Open Beta Version 3.4.0

DickyDutch

Damir I keep getting the same when I’m in the beta app but not when I go into the live app

peter

Damir I need to know what file format do i need to save to for ST3 to then load it correctly?

It's up to you. Any filefomat that works for stereo files can be used in multitrack files.

Damir How does ST3 then spit out the audio?

If you only have a stereo output all tracks are summed to stereo. If you have more outputs available, you can route tracks to a main out or aux out and select distinct outputs for aux and main.

Damir Is it through a usb connection from the ipad to the XAir18, which channels of the XAir will it appear on as default?

Yes and default is channel 1/2 for main and 3/4 for aux but you can change that once the interface is connected and this setting is remembered.

Damir Can i not use the XAir mixer and have the 6 tracks mixed down to the stereo bus of the Ipad?

Yes you can.

Damir Is there a block diagram of how this new system works so i can choose my method of operation?

Not yet. I will start documentation once there are no more changes to the beta.

Damir

Text songs issue seems to have disappeared in beta now but it’s still in current ST3, but I swear I tried it on both and had the same issue I must be going nuts.
Ok beta text songs suggestions to make it stage friendly ,
X fade button works a treat I have usefully used it a number of times and it works great, what I would like is to be able to use the X fade from normal backing track to the text track in other words I want to fade out to the text file from the now playing song, I know the text song has no audio but is there a way to make this work and then I would like to be able to x fade back from text in to a normal song in other words x fade be comes fade out and show text and leave text fade in to song. But stay as x fade between two normal backing tracks.
This would be very useful especially when crash leaving a backing track to fully live performance with text.
Also can the two volume buttons become skip a page up and down in lyrics instead of being useless buttons while in text only mode also the volume slider to become a text position slider so if you have a guide of where you are in the text file and you can use it to slide to a text position instead of it being a useless peace of valuable realestate .
If somehow you could have a permanent file that can give your text a time duration so the auto scroll can also work on text files would be perfect, but if you don’t want the auto feature just leave the time setting on zero.
This sort of features would make ST3 not just a backing tracks app but a very powerful tool for lyrics storage as well.
Text songs should definitely have their own colour for easy recognition.
Placeholder should be Textholder, place means nothing to me Text does, that’s probably why I never discovered this great potential feature which needs to be presented in a way people will want to buy the app just because of it as it’s the way they perform and ST3 just gives them a simple yet powerful way to get just what they want.

peter

Damir, hold on. I really have to stop you here. You are proposing new feature after new feature. If this goes on for a couple of more days, I will finish the beta sometime in winter, if ever 😉. So please concentrate on really essential stuff and reporting bugs.

Nothing in version 3.4 has been changed in regards to Placeholders. This is a functionality that has been mostly untouched since version 3.0. I will not start working on changes for placeholders now. A beta version means that the features are mostly complete. If there are some additions like solo button for multitracks that are directly related to the features introduced in version 3.4, they will make it into this release. Anything placeholder related will not make it.

Damir

peter i understand peter please dont take everything i comment on as a must have i write things to you as i come across them or i feel it could be better sometimes you can totaly ignore them other times they might need immediate attention and some ideas are worth noteing for later, its all good.
The reason i am so iterested in placeholders is because i am looking for a way to store all my lyrics with chords and so far i havent found software that i like, ST3 is perfect for this as it works the way i like and is available on all my devices, but it has minor issues which i think in time you will probably fix.

I have started on multitrack feature and am working it out now so shortly i will see what it will do for me as you know i have songs with and without a drummer, and it would be nice to have bass and rhytm seperated as well.I have thought about this feature and have come up with some points to raise regarding stereo and mono, i definitely think that multitrack is going to be good for some users but i also think a larger number of simple users wont use it as it will take a lot of knowhow in the daw process and it looks as thow each track will have to be imported separately which will take a bit of effort then you will have to sacrifice the stereo imaging on the drums and any stereo instruments like organs with leslie effects, unless you use two tracks for every instrument then when all your tracks are entered for all your songs you need something like an xair mixer to bring it all out and a sound engineer to controll , for top professionals this would definitely work but for me i could possibly use it as long as i can mix down the six tracks to the stereo op of the ipad, so i could easily disable the instrument i dont need, that would work , but i can do that easily on the daw, just create two or three mixes of the same song this would take 5 minutes save them to ST3 folder enter lyrics and time stamp them in one song copy and paste to all other versions and presto i have same versatility of multitracking with full stereo imaging of all stereo instruments with tempo and pitch capability as well using the filter facility to easily create playlists.
I will give it a good try and see if it is worth the possible extra sound quality and tweekability.
Cheers

