Here are some ideas i have put forward to Peter
ST3 has the potential to be the most flexible and simple program for all different reguirements a musician or just an ordinary home user needs and wants.
Imagine just using it for Lyrics storage and easy on stage lyric presentation without backing tracks, as a lot of artists perform live without backing this program would be a dream to use for that as it is simple easy to operate on stage the only issue is it has not been thought of in that way and it has some minor tweaking to make it shine.
It needs a selection for this mode of operation and a way to easily select the length of time the lyrics are to scroll through without having to laboriously load a blank song of a particular length every time, it needs to have a selectable time frame for a particular text file and the ability to then time stamp the lyrics if needed.
Chose the lyric like a song hit play as you start your totaly live song as you have rehearsed this you have time stamped the lyrics and they are scrolling and if you go out of sync slightly you can foot control to step upor down through time stams to adjust or just pause if needed, everything is there for you virtually as it is already, and very simply presented, much better than the overcomplicated ONSONG program.

As some musicians just want a drum backing this program has got an incredible potential to be a drummer, as is you can just program the whole song drums and add lyrics to the track and just hit play and your off, but for those that want the freedom to perform in any way they want imagine having separate drum paterns programed in loop sections and available with a touch of a foot pedal and remote control of all sections you can have drum backing do exactly what you want , name the songs colums as drum styles if you want to keep it simple that way you might use the same style for a number of different songs.
This program has the potential to be the first of its kind something no one has yet done

For those that want the freedom of manipulating the song order, loops would allow you to jump around your song makeing it longer or shorter remaining on the chorus line if the croud is in to it, and so on,

I know this is asking a lot, perhaps have a different versions of ST3
Basic gives you what you get now
Loop version you pay extra for unlocking those features
Text version you pay extra

And all to be simly selectable to which way you want to run, that way your interface is kept simple and just the way you want to operate.

What do you guys think?

Hi Damir in reply to your suggestions. I’ve been using STAGETRAXX at gigs for many years now for playing and managing backing tracks and I must say it has been excellent - it’s never let me down. However I do like to include in my sets a small number of acoustic songs where I just use the guitar for accompaniment but still like to have the lyrics in front of me. Unfortunately I don’t find STAGETRAXX ideal for this situation and use another app called UnrealBook which allows PDF sheets to be loaded (and marked up if needed) and allows page turning by a simple tap on screen- no foot pedals required. I would dearly love STAGETRAXX to be able to do these latter functions.

With regards to STAGETRAXX being able to perform as a drum machine with looping etc I’m not sure if I’d use this myself- but who knows if the function was available I might! Currently I use a beat buddy pedal that is pretty cool for drums accompaniment. Richard

    Thanks for these suggestions Damir.

    Some notes:

    Autoscrolling lyrics for placeholders

    My opinion so far is that storage space is cheap. Even the lowest grade iPad comes with 32GB which is plenty for song playback purposes. Why don't you want to use a recording or the original track instead of a placeholder and turn down song volume to -inf? That way you could even use the track to properly timestamp lyrics. How else would you get the timestamps right if there is no reference track.

    Drum Machine

    I am a firm believer in the Unix principle where you have very powerful but also focused tools that do exactly one thing well. I don't believe in an Outlook type approach where you have an app that can do lots of things but only mediocre.

    So I want Stage Traxx to be the best backing tracks app there is. But playing Drum Patterns does definitely not fit in the focus. If you have a drum track as an backing track, sure, that's the focus of Stage Traxx. But not an arranger type drum pattern playback app.

    That being said: Looping functionality on the other hand is something that fits into the backing tracks focus. Being able to play 2 choruses instead of 1 if you feel like it is something that would be great.

    DickyDutch I agree, feature requests for PDF support are increasing and this is definitely something I would like to add myself. Because I usually work with leadsheets and not text based lyrics. I have some big feature requests on the plate for version 3.5 and I can't implement all of them. I guess I will start a poll once version 3.4 is released to see which one should make it into version 3.5 and pdf support will definitely be one of the candidates.

        I would like to see an autoscroll feature of some sort for use with unaccompanied solo work or practice.. I can't say if it is a difficult request or not, just talking about the concept. It would be nice to load in a PDF or text/Word based file of a song, assign an overall elapsed time (say 2 min. or 2.5 min. etc.), and hit go. Basically, I am not very proficient at editing/timestamping and this would save me some fumbling around and spending a lot of time on it. I think ST is great - this would make it even more usable for me. Thanks for a terrific product Peter!

