Open Beta Version 3.7.0

peter

New Beta Build 8751

OK, I think this might be the release candidate for version 3.7. If everything works out the final version should be released in about a week. Thanks a lot for all your help and especially to @Damir and @DickyDutch who put the syncing feature really through the grinder.

Changed

Errors that lead to a failed sync will be shown in the sync status cell in settings
Chord detection is a bit more generic
Files synced to iCloud are excluded from backups. This will lead to more free space in iCloud when you backup multiple devices to iCloud as now each Stage Traxx file will only be once in the cloud instead of one copy for every device.

Fixed

Deleting iCloud Data also deleted data not created by Stage Traxx causing syncing problems
iCloud uploads abort on certain errors

profcyclist

peter will we be able to save it to a shared iCloud folder with other bandmates with the app to keep a database in sync for practicing? Live we'd still use the Host/Join feature.

peter

No, the sharing is done through a private iCloud database. Only devices running with your AppleID can access this database. No one else has access to it.

JaredGunston

Hi Peter, and BETA testers, I saw one feature that stood out to me "DON'T AUTO LOAD NEXT SONG".

Thank you... I just tested it now and its a GEM for me, I often perform songs and as they end I like to sustain the chord, perhaps do a final more mellow Chorus and Sing along with my audience, and up till now it jumps to the next song and Changes my Guitars Tuning to the next song, so this setting alone I cannot wait for the full release. 🙂

Guitar Tunings? Next Song? - Well... I have 6 Tuning options all with their own Midi PC, so depending on what song I play I'm either in Standard E, a semi lower (up to 4 semi tones lower) or a Drop D tuning, and this helps only needing one guitar on stage. I sometimes start the song by performing the chorus chords, playing a little ditty, before pressing PLAY, and it helps that my Guitar is AUTOMATICALLY in the right key. Now I know when i END the song, i'll remain in that key until i press play for the NEXT SONG. CANT WAIT! 🙂

Lishy

JaredGunston I’m guessing you use a variax guitar and a helix?

jaytrax

JaredGunston

Simple but great feature
I also will appreciate this feature

JaredGunston

Lishy Hey ! No i'm using a GK3 system from Roland, into a SY-1000 for Guitar Modeling/Tuning. Loving it! And loving that i can keep playing at the end of the song, a small but VERY important setting for me. 🙂

JohnnySolo

Are the playlists supposed to sync up with the iCloud sync?

peter

JohnnySolo Are the playlists supposed to sync up with the iCloud sync?

Yes

jzavaletta Hello Peter, when do you plan on having ST3 3.7 in the App Store?

End of next week

Damir I expect any title with Test as first priority to be at the top of my results then any title that has Test in it with priority if test is within the title the first one to be that has Test in it first.

No, the songs are still ordered by your ordering criteria. In this case alphabetical order. The way it works is exactly the way a full text search works in any other app and I will not change that.

amorph Once I opened the ST3 beta software, it was completely empty. Not sure what to do, I restored from my "data only" backup. All song data came in fine, but the songs are red listed and report that the audio files are missing. I find this odd because I am on the same device, the audio files still reside in the same directory location they were when the data backup was created. Why would the restored song data NOT point to the store directory path?

The beta version is a completely seperate app to the regular version and does not share any data. This is a design decision to not interfere with your regular version in case of errors. Due to the sandbox model in iOS it is impossible to access the files of another app directly.

You need to restore a full backup in the beta version if you want to work with your regular library.

jzavaletta

Hello Peter, when do you plan on having ST3 3.7 in the App Store?

Damir

Search engine logic question.
Using iPad
Side song selection window open.
Entering Test as search criteria with song name starting from a to z as search option.
I expect any title with Test as first priority to be at the top of my results then any title that has Test in it with priority if test is within the title the first one to be that has Test in it first.
TEST DRUM BEAT is before DRUM BEAT TEST.
TEST is before both of those two.
If TEST appears in artist column then that is second priority to song name search .
and should appear after all the song TEST results are presented in the search results.

