FEEDBACK

Damir

Hi Peter, i did a long gig last weekend using loops first time on stage, i sang 64 songs 32 had loops, it was outside under an umbrella stage with a nice sunny day, the audiance was very engaging to the point i had some of them singing on stage with me, and heres what i found.

The looped songs were definitely an advantage and i had a ball with it the audiance loved it but i found very important issues which in some way i suspected would be there and now its confirmed.

The loop selection system by foot is ok but i found direct finger control was faster when you have unpredictable singers pop up on stage, the only problem with that was the short loops are almost impossible to select as the hit area is too small.
Using the ipad in shaded daylight was ok to select songs and read lyrics, but was a great challenge to see the next selected loops , this is because the loops are washed out by the unnecessary white wavefiorm underneath and its even worse if you have end of song flashing as well .
So as i predicted before this is very bad.
We need solid loop colours and no end of song flashing and clashing with next selected loop flash, its totally unnecessary.
When i am performing i have NO INTEREST IN MY WAVEFORM thats more useful in pre production.
LOOP SWITCHING IS VERY IMPORTANT TO BE IN YOUR FACE AND CLEAR,
I need to know where i am in the song and i need to know where i am in a loop when selected.
I need to clearly see when i select the next loop.
I need to see when a loop is ending.

I presented this idea to you originally and now i think it is more usefull on stage than the existing system.
For a number of reasons, all your loop buttons are large enough to be usefull and improve the less loops you use.
The loop names are always visible no matter how short a loop you use.
The different speed movement in the loop itself would actually be a visual advantage to warnn you of end of loop coming, and by having less loops this visual alert would be even easier to follow.

At the moment it all appears great but on stage it does not work as well as it should be.
Heres a visual idea i believe i could use on stage with better success.
Cheers Damir, i had a ball with the loops on the day and night i think i broke my record of songs performed in one gig, im paying the price now, that Croatian Šljivovica sure packs a punch.

This idea focuses on the two important things where am i in the song and where am i within a loop.
It brings more focus on the important things and gives easier visual feedback plus it makes loop selection by finger possible , it basically has multiple important advantages over the existing system.

IDEA!
Make the song / next title area be the song position bar where a colour change progresses through this bar area from begining to end, this leaves the loops area on its own with clear sharp solid colour boxes to be easily seen and manipulated and the song title area is used to get a nice clear view of where you are within a song.
This would make things stand out better on stage.

MasterAnt

I agree that seeing and selecting regions like this would be easier than the current implementation. It seems like a major overhaul to the waveform area, almost like using a different program. The calculation of how and what to show would be quite detailed: fitting in defined regions, showing undefined areas as regular waveform graphic, having virtual multiple timeline tempos, manually moving the playhead through these virtual tempos, etc. Maybe it's a seed for thought.

MasterAnt

There's no way I could touch the iPad screen to control loops during a gig. Hitting the small crossfade button is hard enough when I'm not using my Blueboard. But I have a similarly described problem with short regions. I tried looping a short intro (count-in) where'd I'd jam a bit before triggering the song to start. There's no way currently to even see that there is a region that small, nor that I'm looping it. I have to play it by ear, knowing in advance that I've set the intro to loop. So something has to be done.

Not obvious that my intro is a region, and impossible to see if it's set with loop enabled:

Another problem, without visual cues, is knowing which beat I'm on when exiting the region. Currently I'd have to go back to Logic and add a different audio cue to the intro.

Damir

MasterAnt

MasterAnt my idea of evenly spaced loops would take care of your short intro loop problem as you would also see the the end of loop approaching as the playhead moves through it, perhaps a progressive colour change in that loop might even be better as you would definitely see the end of loop coming, especially if you only need a few loops as they would all be much larger on screen and very easy to activate and follow.
It sounds like we have the same needs and problems, I don’t normally touch my iPad but when you are in need of a very quick change it’s the only option so by having this ability just makes the loop system perfect, at the moment it’s almost perfect creating loops but it’s not great at delivering that power on stage.

I’m sure Peter will fix it somehow.