        What I was attempting to do at one point, was to find a metronome that sounded like someone tapping their foot (ala Paul M on Blackbird) and then I could record that tempo/beat for as long as I needed to use as a timestamp recording. But it is impossible to find a metronome/beat machine that has that sound. Most of them are very intrusive/harsh sounding. So my second wish is to have a scrolling feature. 😀

          DickyDutch I am so glad you understood what i was suggesting as i know exactly how you feel about ST3 we all love it but we all feel with a bit of thought it could do so much more that is needed.
          The idea of it being able to load in a text file and attach a length of time at a standard 120 tempo to it would be ideal and super fast,
          Imagine this.
          Simply load all your song text files in to ST3 folder.
          Go in to SONG and all text files are present just like songs, you pick one it opens in lyrics view , enter the editor where there is a length of time setting so you just make a time setting you want the song to go for like 3min and presto you are done it will automatically scroll through the song.
          Done and dusted
          Another option, synced lyrics.
          you pick up the guitar and have a foot pedal so you can enter timecode by foot, start performing with your guitar as your normally would as the intro finishes you just hit foot pedal to enter the first time code to sync the first line of your lyrics and you do this to the end of the song.
          You are done, so next time you perform all you do is hit start as you begin the first lyric line the rest will just automatically highlight the lines you previously time stamped
          And to speed up the scroll just increase you tempo to slow down the scroll slow down the tempo.

          It would definitely be the simplest program to use with great on stage results, existing users of ST3 would not notice any difference , no need to involve other complicated software, it just makes perfect sense.

          Re Drum machine- i am not suggesting to have a dum machine type of interface, i am just saying if you could load in a pre recorded drum song that had all your song elements in it, then segment that audio file in to loop type pieces and ability to jump around these pieces of loops with a foot pedal would be a very simple method of having a drummer backing that would be flexible to create any song in that drum style.
          Example, load in a Drum song , it only consists of drums but is exactly like a normal audio backing track, the only difference would be you could program an - into, verse, bridge, chorus, solo, bridge 2, verse 2, bridge3, chorus 2, Ending.
          You would have full control of the drummer in a simple operating method, as you jump around these loops as needed, imagine how simple it would be to create this powerful feature as you could use this same drums for many different songs , you could copy the song change the tempo and call it another song, or just hit play and in real time decrease the tempo to suit your current song, and if you want you could attach lyrics to the different loops so if you jump from bridge 3 to verse 1 you immediately get the correct lyrics, it would be so easy to be very flexible in performance.
          This same principle to be available in normal backing tracks as there is no difference in the principle its just up to you what you choose to use as backing.
          You could record piano only and use that as your bed, the possabilyties are endless.

          peter

              fianoman fianoman heres just a suggestion why dont you just record your own foot tap , find a surface to tap your foot on that is pleasing to you, record it, in the daw just cut out the four taps you like and from then on just select the tempo, i suggest 120 bpm then you place the four samples on the first bar , copy and paste the length of time you want. I would suggest 10 minutes.The reason is you can then use this click for most of your songs.
              In ST3 You can just copy and paste this file and rename it to the song name you want, you then have 10 minutes of it but if you want 3 minutes just use the song edit mode and reduce the end time, if you want it faster just increase the tempo and if you want you can change the pitch and some tonal control to make it stand out less or more, you can create the same process in 3/4 time etc .
              From then on all you do to create a new song file is just copy and paste the template in ST3 then rename it to the name of the song you are working on then just tailor the tempo and length this will be remembered for every song just import the lyrics to the file and you are set.
              Some work to get it setup and hardly any work afterwards.
              You can totally mute the taps afterward if you dont want any audio and use visual cues on your device i sometimes use this method to know when exactly the lyrics will start example

              [ time stamp]Chorus line synced Lyrics
              [ time stamp]nnnnnnnnnnnnn
              [ time stamp] Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
              [ time stamp] Solo
              [ time stamp] 1
              [ time stamp] 2
              [ time stamp] 3
              [ time stamp] 4
              [ time stamp] 1
              [ time stamp] 2
              [ time stamp] 3
              [ time stamp] 4
              [ time stamp] Verse line synced lyrics nnnnnnnnnnnn
              [ time stamp] Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

              You can do so much to make it easy for yourself you just need to use your imagination.

                  Damir Funny you should mention that method. I already cut up some foot taps and pasted them into a 4/4 and a 3/4 so far. Not the cleanest work I have ever done but useable for a first attempt. Thanks for sharing the tips.

                    I've been using ST for quite a while now for my solo piano gigs. I've a huge song list. But no drum patterns. I've been thinking of just recording a few bread and butter drum loops at 4 or 5 minutes each. Swing , Latin, Shuffle, Straight beat. One fast and one slow each. Use fade out for stopping. Just a work around I'm sharing. Looking forward to PDF support. Love this app.