peter

Damir but i also think a larger number of simple users wont use it as it will take a lot of knowhow in the daw process

I use the backing tracks from karaoke-version.com. They have so called individual playbacks where you can export stereo stems of anything you like. Very handy and very easy to use. No need for a DAW at all.

Damir you will have to sacrifice the stereo imaging on the drums and any stereo instruments like organs with leslie effects, unless you use two tracks for every instrument

No, each track in Stage Traxx can load mono or stereo files. So no issues with stereo imaging and you can load 6 stereo tracks.

Damir then when all your tracks are entered for all your songs you need something like an xair mixer to bring it all out and a sound engineer to controll

Again, not necessary. You can set volume, pan and eq for each track in Stage Traxx and downmix to stereo within the app. No need for external mixing.

Damir i have same versatility of multitracking with full stereo imaging of all stereo instruments with tempo and pitch capability as well using the filter facility to easily create playlists.

Except tempo and pitch you can do everything with the multitracks also. But you don't need to. I got lots of requests for this feature so there certainly are many users out there that want to use it 🙂

Damir

Hi Peter, after a lot of fiddling i have finally figured out the place holder logic of operation, and the reason why i thought the software had a glitch, in fact i still think it has a logic problem but now i know how you made it to work.
If you choose a place holder song the next song is immediately underneath and you get a grey play button your lyrics are immediately shown and thats fine but unles you now double tap on the placeholder song again to activate it you will not be able to choose the next song otherwise you will loose your lyrics that you have just started singing to.
This makes it absolutely dangerous as the play button is grey as you first select the song and then remains exactly the same if you doule tap the song to egage it so that you can then chose the next song safely without loosing the now playing song.
The best and safest thing to do would be to make sure the play button is the normal play green colour and when you hit play or double tap it then goes grey indicating it is now displaying the lyrics and it is safe to look for another song, and when you hit the stop button you have finished with the lyrics and want the next song in ready to hit start again.
Thats why sometimes i was able to chose the next song as normal because the actual place holder was ingaged and othertimes i was not able to choose the next song because the placeholder was not egaged but i couldnt tell as in both cases the play button looks the same.
Phewwwww i hope that makes sense
So the fix is dont let the playbutton change when you just select a playholder file it should change when you hit play or double tap the placeholder song.
Cheers Damir
Just now i think if you keep the playbutton behave exactly the same and same colours in backing songs and placeholders it would be more beneficial i personally feel safe when i see the big red stop button i know i am safe to touch anything and i wont loose whats going on at the moment, that includes choosing the next song in placeholders and once youre done with your freestyle performance you just hit the big red button and your next song is there.

peter

Hm, double tap on a placeholder seems to be seriously broken in 3.4. I did that and it crashed the app. I even can't open the app any more!

A double tap on a placeholder should do nothing at all. In version 3.3 if I double tap on a placeholder, nothing happens. Now when I select another song, that song becomes the active song. That's it is supposed to be in that version.