Damir

Hi Ant, imagine this regarding your small intro loop problem , using my idea of loop scaling sizeing of loop boxes depending on how many loops you have, your small loop would be one long box using the whole waveform as your guide even though it would move quickly through the screen as its a short loop it would give you a great visual when its ending so you can turn off the permanent loop knowing exactly when you are getting out , i can guarantee you that would work perfectly on stage even if you used all 12 loops it would still be useful and big enough to see the name of all the loops and the permanent loop indicator would be visible.
I definitely believe this idea to be usefull on stage over what we have now, as it has positives everywhere and i cant find negatives specially if the song progression indicator was a colour bar movement in the SONG NAME/ NEXT SONG NAME area , if it was underneath the writing where it stood out but did not clash with the white writing this would work perfectly , you would get everything you need on stage.

So basically if you use loops the waveform area becomes your loop control area and the song position indicator is in the song title area underneath the writing, but if you dont use any loops the system can stay as is.

peter

The problem with this approach is that the timeline would be non-linear. That means the speed with which the playhead is moving would change from region to region. The sensitivity for seeking to a position would also change. I don*t like this at all.

I think this is an area where we would need to brainstorm in detail how to incorporate this in a future UI overhaul.

Damir

peter The problem with this approach is that the timeline would be non-linear. That means the speed with which the playhead is moving would change from region to region. The sensitivity for seeking to a position would also change. I don*t like this at all.

There would be a timeline in the song name area that would progress with the overall song position, this would be exactly what the playhead is doing in the waveform area now.
When loops are used the waveform area becomes the loop area with nothing to do with the the normal playhead, it would have its own logic that behaves the same as the normal playhead but each individual loop would have the playhead movement through it at varying speeds to suit the length of the loop, meaning as you select a loop you get visual feedback to when the loop is ending if its a short loop you get fast movement if its a long loop you get slow movement this is very helpful to prepare you for next choice of loop, now you have no chance to see anything when using shorter loops. WHAT IS IMPORTANT ON STAGE IS TO BE IN FULL CONTROL OF ALL YOUR LOOPS NOT JUST SOME.
Editing and preparing loops is very usable and great, playing loops live on stage is awkward and not as good as it should be, i believe we dont need much change with the interface we just need to change the logic and what areas get used more wisely, i know if i had my idea working technically it would perform well on stage as i know what i need but i am not getting it.
I need big buttons,
I need to see what all my loops are doing and when its going to end
I need to be able to select all loops easily using their names and knowing if permanent loop is on or off.
I need to see my next selected loop clearly no matter how short the next loop is
I need to see n overall position within my song as it progresses all over the song then ends.

I DONT NEED to see a waveform that does nothing for me.
I dont need to see a flashing sign as i am approaching the end as i do not plan to end i plan to move to next loop which is also flashing and clashing as i am in loop mode now not in normal song replay mode, so why give me a sign that i dont need.

The existing waveform system is not apropriate and should not be used when loops are used.

Just use the song name area as a progressive coloured bar that moves behind the song name, it jumps around as loops are used and is virtually what the playhead does now.

Each loop segment created fills the whole old waveform area as you increase the loop number the sizes of the loops decrease uniformly to always use the full size of the area, when you select a loop and play it a progressive coloured bar moves through the loop button at the speed to represent the loop length, this gives you a visual feedback of when the loop is ending. The next selected loop flashes and is played next as what we have now, everything else is the same except all loop buttons are always the same so you can see the names of loops and the permanent loop selection, but they vary in size as you have less loops the buttons get bigger and easier to see but all the loops are always usable .If you had 4 very short loops it would be easy to see their progression on the four large buttons and the visual progressive bar moving within the buttons would nicely guide you to time out, if you have no loop playing then the main song progressive bar quides you where you are in the song and as the loop is aproached it gets the progresive bar within the loop moving indicating you are moving through that loop giving you options to select other loops or just letting it run on to end of song. As a loop progress bar is showing its in use you can reselect the same loop to play it one more time or use the permanent loop feature.

I know we have a lot of this already but it is not visually useable, we need it to be on stage friendly.

MasterAnt

How would you show areas of the song that do not have regions defined? I'm not likely going to divide all my songs up to the extent you have. Your diagram shows the whole song divided up into segments, but what if I'm only looping one solo? Should it show waveform on the region bar for the undefined areas? Or would you show only the one region across the whole region bar regardless of the fact that it isn't currently playing?

