2.0.14 Playback

[Duke]

Addition of spaceber for playback is very good however....

If you select a part of the waveform and have loop at end also checked it works fine however it should take priority over the playback buttons OR the playback buttons should function the same as the spacebar. Currently they do not.

Example:

1. Set Play Range to Selection and Play to Loop at End
2. Now select a portion of the waveform
3. Using the spacebar, play the selected area of the waveform.
4. Now select a range on the grid and hit the spaceber.
5. Grid selection gets cleared and there is no change in the playback range.
6. Now select a range on the grid while the waveform range is still selected and hit the playback arrow.
7. The selected grid range plays back and loops
8. Press the spaceber to stop playback.
9. Click on the arrow to Start playback again and it loops on a single cell.

I thought the program locked up and was stuck. Had me ROTFLMAO cause it sounded funny!

[bob]

Hi Duke,

I'm not sure if I'm following you entirely, but:

The spacebar doesn't affect the setting that you chose in the Play menu at all. Hitting the Play toolbar button always uses the setting that you chose in the Play menu (as does selecting "Play" from the Play menu).

[Duke]

Bob,

Try the steps as I have outlined and I think you'll find where it can cause some confusion and unwanted or unexpected results.

I would think that if one were to select a range on the waveform then that range would take priority over any other selection method (cells) until the waveform is deselected.

In other words, if I select a range on the waveform, then it would take priority over the selection of cells therefore the spacebar, play button and stop button would only play the selected waveform range. Currently it does not work like this this and can trip you up if you were not used to it.

[Steve Saunders]

Sorry misunderstood what was the problem. (following his steps I was able to reproduce the symptom)

Steve

[michael.farney]

I ran into this too. When you stop playback, LOR highlights the entire column where you stopped. This is normally great, except when trying to playback a selection. Since LOR now highlighted where you stopped, you lost the original selection. Pressing play will now only play the one column that LOR highlighted for you.

[Duke]

Yes that is correct except that it really isn't highlighted as if you intentionally placed the cursor there and clicked on the column. It just happens to be wherever you stopped playback while having a section of the waveform selected. If you have "Loop At End" checked and then click on the Play arrow, you end up with a 1 cell loop playing back. Makes the dog bark everytime! LOL

[michael.farney]

Duke wrote:

Yes that is correct except that it really isn't highlighted as if you intentionally placed the cursor there and clicked on the column. [snip]

I must disagree! You can right click any of the "highlighted" cells and apply a command like on, off, twinkle, etc. Every single cell in that column will change. Maybe we're doing different things or looking at different screens.

I've completely abandoned the "play selection" since I started with S2. I only used it when I wanted more than visible screen, and I can't spend all the time highlighting multiple screens when I lose the selection after playing once. But, the play from feature made this obsolete anyhow. The way I sequence, there's no use of play selection that play from doesn't take care of. This has definitely been my work around. Maybe it's still helpful for looping playback, though?

[Duke]

Michael,

I think we're looking at 2 different things here.
Have you tried selecting a section of the waveform using your mouse on the Time Scale in the latest version 2.0.14? Follow my steps as described in my first post and you will see what we're talking about.

[michael.farney]

You keep losing me at highlight the waveform. Do you mean highlight the timescale and not the waveform? Maybe those terms can be used interchangably now. I rarely view the waveform. Maybe that's why they are still separate in my mind.


(I thought we were talking about the same issue since the end result is one cell looping. Maybe not?)

[LightORamaDan]

michael.farney wrote:

I ran into this too. When you stop playback, LOR highlights the entire column where you stopped. This is normally great, except when trying to playback a selection. Since LOR now highlighted where you stopped, you lost the original selection. Pressing play will now only play the one column that LOR highlighted for you.

If you use the "Play Again" button ( the green play button with the +) then it will re-play the original selection even though the current selection has changed. The "Play Again" plays using the settings that existed the last time the Play button was pressed.

I currently like to highlight the a play range by selecting on the Time Line and using the space bar.

