Open Beta Version 4.0.0

Damir

AnthonyB I can look at the waveform and have a pretty good idea of different parts of the song based on the dynamic of the backing track. This just makes the scenario of "let's just jump to the Bridge and practice that transition" a bit easier

But thats the whole idea of the audio segments, thats why we can colur them name them so at rehearsal just hit a button and away you go , a waveform is only useful in the audio segment creation thats why i am a bit upset the ST4 has gone backwards in this regard by giving us a smaller waveform and poorer zoom , ST3 was perfect in that regard .
Why would you need a waveform to guide you in where you are in a song Yes dynamics feedback , but if you need that much help on stage you might as well change profession 😂, just joking.

MarkGuitar

Damir but if you need that much help on stage you might as well

Damir but if you need that much help on stage you might as well change profession

Unnecessary

royandreno

Damir I suggest that if you cannot see how others, me included, use the waveform, then stop interfering with our requests, and concentrate on your own workflow during your performance. How is a waveform gonna mess with your performance? You seem to be so seasoned in this line of musical performance that your views should triumph everyone else's. You cannot help yourself but comment absolutely everything here. Really. Annoying.

Your continued, personal wish list for ST3 caused me to now having to add 30 empty lines to every song I add in ST3, in addition to do the same and causing me hours of work on my 500 songs already added, in order to keep the the timed lyrics on top. You managed to convince Peter that manual scrolling should take preference over timed lyrics in order for it to work with your iPhone. Turned out to be a ridiculous 'update'.

I use the waveform to play along with the dynamics of a song, breaks and pauses, pianissimo and fortes. In addition, when I manipulate the loops, jump to another region etc. I know immediately the dynamics of that region. And when I haven't played a song in ages, the waveform aids me in remembering how and where the dynamics of that song are. For me, it's like playing with a band member. Your joke about needing much help on stage and one might as well change profession just adds to your image og being somewhat superior, and it's really not funny.

And I totally agree with AnthonyB, for me, working on my Mac Studio is way easier to work regions with than the iPad. So stop telling us that we are wrong. Your views and opinions are yours, but don't keep telling me and everyone else that they are wrong or mistaken and you know everything so much better. It is really annoying.

Damir

AnthonyB
Yes

MarkGuitar

Damir Ok what I think you don’t like is the song scroll bar being active while a song is playing and I totally agree with you as it’s too dangerous being so cl

Actually no, it is the loop/region buttons I don’t like. I can (probably) avoid touching the area where the waveform could be (where it is on ST3) but the row of buttons below that is too risky. So what I would ideally like is the ability to create regions of if I want but that the buttons to jump around the regions etc are not visible. Just the waveform showing them in different colours.
Just like ST3 does……

Damir

MarkGuitar Actually no, it is the loop/region buttons I don’t like. I can (probably) avoid touching the area where the waveform could be (where it is on ST3) but the row of buttons below that is too risky. So what I would ideally like is the ability to create regions of if I want but that the buttons to jump around the regions etc are not visible. Just the waveform showing them in different colours.
Just like ST3 does……

Sorry Mark but its hard for me to understand exactly, so you like the audio segments and you create them, but you dont want the actual buttons on screen as you are happy with the thin Pzza song position indicator that gives you visual feedback to where you are?
Am i close?

Damir

MarkGuitar sorry! i cant help myself.

Damir

AnthonyB I find creating Audio Regions quite time consuming on an iPad (it would be easier on a Mac I suspect)

Definitely not quicker on a mac , ipad is by far faster and nicer to create audio segments on ST3 that is.
I have a mac studio on an 85" screen but i preffer to edit on my ipad pro 10.5 " as its interface is so easy to segment a song precisely, ST4 is a question mark as the waveform is smaller and its interface still needs polish , yes it looks nice but just because she looks nice does not mean shes good in bed😂

MarkGuitar

AnthonyB I'd say anything that gives you a reason to look at an iPad is not good as it means you aren't engaging the audience and other band members.

100% agree. We (I) only use it as I tend to lead the band and sometimes it happens that I need a quick visual reminder of where we are in the form. We do a lot of jazz and blues so there are some pretty long and repetitive song forms that I need to keep track of. A quick glance at the screen, even from a good distance, and I can tell if my solo is coming up etc.
like you I dont like being attached to the screen any more than is absolutely necessary. We only use this feature on a few songs. The other benefit of the visual cues the waveform offers is that I can usually ditch the IEMs for those songs and enjoy playing in the band sound rather than the in ears. Feels good once in a while. 😁

MarkGuitar

Damir Sorry Mark but its hard for me to understand exactly, so you like the audio segments and you create them, but you dont want the actual buttons on screen as you are happy with the thin Pzza song position indicator that gives you visual feedback to where you are?
Am i close?