At the moment there does not appear to be any LOGIC to search.
It appear to get search results that have no TEST in it in either song or artist columns.
Here is a photo of TEST as search criteria.
No order or logic appears to be used.
This is very important when quickly needing a search result to pin point a next song , search needs some logic in it to present TEST first then other results after as the results are not exact match.In order of how close to the exact match they are, but song to be priority artist second priority.

amorph

Hi folks,

Excited to join the beta testing here. I am currently a beta tester for Gig Performer and Was a Pro Tools tester long ago.

Once I opened the ST3 beta software, it was completely empty. Not sure what to do, I restored from my "data only" backup. All song data came in fine, but the songs are red listed and report that the audio files are missing. I find this odd because I am on the same device, the audio files still reside in the same directory location they were when the data backup was created. Why would the restored song data NOT point to the store directory path?

This situation also makes me think that ST3 needs mechanism by which to re-link your audio files to your songs.

I have a 25+ year history in pro audio and regularly use multiple DAWs, audio editors, and virtual instruments with large libraries on external drives. Nearly all of these provide a mechanism for re-linking files, usually a utility app, mode or preference that lets the user point the software to the correct/desired directory to re-establish the proper file links. Such a utility also provides a fail safe in case of external drive failure or replacement of lost, stolen or corrupted data. The "full backup" option addresses some of this functionality, but, as our libraries grow, is potentially a far more time consuming process.

Thanks for your consideration!

Damir

amorph Once I opened the ST3 beta software, it was completely empty. Not sure what to do, I restored from my "data only" backup. All song data came in fine, but the songs are red listed and report that the audio files are missing. I find this odd because I am on the same device, the audio files still reside in the same directory location they were when the data backup was created. Why would the restored song data NOT point to the store directory path?

This situation also makes me think that ST3 needs mechanism by which to re-link your audio files to your songs.

I have a 25+ year history in pro audio and regularly use multiple DAWs, audio editors, and virtual instruments with large libraries on external drives. Nearly all of these provide a mechanism for re-linking files, usually a utility app, mode or preference that lets the user point the software to the correct/desired directory to re-establish the proper file links. Such a utility also provides a fail safe in case of external drive failure or replacement of lost, stolen or corrupted data. The "full backup" option addresses some of this functionality, but, as our libraries grow, is potentially a far more time consuming process.

Hi Amorph, I can sympathise with your concern but don’t forget ST3 is trying to be a SIMPLE tool to be able to PERFORM ON STAGE with lots of POWERFUL CONTROL ON STAGE, that’s its main use.
When you import your files they find a home in ST3 and that’s it , you now have your files exactly where they belong it is very simple then to make a full backup or change your files any way you want and it just works, I personally love it’s simplicity I hate software that just grabs files from everywhere and then you end up with spending more time stuffing around searching and fiddling with file connections for different versions when it is faster to just do the tweaks ,
I also have a lifetime of audio software experience as an engineer and musician and find you can get bogged down with things and loose the creativity very easily.
ST3 is simple, you just load the files and tweak to your liking and make a full backup , if you need changes just create them and make another full backup , it’s easier and faster to tweak than spend ages searching for that version 6 of something that has a slight change, just change it and move on with performing.
If you have different bands you play with just create a full backup for every band and load it as required.
We are trying to get away from iTunes logic cause it sucks from a live performing point of view, perhaps give ST3 some time to change your work practice and see how you go as it’s all about keeping it simple and fast for on stage performing and having all your files within the software so not to spend time hunting for them all over the place.
Cheers Damir

amorph

peter Thanks Peter! Since the beta period appears to be nearly over, I will wait for the 3.7 release.

But we still need a way to re-link the audio files that doesn't only rely on backup. What are we supposed to do if we decide we need to alter or update a song mix?

Thanks for your consideration!

Damir

peter Damir I expect any title with Test as first priority to be at the top of my results then any title that has Test in it with priority if test is within the title the first one to be that has Test in it first.

No, the songs are still ordered by your ordering criteria. In this case alphabetical order. The way it works is exactly the way a full text search works in any other app and I will not change that.