[Duke]

Dan, I discovered the Play Again button sort of as a work around. (Seems it uses a buffer of some sorts?) I know adding the spacebar is a new, welcomed and a long awaited feature a lot of us were asking for and we finally got it. Thank you! I was merely thinking that the spacebar function should be the same as the play arrow function. In other words, if I have made a selection via the Time scale then ALL play methods should play that selection. The quirk is this. There are 2 methods of selection that is causing this to happen, Time Scale and Grid when there should only be one or the other and not both active. Using Play Range, Selection, Loop at End, I can have the Time Scale selected and the Spacebar will start/stop with looping playback of the range. With the Time Scale selection highlighted, I can select a group of cells within the highlighted area and the Play Arrow icon plays as expected except once playback is stopped, the selected cells become unselected. This makes the software think that only a single cell is selected causing the dog to howl when you get the resultant single cell loop by pressing the spacebar to start Playback again. LOL! I much prefer selecting the range on the Time Scale since this is what I am accustomed to in audio editing software and so I guess my question would be this..... Why do we need both?

Another question is why do we need a Time Scale and Waveform at the top of every track? Could it be made so that the Tracks and a single TimeScale/Waveform bar can be made to be sliding up and down as is done with the Channels within each track.
(Left click with mouse and drag it up or down)
That way, when editing complex sequences using multiple tracks, we can relocate the tracks or Time Scale to where we need it/them and conserve monitor real estate.

[michael.farney]

LightORamaDan wrote:

michael.farney wrote:

I ran into this too. When you stop playback, LOR highlights the entire column where you stopped. This is normally great, except when trying to playback a selection. Since LOR now highlighted where you stopped, you lost the original selection. Pressing play will now only play the one column that LOR highlighted for you.

If you use the "Play Again" button ( the green play button with the +) then it will re-play the original selection even though the current selection has changed. The "Play Again" plays using the settings that existed the last time the Play button was pressed.

I currently like to highlight the a play range by selecting on the Time Line and using the space bar.

Dan, this is perfect! :)

[LightORamaDan]

Duke wrote:

Dan, I discovered the Play Again button sort of as a work around. (Seems it uses a buffer of some sorts?) I know adding the spacebar is a new, welcomed and a long awaited feature a lot of us were asking for and we finally got it. Thank you! I was merely thinking that the spacebar function should be the same as the play arrow function. In other words, if I have made a selection via the Time scale then ALL play methods should play that selection. The quirk is this. There are 2 methods of selection that is causing this to happen, Time Scale and Grid when there should only be one or the other and not both active. Using Play Range, Selection, Loop at End, I can have the Time Scale selected and the Spacebar will start/stop with looping playback of the range. With the Time Scale selection highlighted, I can select a group of cells within the highlighted area and the Play Arrow icon plays as expected except once playback is stopped, the selected cells become unselected. This makes the software think that only a single cell is selected causing the dog to howl when you get the resultant single cell loop by pressing the spacebar to start Playback again. LOL! I much prefer selecting the range on the Time Scale since this is what I am accustomed to in audio editing software and so I guess my question would be this..... Why do we need both?

Another question is why do we need a Time Scale and Waveform at the top of every track? Could it be made so that the Tracks and a single TimeScale/Waveform bar can be made to be sliding up and down as is done with the Channels within each track.
(Left click with mouse and drag it up or down)
That way, when editing complex sequences using multiple tracks, we can relocate the tracks or Time Scale to where we need it/them and conserve monitor real estate.

We will most likely make some future changes to the way that play works. It can be a bit confusing but it is certainly improving.

As far as timelines and waveforms on multiple tracks. We will be making some changes to the user interface and those changes are included. Look for those enhancements mid year (or so... )

Our current direction is to fix any bugs found in LOR II gamma and get it for sale in the store and get a mechanism in place to get the updates distributed. The production version of S2 software is going to be more "secure" than our current version. One of the nice things is that we are getting rid of the (install on 2 machines) and are going to a household license.

[michael.farney]

LightORamaDan wrote:

[snip]

household license.

Can we still have multiple copies? I actually have 4 copies installed, but it's all for the same show at one residence, so I was OK with fudging the EULA a bit. Sounds like you are allowing unlimited copies and licensing the show instead of individual software copies.