Damir

peter i havent experianced any crashes, i just have been confused by the logic of operation.
I dont like how you select a placeholder and the play button changes to grey giving you no clue that it is not active yet, so if you start your fully live performance and you are half way through then you start you search for next song you a screwed as you willl lose your lyrics because you have not activated the placeholder.
It is simple, just dont allow place holders to change the play button as you are browsing just like normal songs behave, then if you decide to use the placeholder you reguire to hit play or double tap before you start your performance just like normal song, and the play button goes RED just like normal song mode this then is not confusing as your way of operation creates confusion you just dont know and cant workout in which mode you are in.
This then would be simpler as the look and behaviour of the interface does not change at all.
The thing to keep in mind just dont treat the place holders any different to songs the only difference is you can perform as long as you like as there is no ending untill you hit the BIG RED BUTTON, which is a confoutable feeling.
Whats not counfortable is not knowing if you can or can't choose your next songs as you dont have a clue if the now selected placeholder is active.
I would definitely get rid of the grey colour as the stop button and just keep it RED as normal to simplify the operation and avoid confusion.
If posible i would make the placeholder songs colour different so it would be easier to create playlists but from then on treat them the same as normal songs.
The fact they have no audio and work slightly different should not make any difference to the performer, we just want thing to work smoothly.

As i said i have not had any crashes on my ipad with placeholder manipulation and i have bashed it around a lot to work out this little but very dangerous bug, so hopefully it will be easy to rectify.
Good luck

Damir

Hi Peter, i have found that if you touch the waveform while the song is playing you can interrupt its playing and move to a different song position, this is very bad as before you could not interrupt audio unless you touched Stop button or foot control Stop button.If its a new feature can it be an option in the settings for those that like mud in their face.

peter

Damir Hi Peter, i have found that if you touch the waveform while the song is playing you can interrupt its playing and move to a different song position, this is very bad as before you could not interrupt audio unless you touched Stop button

This behaviour is configurable. Go to Settings -> Playback Settings and disable Allow Seek during Playback. The default is off so you have enabled it yourself at some point.

Damir First impression is i cant get to the selector switching to mute or unmute tracks it would be great to be able to switch between different combinations of instruments on the run.

It doesn't work for you? If I turn off a track I don't hear it.

Damir I managed to crash the software loading a file in to the first track it was a drums only track that resided in the ST3 folder

I should be able to see the crashlog in Testflight. I will take a look at this.

Damir I still cant make up my mind if the extra effort of multitrack is worth the effort but definitely like the extra sound control over the backing track.

It depends on the way you work. It would at least save you from making lyrics changes multiple times if you use different prerendered versions instead of multitracks.

For anyone that needs a clicktrack, this feature is a must if you don't want to be limited to mono output.

Damir

Peter i have sucessfully loaded the multitrack feature and managed to get audio out to the stereo out , i pushed everything to its limits and have not managed to distort the sound, i saved the separate tracks as wav 24 bit audio files, it certainly gives you great control of tone on each track , and i believe each track is stereo so you dont need multiple tracks to maintain stereo imaging, basically you have six stereo paths that mix down to stereo , i dont know why the audio levels drop significantly when you chose combine USB to headphone output switch, but so far so good.
First impression is i cant get to the selector switching to mute or unmute tracks it would be great to be able to switch between different combinations of instruments on the run.
I managed to crash the software loading a file in to the first track it was a drums only track that resided in the ST3 folder, but when i restarted the program and went through the same load process it worked ok. I believe i had the previous file loaded in track 1 and i was trying to load a new file in to it, but after the crash track 1 was empty and then the new file loaded ok.
I still cant make up my mind if the extra effort of multitrack is worth the effort but definitely like the extra sound control over the backing track.

Damir

peter thanks Peter waveform feature is actually handy when practacing and prepping and to be able to disable it for gigs is great its a win win, i didnt realise it existed.

Multi track muting feedback was to say yes it is good but you cant get to it quickly, its so nifty i feel like i could use it live to bring instruments in and out to give a performance huge variations, but i know its ment to be set and forget type of a feature so i will just keep testing it,

My first thought as i was trying the multitrack feature , i found i was struggling to know where i have to go to do various things like importing files controling muting and output, and then tweaking the eq it all seemed hard to get to and all over the place.

Suggestion
Once you create a multi track song or even a placeholder song, when it is saved in to SONG folder it should automatically be selected for you in the middle of the screen so you can proceed with it, otherwise you have to search for it, and the logic is if youve created it you obviously want to continue doing other things to it so why not keep it on screen for you to just keep on working.