Bit closer. Yes to all what you said except the thin pizza line. Much preferred ST3 way of doing it with a waveform that had colors for regions. Or if no region just went blue as the song progresssed.
It’s easy really. Can we have what was in ST3 back pls.
Not the buttons in ST4. If others really like/want/need the buttons, can we have a way to (optionally) hide them. For me they waste screen space and provide a risk to hitting them accidentally and screwing up the song.

Sharonzaz

MarkGuitar t’s easy really. Can we have what was in ST3 back pls.
Not the buttons in ST4. If others really like/want/need the buttons, can we have a way to (optionally) hide them. For me they waste screen space and provide a risk to hitting them accidentally and screwing up the song.

I like the new buttons and the visuals on it as the region moves.

Damir

BUG report!
Peter, go to Fade settings and set OUT to 10 sec, just letting you know what that actually does as it’s been reported before.
When a song plays to end if you have auto play on it will jump to next song 10 seconds before the end of the now playing song it won’t mix out as well if you use the XFade function it won’t fade out it crashes out .

peter

Damir If I mute groups 2 to 4 and leave Igroup 1 unmuted in song 1 then go to song two, visually the groups appear as they should but I can hear the muted groups 2,3, these groups are not muting even though the mutes are highlighted , to mut them I have to unmute them and mute them again , but this is useless because as soon as I go to another song and come back the same problem occurs .

Are you possibly confusing track muting with bus muting? There is a track mute bug that will be fixed in the next update. But bus routing works reliably for me.

Sharonzaz Just on the master. Having the FX on the busses is a great bonus but actually I only l require on the master.

Like I said, at this stage it is crucial but I’ll live without it until you could implement it. 🙏

I have a better idea: I think what actually is needed are mute groups. With mute groups you can route everything you want to a single stereo bus (with processing on the whole bus) while keeping the option to mute certain tracks globally. Am I right?

Sharonzaz That song specifically starts fine. So I’m not sure why.
It works fine in ST3, I’ve checked and rechecked.

Can you send me the song?

Damir When a song plays to end if you have auto play on it will jump to next song 10 seconds before the end of the now playing song it won’t mix out as well if you use the XFade function it won’t fade out it crashes out .

Already reported and will be fixed in next update.

MarkGuitar I have about 300 songs loaded, most do not have audio attached yet. Maybe 20 do. Maybe 50% have a pdf attached. So not a huge amount of data. Checked in Files. The ST4 folder is 11gb. So not that big.

I would consider 11gb rather big. This surely is an issue with the zip library I am using for compression. It a) does not update the progress correctly and b) seems to have an issue compressing such a large backup. I will see, if I can disable compression (does not make any sense with audiofiles anyway). If not, I might have to revert to the old library used in ST3. I moved away from it only because it received no updates for a very long time. But maybe no updates also means that everything is working as it should 😉.

AnthonyB So, all in all, very positive experience. Credit to you @peter for getting the ST4 beta this far, this quickly.

Thanks for this uplifting report. A welcome change after all the bug reports 🙂

And regarding the extended waveform commentary: I get it that a waveform can be useful. I see two possible ways to solve this:

Make the title view a bit taller and show a small waveform instead of the solid bar
Add an option to select what to show in the space currently occupied by audio regions: off, regions, waveform

MarkGuitar

Issue with Full Backup
Version build 1792, iOS 18.6.2, iPad Pro

Thought I would do a backup as I have been adding loads into V4 to test it. Backup starts. Sits at 20% for ages (15 minutes), saying creating archive. The jumps straight to 88% saying compressing backup. Then sits there. Left it overnight. Still sat at 88% next morning.
I have about 300 songs loaded, most do not have audio attached yet. Maybe 20 do. Maybe 50% have a pdf attached. So not a huge amount of data. Checked in Files. The ST4 folder is 11gb. So not that big.
Do you need anything else from me @Peter to check this out?
Thanks. Mark

Sharonzaz

royandreno I use the waveform to play along with the dynamics of a song, breaks and pauses, pianissimo and fortes

I sometimes have someone perform with me, usually female and she may have her own tracks, as a gig I’ve done last weekend. I ask for her tracks and load them on my iPad (easier than using two or more sources of tracks) and I use AI to remove guitars and solos from her songs, not all songs I know well enough and so I use the waveform and show parts of the stems I need to play a solo on. So the waveform is definitely useful and should be kept, at least be able to hide/show as needed.

Same could go for other buttons like the regions etc. could make it show/hide and maybe even movable buttons for some functions, not sure what kind of programming nightmare this could be.