I agree with a few things: The flashing waveform when approaching song-end doesn't serve any useful purpose currently, and it conflicts with the flashing loop selector. It may be more useful flashing during a long crossfade showing that the pedals have been disabled. Also, the waveform itself looks pretty but doesn't do much more than show you that your song isn't malfunctioning or got corrupted, which can be seen in the region editor. I also don't mind seeing a region bigger than its actual size in the song, as you're explaining. Currently the system doesn't work for short regions. One of the first things we need is a way to know we're looping, but that has been mentioned before. Your idea could solve that. Having the two areas you suggested, the now-playing bar and the region bar, might make for a difficult change programmatically. Substituting the current waveform with a new region/waveform bar, or having a way to switch between the two might be easier without the GUI overhaul Peter is concerned about. Maybe a double click on the waveform switches it to region (loop) mode.

Damir

MasterAnt How would you show areas of the song that do not have regions defined? I'm not likely going to divide all my songs up to the extent you have. Your diagram shows the whole song divided up into segments, but what if I'm only looping one solo? Should it show waveform on the region bar for the undefined areas? Or would you show only the one region across the whole region bar regardless of the fact that it isn't currently playing?

Hi Ant, good questions, when I perform I do not care about the waveform displaying the actual waveform data it is absolutely unimportant to me what I do care about knowing roughly where I am in a song so if it’s close to the end and the audience is having a ball I plan to go to another position of the song perhaps Solo which is normally half way in a song giving me roughly 1.30 minutes extra performance so the important thing is to easily get to loops no matter how small the loop I want a large as possible button.
My system using loops would give you your overall timeline in the area above the existing waveform where the song title is , this would be just like we have now but no waveform just a colour bar that progressively moves around underneath the song name and it would permanently display the loop points so you are aware when the loop change will trigger jus like we have now, this then frees up the old waveform area for loops only buttons which always use the full space of this area, so if you had a very tiny loop it would be the whole length of the area creating a very easy on stage operation now this is extreme zoom you could say , but it would still work well in actual fact it would aid you extra if no other loops were used,
But normally you would use 4 to 10 loops , but no matter what amount of loops are used you would always see good sized buttons and the name of loop and it’s permanent loop setting,
If you gave gaps between loops then you use the the above display of where you are and when the next loop point is coming as it hits the point it jumps to the newly selected loop if you don’t select any loops you see a progressive bar on any loop that gets played through while you are on that loop you have options to jump to any other loop or a permanent loop selection or if no selection is made you have the overall song bar that visually indicates where you are and when break points are coming you also have your audio to hear where you are, but now you would have nice big buttons to make loop selections without fear is it the right loop or can I select it, when I am engaged with the audience a washed out waveform has no use to me big selection buttons and knowing what’s happening at quick glance means a lot more to me, as you said when you have a small loop as an intro you need to see it and know exactly when you want to exit it once that job is done you then sing and concentrate on audience you really don’t care about the waveform displayed but you then need to when your next loop point is so you can either use that trigger to leave to another point in the song or you allow this loop to be entered in which case that loop button progressive bar would indicate which loop you are in so you can make new choices and you have a good visual where you are within a loop, less loops that are longer would give you bigger buttons and better visual experience but even if you had all 12 loops that are really short would be much better than what we have now.

So if anyone has a better idea I would love to hear it, I can’t think of any other option without totally changing the ST3 interface layout which we all love.

I really don’t mind the existing logic and setup but it has some major flaws with certain songs and loop requirements , short loops don’t work, visually washed out not great on stage.

Damir

Damir I'm not likely going to divide all my songs up to the extent you have

If you want to use loops to your full advantage you have to create a lot of loops otherwise you can’t jump around the song, if you only use loops to give you one time effect like looped intro then play through to end , well that’s not why I wanted looping, I expect to have much greater control of all of my songs otherwise why bother at all.
Creating loops is so easy and fun I don’t mind the process at all knowing what it will give me on stage, it is well worth the time, much more than multitrack.

Damir

Heres a rough example as a different way of running perhaps someone can improve it or come up with a better way as we definitely need to improve the existing system, i could almost be happy with the existing system if loops were sharper by making the loop sections solid colours , and i could live with the short loop problem by creating bigger loops and not using very short loops but it would be nice to have it all.