Damir

Damir hi Peter here is my opinion of the label ALLOW SEEK DURING PLAYBACK ,
I would have understod that better if it was
WAVEFORM SEEK DURING PLAYBACK ,
Reason
ALLOW tells me nothing about what this feature actually does it just tells me i can switch it on but i allready know this as there is a switch next to it so it sourt of tells me to suck eggs but it really doasnt explain to what im actually switching, by changing it to WAVEFORM it straight away prompts me to think of what im actually affecting so i possibly would not have needed to think the sofware had a glitch while it actually had a nifty switch that changed its way of operation, which i think is a great thing as a lot of people that use it off stage would love to manipulate the song position quickly while in play for many different reasons, but can make it very safe to operate while performing.
Well done.

DickyDutch

Hi Peter have had a couple of crashes now (logs sent to you) with regards to multi track songs. Once an audio file has been selected for a particular track it doesn’t like you changing to a different one (say if you made a mistake).

peter

DickyDutch Yes, Damir already reported that and I have it already fixed but I will add some more changes over the weekend before publishing a new version on Sunday.

In the meantime you can work around this problem by first deleting the track (swipe left) and then loading a new file.

DickyDutch

peter ok thanks

Damir

My thoughts on ST3 from a fist time buyer perspective who has music iterests and needs and is considering this software.
What are the basic needs and concearns of musicians

BACKING TRACKS yes this program delivers perfectly but when you load it definitely does not impress as it does not display its power immediately as it should as it hasnt got any songs in it you have to blindly load stuff in and this is negative if you want to impress the buyer cosidering it, Peter has explained to me Apple wont allow him to load songs in as demos perhaps they might allow silence to be present in a file that can have text written to it explaining the product or a simple message of Thank you for considdering ST3 message just so the customer has something to bite in to immediately and try out before doing his own thing.

LYRICS and CHORDS in other words TEXT
This program hides this very important feature very well because of its lableing it is called PLACEHOLDER that means nothing in the outside world nobody i know talks about placeholders but they all talk about LYRICS and CHORDS.
So from a potential buyers point of view they open up ST3 and have no immediate knowledge this software is very capable of taking care of their LYRICS and CHORDS needs.
My suggestion is change the placeholder terminology to LYRICSFILE.
This is more specific and to the point, a placeholder means to me a place where i can hold video files, jpeg files etc all things i am not iterested in.
As a musician and i am only interested in musicians things like backing songs, lyrics and chords so the labeling of these features need to be clear and simple.
When using the + in Song mode you get a drop down menu and four options to a new commer it most likely means nothing and would be very cnfusing.
Why
What is the difference between Media Library and Files.
If you hit Media Library you get Itunes library and no other option so why not call this first option Itunes library.
If you hit Files you get a wide range of options of places to load a song from so why not just say
THIS DEVICE, so when you get this drop down folder you read its top instruction
ADD SONGS
then you read your options
FROM ITUNES
FROM DEVICE
CREATE A NEW MULTI TRACK SONG
CREATE A NEW LYRICS FILE

The first three options are backing tracks and the last is a tex file so it all has a smooth flow

now you have
Add songs media library this is bad.
Add songs from itunes library Much better

Add songs file This is bad
Add songs from device Much better

Add songs create placeholder ???
Add songs create new lyrics song Much better

Add Songs create multi track song Is good.

peter

Damir You are right. Naming in this menu can be improved.

But I don't agree with "iTunes" and "Device". The first because Apple no longer uses that term. The official term is "Media & Apple Music" but you can't import from Apple Music due to copy protection. So I think "iTunes Music Library" is a good compromise. Although I'm not sure this will be accepted in the app review but I can try.

"Device" does not fit because you can also import from the cloud and not only from files on your device.

So what I will do is the following:

Media Library -> From iTunes Music Library
Files -> From Local & Cloud Files
Create Placeholder -> Create Lyrics Only Song

Damir

peter perfect it makes much more sense then before and i was using my terminology as an exaple as i dont have as much knowledge as you of whats possible, i love it thank you, and the position and colour change is great, as its not a great change in contrast.
Well done.

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