Damir

royandreno i am allowed my opinion just like you are yours , we managed to get ST 2 to a point where people were happy , same with ST3 , now people want to to make ST4 like On song , complicated with no purpose, there was a lot of thought put in to ST3 for people that need lyrics/Chords and some backing now everyone wants unlimited tracks lighting control , midi control it might as well play your instruments for you so you can stay home and pod cast your show from a pre recorded video.
I think its unfair for you to criticise me as i had my fair input on ST3 , now we have a lot of things that need fixing first before anything else you can have your multitrack mixer if it does not function reliably its worth nothing , if the interface is not precisely designed to work for us on stage then all the functions under the sun don't matter , stop knocking negative feedback people have the right to comment on what they see is going pair shape.
Perhaps you can come up with better suggestions instead of knocking people that have spent a lot of time on developing this software.
I am more than happy to say no more regarding ST4 but i will comment at the end when its too late.

AnthonyB

On a positive note, as I'm sure @peter could do with a pick-me-up 🙂

I just gave ST4 Beta build 1792 a stress test at a band rehearsal and it came through nearly perfectly. There was 1 change in the Assign Actions behaviour between ST3 and ST4 that had me scratching my head (I will raise in a separate post) but the core multitrack audio engine, MIDI engine, Network Sessions, lyric sheets, all worked perfectly over a 4 hour rehearsal.

It was only the musical core of the band so I only had 3 clients (iPad 5th Gen, iPad 9th Gen, iPad Pro) connected to the Host iPad.
The 14 songs we were rehearsing were all multitrack, but only 2 x stereo tracks or 2 x stereo tracks + 1 mono track.
All the MIDI event triggering was time-stamped (I think I recall an earlier bug report saying the MIDI events without a timestamp were not being sent?).
I had some local lyric sheets on my iPad and it correctly used the Host-pushed lyric sheet unless it found a matching local one.

I showed the band members the new Audio Regions feature (new, in that ST4 makes them visible on Client devices when using Network Sessions). They love it as a glancable cue in case of complete brain explosion. Unfortauntely more work for me! 🙂

The band members also seemed to accept without issue that rather than seeing the Playlist in left sidebar (as per ST3), they were seeing the Queue, in their Client network session.

So, all in all, very positive experience. Credit to you @peter for getting the ST4 beta this far, this quickly.

MarkGuitar

Sharonzaz I like the new buttons and the visuals on it as the region moves.

I am sure lots of folks here will like the buttons. Just asking for an option to hide them, not remove altogether. We all work differently eh? 😁

Sharonzaz

I think that we must remember at the end this is Peter’s app. We can ask, and this is a rare example of a developer including users this closely and asking for opinions and assistance because he wants out feedback.

There’s no reason to take anything personal. I have many personal requests as well but at the end it is Peter’s discretion. His app. Think where we would be and what we would have, or not have if is wasn’t for ST3.

I’m super excited for the new helix bit can easily carry on for the rest of my gigging life with the OG helix and same goes for ST3 vs 4. I’ll buy it just to support him even if it doesn’t work for me as well as 3.

There’s no need for all this back and forth guys and gals. Be cool.

Say what your experience is, ask what you need of Peter and let him decide, not everything could be a want, maybe some things just can’t be done. Not right now maybe.

and while this isn’t a short post, for Peter’s sake can we all please keep it short and on point…..pls!! I can barely read a 30 word comment imagine 400.
Keep it light for Peter. If you want him working on your requests keep it short he can’t be reading an encyclopedia long post AND do your request.

Peace

royandreno

Sharonzaz well put👍🏻

AnthonyB

peter I will see, if I can disable compression (does not make any sense with audiofiles anyway)

That does depend on what audio file format you are using.
MP3s I would agree. You'll probably only get ₅% compression on average.
WAV files will comfortably give you ₂₀% compression on average and can vary wildly depending on the content.

As someone who was using all WAV files (_9GB) I'd happily take a 20% size reduction on the backup files! 🙂
I can appreciate that any compression library is going to need close to the same amount of free space as the content (give or take) in working space to do it's thing and that could get very unweildy on iPads where space can often be at a premium.

Dare I say it, an optional toggle (off by default) in Backup dialog to enable compression? 😛
But seriously, I have seen similar in other apps. There could be a label with the toggle that says something along the lines of "use compression for potentially smaller backup file, but more free space needed to create backup. It if fails, turn compression off".

If not inappropriate to ask, which zip library are you using? Have you looked at https://7-zip.org/sdk.html (public domain)?

Damir

peter Are you possibly confusing track muting with bus muting? There is a track mute bug that will be fixed in the next update. But bus routing works reliably for me.