                    @"mididiot"#p4591Thats exactly what i was suggesting by having some looping capability where you can segment audio sections and jump between them similar what keyboards have with midi but in audio where you can have your intro, verse, chorus, solo, bridge, ending, so then have these available on a 6 ch pedal and be able to jump around these loops you have Tempo now which works perfectly on a foot pedal all you do is play to start your intro drummer and next pattern to be in loop untill you hit the next button to get you further in to the song you could have a 32 bar pattern recorded so it is not manotonous and just hit End to finish a perfect drummer as accompaniment
                    And on the inerface once the song starts you can use the waveform area to finger jump to any section with the waveform beeing still seen behind the buttons.
                    Others could use this the other way around record all their backing without the instrument they play and presto a drummer could use it for his backing yet have full control to where he goes in the song mind you hel need to have a different remote controll perhaps a midi drum pads that trigger different loops this is actually very possible as well.
                    The mind just bogles with all the potential uses.
                    I think a minimum of 6 loop sections up to 10 at the maximum as your buttons would be too small to hit.
                    I would even make it a single hit on any existing loop gives it a fill and starts the same loop again or jumps to the next if you have chosen it.
                    All done with one audio file segmented in to loops.
                    Same file could be used for other songs with different tempos and saved under the actual songs name. So a few decent drum song files in different style could be used on ST3 to cater for all your needs.
                    Just a thought.
                    Cheers Damir

                    10 days later

                    Just for my input.

                    I’ve been using stage Traxx since very early version 2 and have been a beta tester since the earliest pre release tests of v3.0. Many of the features have came directly from my input as I’ve also seen Peter respond directly to others inputs too. It is my main tool for my income as a full time performer.

                    Whilst I see some excellent ideas being made above, many which will take ST into a different realm I also worry that the program can be taken away from the core services it has provided since it’s inception.

                    It is now amazingly complex and well featured compared to that program I first used many years ago.

                    But I do wonder if there would need to be an alternate program to ST to accommodate some of the changes such as drum tracks and looping.

                    Alternately, if these were to be developed could they be as a Stage Traxx “plug in” module which could be developed independently of the core program? This would mean that bugs and controls on the plug in would not affect the core program. They are all very good ideas but I worry about the complication and the integrity of the core product.

                    It is a fine line between added value features and a change in core direction.

                      There are functions that have no big implications on other areas of the app but unfortunately anything related to audio is not one of them. That's also the reason for this extended beta. The audio engine had to undergo big changes to enable multitrack playback and as you can see in the beta thread this did break some of the existing functionality. But I think the code structure I have is quite well designed and currently I don't see anything that would make further development overcomplicated like it was the case in version 2 of the app.

                      So I am confident that new versions will be as stable as you are expecting of Stage Traxx.

                      But you are right that the app is becoming a bit complex. So I think there will be a point coming where I consider the app as being feature complete. In the current development speed I have this point might come with version 3.7.

                      Here is my current roadmap (not fixed yet and can change):

                      3.5 PDF Support
                      3.6 and 3.7 will most likely be the proposed looping and automatic synchronisation of all your devices. i think it will be in that order because the synchronisation needs iOS13 and I want to drop iOS11 support as late as possible.

                      Beejaywh I totally agree with you as far as keeping the program simple and very stable, but times are a changing and new methods of performing are coming so i feel as though it is not changing direction it is actually getting to the point that nobody has reached yet, Looping of sections of songs is something that has not been done yet successfully in software like ST3 I do agree it might be great to be able to buy this as an add on once it is developed to work effectively.
                      Midi has had this on keyboards for years but audio files have just recently got pitch and tempo to work reasonably well, but segmenting songs and manipulation of order has been left behind yet it is a very powerful tool and could be used in so many different ways to entertain people more professionally.
                      There is software out there that does this looping but it is not stage friendly for solo performers that also play an instrument.
                      ST3 is the only software I know that delivers all 3 things that are most needed Backing,lyrics,chords, sure it needs some tweaking but it is almost there.
                      Once it gets there looping feature is the only thing that will set it apart and place it in the forefront of all other competitors.
                      If someone knows of software that does this please let me know cause I’ve been looking for it for years now.
                      The reason I have not pushed for this earlier was because ST2 was in its infancy and technology did not allow it to grow quickly.
                      Now technically things are a lot more possible but it seems it’s the limitation of creative ideas that seem to be holding us back.

                        Beejaywh Just to clarify what I meant by drum machine tracks.
                        They are just the same as audio backing tracks it’s the looping capability that would give you option to create a very easy to use drum machine if needed LOOPING gives you a lot of power to operate in so many different ways.

                        Another feature would be creating a medley song and being able to jump around in the medley.

                        Segmenting a song so you can manipulate it on the run.
                        Etc.

                            Hi Damir,

                            Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not criticising any of the ideas. Quite the opposite in fact. This software wouldn’t be half as effective without those ideas and suggestions and Peter’s ability to put them into practice. Plus Peters support has been awesome all the way through.