But I have shown you in my example that that’s clearly not the case,
Test clearly is not the first result of search even though there is a song named Test , that clearly should be no 1 in search all other Test results are not an exact match and should be placed behind an exact match , in other words if 50 songs have Test in it will give me my exact match so far away I might as well not use search, there has to be a much more strict rule in search so if I type in A I first get an exact match if there is just an A song otherwise I will end up with hundreds of results before finding A only first.
That’s bad search logic
If I want Test then I expect Test if an exact match is available to be my first result.
At the moment we seem to get results we don’t want first.
This is my observation, perhaps I’m using search wrong , but it certainly is not finding things I want quickly.

peter

amorph What are we supposed to do if we decide we need to alter or update a song mix?

You just overwrite the file in the Stage Traxx 3 folder with the new version.

DickyDutch I wonder how you feel about providing a category of backup where just the user settings preferences are captured

I can add it to the 3.8 todo list.

DickyDutch

Hello Peter I wonder how you feel about providing a category of backup where just the user settings preferences are captured. I think this would be very useful where if a user installs STAGETRAXX to a second device they can can migrate the user settings by just airdroping and installed the backup to the second device before (or after) initiating the iCloud sync function. I’ve just had to manually add my settings to 2 of my devices which was quite time consuming.

amorph

peter But that prevents us from changing the file name to include meaningful info about the differences or revisions (like v1, v2, drums quieter, instrumental, with vocals, etc.) As a 25 year record producer, I can attest to the importance of being able to track changes using file names.

It is nearly an industry standard practice to provide a mechanism by which to update/change the file linkage. Even iTunes has that ability. While every software platform has limitations, professionals need features that enhance and accelerate their workflows.

peter

Damir

Again, full text search works that way and search results are always displayed in the sort order you have set. Your search results in the picture are sorted alphabetically that's exactly what you have selected as the sort order so why do you think that is not the case? Anyway. I will not change full text search functionality as it works exactly like in all other apps.

amorph It is nearly an industry standard practice to provide a mechanism by which to update/change the file linkage. Even iTunes has that ability. While every software platform has limitations, professionals need features that enhance and accelerate their workflows.

So what you would like to do is replace a file "my song.mp3" with a version "my song quieter.mp3"? Does this mean "my song.mp3" would be deleted? And what if you use alias copies (new feature in 3.7) that are linked to "my song.mp3"? Should it also replace these? And if yes, why not just rename your "my song quieter.mp3" to "my song.mp3" and replace the existing file?

I really see no real benefit from this.

amorph

Damir Respectfully, I disagree sir. I am very good at managing my media and I don't spend time searching for files. In any case, it doesn't need to be an either/or choice. Both functions could co-exist.

My primary use case: I have all l my performance mixes and stems in dedicated folders and then redundant copies of those folders. As a music minister, I schedule 360+ songs per year & perform with a choir and other musicians week in and week out. I have a lot to manage around performances on Sunday mornings, coordinating those musicians and attending to other duties for worship. If something failed, I don't have the time or bandwidth to be tied to my computer restoring from a backup. It would bring everything to a halt, leaving 20+ performers waiting and potentially make service start late. However, taking 3-minutes to point software to a redundant directory IS DOABLE. Yes the BU are restore operation are quick now when I only have 14 songs & audio files, but 3 years in, I will have 1000 songs to restore - how fast will it be then?

I do agree with you about iTunes - it's a horrible app. My point was that, as bad as it is, even IT has the ability to manage file directories.

Damir

peter I will not change full text search functionality as it works exactly like in all other apps.

LIKE ALL THE OTHER APPS, if ST3 was like all the other apps nothing would change or improve, just because other apps have a certain way of operation does not make them better or smarter, ST3 has looping capability and so many other great features that iTune or any other software has not even bothered with , I am pointing out a simple fact that search engine is not doing what a normal user expects , if I want Eggs I expect to see Eggs as my first preference.
It’s very simple and logical expectation of a search engine , I don’t want Fries with Eggs I just want Eggs.
It’s just a very basic observation but if it’s too hard it’s what it is.
Great work so far 2 more weeks of holidays and I’m back with all 3 devices for a full on test.

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