No, i was testing the bus mutes to see if they do their job on all other multitrack songs, but i managed to end up with the muted track 2&3 still outputting audio even though the mute buttons were showing they were muted , if i unmuted them then muted them again i got them to work , but initially as i went from one song to another it was not working as expected .
Also the tracks VU metering disappears on occasions i haven't managed to work out how to fail them.
And the audio is still not rock solid , there are still dropouts and delayed nothing as you hit start.
I will report back when i find out more.
I was in a multi track song and went to edit audio segments , the software would not open the editor, whats the logic behind multitrack audio segments creation, is it a choice of which track you use for audio segmenting? I haven't done much multitrack stuff.

MarkGuitar

peter Make the title view a bit taller and show a small waveform instead of the solid bar
Add an option to select what to show in the space currently occupied by audio regions: off, regions, waveform

Oh yes!
Either is great for me. But whichever it is can we have the option to hide the buttons pls?
Thanks @peter

MarkGuitar

peter I would consider 11gb rather big.

Hey @peter
A wee bit worrying that you think my ST data collection is big at 11gb. I currently have about 300 songs loaded, 200 or so are lyrics only. Of the remaining 100, most have only a single stereo file which I am using as a placeholder for duration and a guide whilst practicing. I probably have only about 10 that have multi-tracks. They have typically 8-10 tracks per song. So roughly about 200 audio files and probably about 200 PDFs.
Given that I will be aiming to add multi-tracks to at least another 100 songs (probably more), with on average 10 tracks per song, that data size is going to grow substantially.
My audio files are uncompressed WAV files at 48khz. Each stem is typically about 75Mb.

Maybe the answer is just to do a catalog backup and I will keep my audio files backed up separately. I guess that would make moving from device to device a bit more cumbersome though.

Is there anything I can do for you to work on/check this out without having to clutter up the forum threads?
Thanks 🙏

AnthonyB

Change in Assign Actions (i.e. Remote Actions) behaviour.

I have remote actions setup so that my drummer can use his Roland SPD trigger pads to 'drive' ST, leaving me to just be the safety net.

In ST3, we had the following actions setup with MIDI triggers:

Start/Stop Playback
Next Song
Previous Song
Initiate Crossfade

Those first 3 were key in that they let him:

Start a song
Stop a song (we have Rewind on Stop enabled, so if we have to bail out of a song during count in, he can just hit the Start/Stop trigger to Stop, then hit it again when everyone is ready to go)
If we decide to skip a song in our playlist he can trigger next song (used at least 1-2 times per gig)
If we decide to repeat a song in our playlist, he can go back to it (only used during rehearsals)
The behaviour which we have in ST3 is that he can hit "next Song" trigger to advance to next song in the Playlist and then hit "Start/Stop" trigger to start playback.

What I've noticed in ST4 is that the behaviour of 'Next Song' and 'Previous Song' has changed.
It no longer 'selects' the next/previous song. It is as though you are just moving a 'cursor' up/down, but then you have to use an additional new trigger 'Trigger Selected Song' to 'select' the song?
Have I got that correct? Or does Trigger also Start the song (sorry, I didn't get a chance to test this)?

If that is correct, I'm curious why the behaviour has changed and the additional 'step' introduced? Was there a scenario that the ST3 behaviour didn't cater for that drove this change?

Lishy

AnthonyB Hi Anthony, I noticed this early on too. I think if you literally want to select and load up the next song in your list then the assigned action needs to go in ‘next song in queue.’
The previous song and next song actions seem to apply to being able to scroll through your set without loading the song up so to speak.
I’m not sure if the action names need to be swapped or if the wording needs to be changed to highlight or scroll next song so it’s a little clearer.

royandreno

Damir now people want to to make ST4 like On song , complicated with no purpose, there was a lot of thought put in to ST3 for people that need lyrics/Chords and some backing now everyone wants unlimited tracks lighting control , midi control it might as well play your instruments for you so you can stay home and pod cast your show from a pre recorded video.
I think its unfair for you to criticise me as i had my fair input on ST3 , now we have a lot of things that need fixing first before anything else you can have your multitrack mixer if it does not function reliably its worth nothing , if the interface is not precisely designed to work for us on stage then all the functions under the sun don't matter , stop knocking negative feedback people have the right to comment on what they see is going pair shape.

I agree with all this. Just don’t get hung up in that some of us want the waveform back. It is in fact something that is performance related.
I couldn’t care less about midi, mixer, plug ins and a few other niceties either. I did that for 20 years with a Canadian windows program called OnStage Performer. I was a heavy Beta tester for them, and it became great. However, with Vista, they gave up, and for all those 20 years I used an XP laptop with midi controlling harmony and lights. Never again.
I gig every weekend all year, and then some. Not all ST3, but with a couple of bands as well. The ST3 is just amazingly reliable. And all I need is already in ST3. Let’s see what magic Peter the Genius comes up with, I hope he brings back an optional waveform solution like in the ST3.

Have a nice day.

« Previous Page Next Page »