most important after that, the two finger move gesture sucks badly and playhead hogging the zoom gesture is a pain , it seems to be playing a mayor part in stuffing up an accurate pinch zoom gesture, its continually pulling in its favour while it should be in the background just doing its thing and staying away from the mayor job at hand which is to get to the loop point and tweak it.

Damir

peter i know you are concentrating on the conceipt that works, and i think with this one you have a horse worth whipping cause its definitely more alive than dead.

SUGGESTION
One suggestion for later, a single tap on loop is great as is but it would be nice if a double tap on it zooms it to full screen view for more accurate editing and another double tap on it zooms to all loop view again, this would really increase workflow, so if you are in extreme zoom in on a loop a double tap on the loop gets you to a full screen look at the loop and another double tap gets you to all loop mode, in other words you can get to important view points very easely.
Recap
Double tap on any loop zooms to full view on screen of that loop.
If you pinch to zoom in on that loop a double tap on that loop now brings you back to full view of that loop.
Another double tap gets you all loop view.

Damir

I dont like where you placed the loop end handles, they are in the worst spot you could have picked as they are in the middle of the waveform edit points masking important information, they need to be at the bottom out of the way so when you have your finger on them you can clearly see what you are doing you are not hiding the actual point of major interest.

Damir

Ive just noticed the zoom buttons, so i tried them which crashed the software, my oppinion is you dont need these buttons if the pinch to zoom funtion is fixed so it doasnt get affected by playhead position, if it just worked freely as expected its more than enough to do the job specially if you introduce a double tap on loops to fully zoom on a loop then a simple pinch and zoom to fine tune your view is all thats needed , having those zoom buttons on the top really isnt necessary , with them it zooms in and out and you still have to manouvre around with the clumsy two finger gesture this is very clumsy and innoficient, a pinch and zoom is a lot more accurate and faster if it worked as its suppose to, and a quick double tap to get you back to full view is much faster and simpler.

DickyDutch

Hi Peter a marked improvement in being able to create accurate loops. I did crash the software a couple of times when expanding the wave form view - I sent you the reports. I agree with what Damir is saying in his posts. But well done it’s coming together!

peter

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm glad we are on the right track 🙂

Crash on zooming

Yes, I also discovered this bug after submitting the beta version and I have fixed it already. It happens when you zoom too far in. The zoom limit is in some cases not checked properly and causes this crash. Will be fixed in the next update.

Scrolling & Playhead movement

It is quite difficult to discern similar actions like a one finger swipe and a two finger swipe. Sometimes iOS thinks that 2 fingers are just a fat single finger. That's causing these issues. I tried a solution where you had to grab the playhead but that did not work when zoomed and the playhead was not visible. And there are situations where you want to reposition playback so you need that funtionality.

Tonight I was thinking about this and had an idea: I will add a ruler on top displaying timing marks. A pan gesture on the ruler will position the playhead and a pan gesture on the waveform will scroll. That way both will be single finger pan gestures and should not interfere with each other.

Handle placing

Originally I positioned them at the bottom but it did not feel right for me. It felt more natural to grab the waveform in the middle. But I can change that again.

Double tap zoom

Double taps are complicated if they do different things than a singe tap because you have to wait to make sure there is no second tap coming before triggering the single tap action. In this case it might work though as the first tap selects/deselects a region and the second tap would zoom in/out. I will try it.

Zoom buttons

These are needed on MacOS as mouse users don't have a pinch gesture and I find them also useful on iOS.

Damir

peter MORE FEEDBACK
Naming of loops Colour to be a much bigger contrast to the loop colour so it can be read on smaller devices, full white or perhaps dark black, although black might clash with waveform if it’s a very loud song all the way throughout the song.

peter

New beta build 8510

A quick update to see if a ruler above the waveform helps with scrolling. Rendering of the ruler is not perfect yet. It has some optical glitches when scrolling.

Scrolling is once again done with a single finger pan gesture. To position the playhead you need to use the gesture on the ruler. Gestures on the waveform view will always be used for scrolling.

Added

Ruler above the waveform

Changed

Position of region handles is now on top below the ruler

Fixed

Crash when zooming too far into the waveform

MasterAnt

peter Added

Ruler above the waveform

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

peter

Just a heads up: zooming too far in will again crash in the new build due to the new ruler code. This is really tricky stuff.

Damir

peter the ruler idea is fantastic it kills 2 birds with one stone.
It fixes the annoying interference when moving about and zooming and it gives us a quick time reference to where we are .

%200 improvement

Suggestion
Create a see through handle at the top of playhead so it’s obvious to where you grab it to move it.
The waveform edit handles should be at the bottom so not to interfere with playhead movement button, and to me at the bottom makes more sense as you are not blocking your view of the waveform when precisely editing a loop. It all makes better sense and I personally think the bottom feels more handy.I would also consider the ruler and it’s button to be better placed at the bottom as it’s more natural to touch there and see what you are doing although separating the two might help as all the handles might be too close on small devices either way the editing wave form handles should be at the bottom this is most logical.