Edit: I is grammar poor.

[LightORamaDan]

michael.farney wrote:

LightORamaDan wrote:

[snip]

household license.

Can we still have multiple copies? I actually have 4 copies installed, but it's all for the same show at one residence, so I was OK with fudging the EULA a bit. Sounds like you are allowing unlimited copies and licensing the show instead of individual software copies.

Edit: I is grammar poor.

You will be able to install it on all of your machines. We had originally stated that you could only install it on two machines but we never enforced it because if you had a third machine at home or at the office then we really didn't care if you installed it there.

What we do not want it to have to have the software shared between users. There was a time when only LOR controllers worked with LOR and we knew if someone was getting the controllers and didn't order software then something was fishy. There is no way to know anymore.

We know that people get our free demo, do their programming with the LOR software (because it works well!) and then import the sequence into software that they purchased (that doesn't work well) and run it.... It completely boggles my mind!

[Duke]

Thank you Dan.
I've been involved in beta testing many various apps and I understand that there are bugs/fixes/improvements to be addressed over their course before they go "gold".

I have some other ideas such as "Arm for recording" on an individual channel basis.
A feature also available in multitrack audio editing apps.
The user could select (Arm) a channel(s) for recording events while viewing the grid and record to those tracks much like using the Tapper Wizard only "Live".

I've sent an email to wishlist@lightorama with some suggestions for improving the GUI and functionality of LOR II. I am currently making a graphic that will show most of the GUI opportunities available.

Keep up the great work and thanks again.

[Steven]

LightORamaDan wrote:

What we do not want it to have to have the software shared between users. There was a time when only LOR controllers worked with LOR and we knew if someone was getting the controllers and didn't order software then something was fishy. There is no way to know anymore.

This year I plan to have 4 houses in one LOR network (controlled by 1 PC). The residents in each of the houses plan to do some sequencing. Is my 4-house display considered a single user?

We know that people get our free demo, do their programming with the LOR software (because it works well!) and then import the sequence into software that they purchased (that doesn't work well) and run it.... It completely boggles my mind!

Last year, we used the free demo to do sequencing, then copied the sequences over to the show computer running the purchased software. Since the computers being used to run the Sequence Editor didn't have RS485 networks or nearby controllers, I saw no reason to run the purchased software there. Will this change in version 2?

[LightORamaDan]

Steven wrote:

LightORamaDan wrote:

What we do not want it to have to have the software shared between users. There was a time when only LOR controllers worked with LOR and we knew if someone was getting the controllers and didn't order software then something was fishy. There is no way to know anymore.

This year I plan to have 4 houses in one LOR network (controlled by 1 PC). The residents in each of the houses plan to do some sequencing. Is my 4-house display considered a single user?

We know that people get our free demo, do their programming with the LOR software (because it works well!) and then import the sequence into software that they purchased (that doesn't work well) and run it.... It completely boggles my mind!

Last year, we used the free demo to do sequencing, then copied the sequences over to the show computer running the purchased software. Since the computers being used to run the Sequence Editor didn't have RS485 networks or nearby controllers, I saw no reason to run the purchased software there. Will this change in version 2?

I would consider that one BIG household.

[LightORamaDan]

Steven wrote:

LightORamaDan wrote:

What we do not want it to have to have the software shared between users. There was a time when only LOR controllers worked with LOR and we knew if someone was getting the controllers and didn't order software then something was fishy. There is no way to know anymore.

This year I plan to have 4 houses in one LOR network (controlled by 1 PC). The residents in each of the houses plan to do some sequencing. Is my 4-house display considered a single user?

We know that people get our free demo, do their programming with the LOR software (because it works well!) and then import the sequence into software that they purchased (that doesn't work well) and run it.... It completely boggles my mind!

Last year, we used the free demo to do sequencing, then copied the sequences over to the show computer running the purchased software. Since the computers being used to run the Sequence Editor didn't have RS485 networks or nearby controllers, I saw no reason to run the purchased software there. Will this change in version 2?

I would consider that one BIG household.