Feature Request: More Colors for Songs

Ray9s

I love being able to use the colors to mark songs but it would so awesome if we could have a larger palette to select from if possible. Thanks in advance for considering.

Damir

Ray9s I love being able to use the colors to mark songs but it would so awesome if we could have a larger palette to select from if possible. Thanks in advance for considering.

Hi Ray, I agree with you to a certain point, once you introduce more colours you then end up getting more confused between them as it becomes more colours to remember, my request would be to not have two colours like the two reds so similar that there's no point of having them as they are so similar they might as well be one red, this then reduces the colour palette by one more colour, yes I agree a couple more totally different colours would be good but apparently according to Peter the system is setup in this stupid way where what you get is what you have with no option. So we have to be thankful we have any colour choices.
This comment might be incorrect as the system might have changed but I doubt it.

peter

ST3 is using a subset of the system color set defined by Apple here: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/foundations/color/

These colors have the advantage that they work equally well on light and dark backgrounds which is important for ST3. I could add the missing 3 colors to ST3 but I'm not sure it would be a good idea to allow free color selection. It would certainly make things complicated to handle.

Lishy

peter Would you be able to add a black colour? Just thinking it might be good for those who wanted an option for the next song not to be highlighted. Having a black colour option would disguise it somewhat.

peter

A grey option for the next/play markers is already scheduled for version 3.7.

Ray9s

I'm not sure I agree that having more color options would make it more confusing since there's no obligation for anyone to use more colors than they want to use in their project. The way I've used the color variations in the past for my tracks in Ableton is to choose a color for a particular Genre or Decade (for instance Red for Rock/Pop or Blue for 90's Country) and then I use various shades of that color as a general indicator of tempo of the song. So a very pale Red would be slower Rock/Pop whereas a Deep Red would be fast Rock/Pop.

This allows me to glance at my setlist and get a quick overall feel for the changes in tempo throughout the set.

Having said all of this, it's certainly not a huge deal if it's not an easy thing to add in but I agree with @Damir that the existing two red colors are virtually indistinguishable to my eyes.

Damir

Ray9s I now see your need and I can see the logic in it , it would be very useful to be able to create your own colours and create a very logical song selection by colour,
The only problem I can see with this the song list would become very colourful and distracting to some users, but then again they don’t have to do that if it distracts them.

I definitely use colours for two purposes to distinguish my backing track song type and in looping, I will explain my operation logic using colours.

As I use 3 types of songs I choose normal white naming to all normal songs I use as DJ or background music in breaks.
I use green for all my songs that are my Solo performance songs and I use the artist column and label these backing tracks MIDI WITH DRUMS even though they are audio it’s because they started off as midi files, so I can distinguish by colour and group search by name and be presented with only what I need when creating a playlist.

The third colour I use is light blue for all songs that have no Drummer so I can include a live drummer in my show without any trouble I label the artist column MIDI NO DRUMS for easy search and selection for creating playlist or inserting a song in to my solo act for a particular time in act a drummer might join me.
All my backing tracks are the same in both with or no Drummer song lists.
I also have two playlists with all these same songs but the colours differ and the artist names differ and they are in alphabetical order in those playlists so I can quickly find them , but I can create a new playlist for a gig very easily and mix any type of song in any order I want depending on the gig, sometimes I am MC, DJ, SOLO PERFORMER, and a drummer joins me for a few songs , I can easily see by colour to what is happening.

Having 3 colours to distinguish song type is great, but I personally think for my brain and the way it thinks, it starts getting very busy on screen it starts looking like a PIZZA and I personally think any more colours would create a messy hard to distinguish song selection I really need to see my yellow next song this is most important, having green, blue and white is just tolerable not to interfere with my now and next song choice but having lots more colours in the mix that are totally random in position would screw my logical brain, but that doesn’t mean I dislike your needs I think if it works for you it makes sense , so I support your request and I certainly could benefit for a different reason having a few more colours.

My other colour need is in Looping.
I use colours to represent sections of songs
Red - intro
Orange - Chorus 1
Yellow - Chorus 2
Green - Solo
Light Blue - Verse 1
Dark Blue - Verse 2
Violet - Break
Red - End

The two reds might as well be one colour as they are totally useless as they appear exactly the same on screen so we really only have 6 colours

This colour format is consistent in all my songs with minor changes due to song needs but as soon as I see green I know a solo is coming or if I need the second verse I know just select dark blue, this definitely works a treat but the problem is I am missing a few more colours when you get a song that is more demanding so then my colour logic has to change due to lack of colours specially since the two reds are actually one, so yes I totally support an extra colour option , we have 12 loops so why don’t we have 12 colours to have each loop distinguishable.
It just makes sense.

My other dislike is on iPhone having a smaller screen the dark blue and violet colour is also hard to distinguish, but the problem is ITS BECAUSE THE WHITE WAVEFORM IS IN BACKGROUND WHICH SERVES NO PURPOSE TO BE THERE , it just washes out the loop colours, so again I will point out the end users would benefit a lot more if loop colours were solid , why have something in the background that serves no useful purpose it actually serves a negative purpose of making colours washed out, I know this is not a problem on an iMac but I use an iPhone and an iPad so this then is a big deal to me.
Cheers Damir

Damir

Ray9s So a very pale Red would be slower Rock/Pop whereas a Deep Red would be fast Rock/Pop.

This allows me to glance at my setlist and get a quick overall feel for the changes in tempo throughout the set.

I would also use the Artist area to place all your genders so you could do a quick search like Rockn roll and end up with all the songs in appropriate colour as a confirmation and another easy option to get to that next song.
ST3 certainly gives us lots of ways to operate to suit our individual needs we just need to be creative and not have our options limited or dictated by the software.Search at the moment is not as accommodating as it should be it is actually dictating to us of how it thinks we should operate and that’s bad software logic hopefully Peter can correct this.
Cheers Damir

Damir

Damir just to add to my lengthy way I work I also use your logic but in my loops the verses are a blue colour as it’s a calming lower energy of the song the choruses are orange and yellow as they have more energy , green means solo and I can relax not having to sing any unusual breaks or tacit areas are violet and the most important parts of songs intro and endings are red , the light and dark blue indicate a key change that applies to orange and yellow if the song has no key change I use dark blue for all my verses I introduce the light blue if two verses are side by side or have changed key , this applies to choruses , all normal choruses are orange if I change key than they turn yellow or if I have two choruses side by side I change the colours so to easily be able to distinguish all parts and knowing if I go from dark blue verse to dark blue verse I won’t get a key change, this all makes jumping around loops very logical and easy , if I go from a last yellow chorus to a first orange chorus I am prepared for a key change or perhaps that tells me DONT DO IT it’s a bad idea as you are in a different key so play it safe and go to a green solo at least that might sound better.
Anyway I thought I would let you know I also use colours for a very similar purpose as you do but for different reasons, and it does work well but I would like at least 12 colours to choose from so all my needs are met without using the same colour for two reasons.
Cheers Damir