                            But I have a colleague, a great solo musician but something of a technophobe who is using ST3 but almost going into panic attacks, especially on stage, at his fear of its ‘perceived’ highly technical nature and what he might ‘do wrong’ (a typical response from non IT savvy people). I worry that other users or potential users may suffer from this too.

                            As for me, I tend to look on each feature with a big smile and work out how I can use them to improve my act.

                            So as I say, please do not take my comments as criticism, more as observations by a very interested party.

                            Best wishes
                            Brian

                              Damir I must admit, one feature I used often when I was using DJ software on my PC for playing backing was the ability to use a loop of so many bars to extend intros on tracks. The software would pick up the beats and by hitting a start of a predetermined number of bars it would loop until I told it to stop.

                              I used to use a backing for Tainted Love by Soft Cell and use it to extend the intro out for another 12 or even 24 bars so that I could introduce the band, and do all sorts of other on stage announcements before hitting the end loop button which then allowed it to play. So yes, I can see great value in that as to do that now I would have to create a pre made track and upload it as an alternate version.

                                  Beejaywh totally agree with you Brian and understand your colleaques fears thats why i allways say the best software is the simplest to use for the purpose it was designed yet flexible enough to please everyone and that sort of software requires a very smart programmer thats why the app store is full of rubbish. ST2 was most popular it had one main screen and everything else was working towards making that one screen do the job for you unfortunately it did not have the flexability to let the designer do what he wanted to do.
                                  The fact Queu was thrown in to ST3 complicated things but by hiding it as an option really helps as it still allows you to operate in a different way but it is something you can introduce later once you are counfortable with the original conceipt, That i dont mind, so once we are all happy with how ST3 delivers its Backing,Lyrics,chords, my suggestion is LOOPING and for it to be another option like Queu select it if you want it even better pay for it extra call it a PRO version and make it an option to enable.
                                  That is going to shoot ST3 years ahead of all the standard half baked crap thats available now, no one has catered for the on stage musician that plays an instrument or three and sings, now days people regard if you cant do those things youre not a real musician your just a singer, drummer or a guitarist you need to be multi skilled to be called a musician.
                                  I can definitely operate using either versions of ST even with all their inperfections because the conceipt works the software has a definite purpose but i am also a perfectionist and i see things way beyond my nose and thats why i am putting in so much effort to help ST3 and because Peter deserves to be well rewarded for making our lives so much easier.
                                  Cheers Damir

                                    Beejaywh i have got some great ideas on how the looping should operate to make it an absolute joy on stage, you have just pointed out another one i am sure every person using ST3 could think of a number of uses for themselves but the issue is how to get it implemented so it works very easily and simply but it doesnt change the main conceipt of ST3 and Peter is heavily involved with getting ST3.4 Rock Solid so i suppose we just have to be patient , but perhaps put some thought in to it now so later Peter can see what is doable, i have really big ideas on the Looping but am not sure if creating it is possible due to software limitations i dont really know what tools Peter has got to create things, but so far i am very surprised how much he has achieved, i love Tempo change, and pitch change on individual songs so now theres one thing left and that is to be able to simply jump around a song and possibly be able to create medleys on the run seamlesly, and have flexible drum backing and so on but this to be all done using Looping technology.

                                      I'm with @peter on this one. I too don't want it to become the mediocre bloatware that Outlook is.

                                      3.6 and 3.7 will most likely be the proposed looping and automatic synchronisation of all your devices.

                                      looping can be a huge feature, for example being able to do another chorus for sure and i'd like
                                      to add a request please in this same idea space:

                                      if you are going to add looping and as i understand it, similar to some DJ software that
                                      allows you to pick in the middle of playback an IN and OUT points and when you click a botton
                                      it will jump back to the IN point, is there a way to also:

                                      implement a DIM botton that for instance allow me to drop the overall level (on the main output only - and keep the click going strong on the AUX output) so i can get for instance the crowd singing along while the DIM is ON?
                                      so to say, drop the level but just enough to make it sound like "the band" is playing a lot softer to allow
                                      the crowd to song along? 🙂 i'd love that option, thanks

                                      Ok so I sitting and thinking about some ideas regarding all the new features for 3.4 and looking at song file sizes and I realize the drawback to multitrack songs is size. And even if you export your multitracks to a lesser bit rate than 320 you’re still sitting with quite a bit.

                                      So I’m thinking and chatting to a friend and then it hit us.

                                      Network control!

                                      With ST3 running on a mac the storage limitation is nearly completely removed as an issue.

                                      So what about running the app on a mac or even one iPad with lots of storage and allowing a single other iPad to control the playback aspect of the app?
                                      Song selection in the playlist, volume up/down and things like that?

                                      Also, important is the ability to perhaps change to location of the storage on the mac, as fir this idea I have a MacBook Air with only 256 storage but with an external usb I can add any size storage I want.

                                      Is that something that could be done ??