The instruction writing under the waveform and the heading regional details area would be better used by a larger waveform instead it’s a total waste of prime realestate and it’s a suck egg notification, just like a (turn left with care) sign on the road.It would benefit smaller devices greatly especially when in landscape mode where most people would use it in as it’s more user friendly making the editing easier , this view suffers with the height being narrow so you definitely don’t want suck egg info wasting the sceen.

As you already know if you can make it so pinch and zoom have no relationship with the playhead would allow us to position and focus on our place of interest much quicker.

Cubase software has a great way of treating the playhead movement it allows you to enable and disable follow playhead with a dedicated button but it also has an automatic logic where it auto follows the playhead until you either zoom or slide to another position then it automatically cancels the auto follow as it assumes you are interested in a specific spot to do editing and it allows you to edit, to get back to follow playhead you engage the follow button manually. But as standard when you first open the waveform editor it always follows the playhead, this is great as you can quickly fix your first edit point hit the follow button to jump to the now playing point and when it gets to the second point zoom in again the playhead is no longer followed and it allows you to edit freely, this method saves a lot of stuffing around and allows a very quick workflow.

Hi Peter, I am testing all this on my iPhone 11 max pro for the reason if it works on that it will most definitely work on all other devices.

Damir

Ipad follow up feedback.

Peter after playing around on ipone and now on ipad i am cofirming a lot of the previous feedback but i feel as though things could be even better if this layout is created.

The waveform needs to be at the top with all other controls at the bottom, for the main reason that you dont ever cover your waveform screen while pressing on things, this is most important, appart from exit, create a loop, these two functions dont impeed with the waveform and can stay as is.

If you lifted the waveform to top and underneath you have all your controls like play, undo,lock, play head lock, zoom buttons, the timeline and the playhead movement button , and the loop handles, basically everything, all on one line, this then gives you all controls in one place that does not ever block your waveform view when editing, at the moment you are all over the place and mostly blocking your view when operating, this is not ideal, i know you are sticking to normal basics designed for desk top use but this software is mainly geared up for on stage use with smaller devices and this is what you should be considering firstly.

Zoom and pinch gesture,scroll with two fingers and region details, is not needed this is the area that should be used for all controls and the waveform maximized to be as large as possible right on top for consistant viewing without visual interruptions.

Breakdown

Waveform as large as possible on top of screen.
Time line on bottom of waveform with playhead button in it.
Below that all other controlls on one line.
Below that region details all on one line if possible.

This i believe would all be all visible on iphone in landscape mode.
At worst you scroll down a bit to get rest of options.

By having as large as possible waveform eliminates the chance of accidental touching of loop handles while swipeing to move this i have done on iphone a few times already.

I love the single touch swipe to move around it works well but the pinch zoom seems to be still affected by playhead position, this needs to be addressed as it is not functional .

peter

The way the whole scrolling system is setup makes it impossible to place the timeline and region handles below the waveform. Only way to do that would be to go back to 2-finger swipes for scrolling which would be a big step backward

Damir

peter The way the whole scrolling system is setup makes it impossible to place the timeline and region handles below the waveform. Only way to do that would be to go back to 2-finger swipes for scrolling which would be a big step backward

Hi Peter, is it possible to leave the timeline idea out as i would rather have the loop handles at the bottom and the playhead handle on the top without the timeline, i can easily manage using a large waveform a good easy way to scroll left and right and a pinch zoom, the time readout is not that important as i use my ears and waveform itself to get a loop position i then create a loop then i fiddle to a perfect position, i really dont care of the initial loop length i am happy with 4 bar length for everything cause i have to tweak anyway and its so easy now to do that.
The important thing is to be able to see clearly what you are doing and to be able to position the loop points quickly,
I grab the playhead at the top drag it to a point of interest hit plus to get a loop grab the end points to get a better loop then pinch to zoom to fine tune once the loop sounds perfect move on.
Feedback
Giving me loop option sizes just creates another unnecessary step as the bar count choice will never be accurate anyway and its so eazy to drag the loop points why bother with it.

You know what is possible so im here to point out bad things as youve got your head down creating which is sometimes difficult to see obvious things.
But we are on the money so far we just need to polish it.
Cant wait to use it live.
Cheers Damir

peter

Damir i am happy with 4 bar length for everything cause i have to tweak anyway and its so easy now to do that

It was a direct request to have more options for the bar length.

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

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

Damir s it possible to leave the timeline idea out as i would rather have the loop handles at the bottom and the playhead handle on the top without the timeline

Unfortunately that's not possible. If I would do that, the scrollbar would be visible above the handles which is in the middle of the waveform. Reason is, I need to move the handles outside of the scrollable area to be able to use single tap swipe gestures on both. The scrollable area always has scrollbars at the bottom. So if that area ends just above the handles, the scrollbar would be visible there.

What I can do is to place all the buttons below the waveform.

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