Aeros firmware 3.2.x

A few bugs:

  • Missing partial audio from playback of song with different midi tempo than sync.
    • Loaded another song that was previously saved that had 164 bpm. BB was at 84bpm.
    • This is really two related issues, both important to fix :
      • Missing audio playback upon bpm mismatch
      • Lack of a warning when the bpm is mismatched.
  • Shrinking Waveform
    • Not sure how i got this, but he waveform in my track (6x6 mode I think) kept on getting shorter and shorter. May have been related to repeated clearing of the song (which may have included changing of song settings). After going to another song and coming back it was fine.
  • Song Saved to no Location Warning:
    • No idea how this popped up, but when editing a song after changing the name, there was a popup that said something like “one of SDCard or Internal must be selected”. Tried to reproduce this with various sequences of pressing the setting buttons, but was not able to get anything other than a standard radio button exclusive choice behavior. Clearly someone coded the warning to to cover some case that should never happen. Suggests someone looking at the code saw/smelled something. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. Perhaps a race condition or visibility issue. Not a big deal unless it’s a sign of worse things to come.

If not fixed in this release, please track at least the first two as explicit bugs…

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I couldn’t get any tracks to lock. I tried pressing on the clock of the first track, and I looked in the Mixer, and I couldn’t get EXIT to change into LOCK (or if you mean the top button, that didn’t change to LOCK either). I pressed on all the clocks, nothing happened. Also next part was bit strange, because it contained all of the parts, and I couldn’t get rid of them. But I had no white squares around any circles. Updates says I have version 3.2.2.

This was all on a fresh song, I pressed the + button, and it said Song_3, so I used that. Recorded the first track, pressed clock, it didn’t lock. Recorded the second track, pressed the clock on the first track, it didn’t lock. Started a new Part, still couldn’t get a square around the clock to appear.

Also track 3 vanished. It still played, and saved, but the image of the sample vanished.

Desperately need midi cc implementation for locking tracks, is that going to happen soon or will we have to wait for the Hands Free update.
Everything so far has been functioning well. I am a keyboard player and have the Aeros on a stand and use a foot pedal Morningstar MC8 for all controls.
Thanks for all your hard work.

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After turning it off, and editing in Reaper, and then going back to it, it has started working now.

Is it possible to, at least, unlock a track in a further song part?
i.e: I have 4 tracks in song part 1, I lock the first track, then I start recording on the second track of the second song part; theeen I would like to unlock this track since I don’t want it in the next song part.
I’m thinking that maybe, if the Locking tracks feature behaves as a track duplicator, then the flexibility on this would be better.

Hi everybody,

We’ve read through all your thoughts and commentary, thank you for all of this valuable feedback. Of course, the thing we want to do most is please you guys with the best looper on Earth and do it at a good pace. After discussing with our engineering team (who also read the thread) it seems that a lot of what is being asked for is no simple task. This is because of the file structure and UI overhaul needed to create a better experience.

One thing that we are considering is looking into how we can create a settings menu component that is pre-settable and allows you to selectively lock tracks in parts. This is no simple feat and is tied in with requests we’ve seen and considered for a settings menu overhaul, and so we see that as a better time to address this.

As to the ability to do it live/hands-free while outside of part 1, we don’t believe this would come any time soon, if ever. The complexity of setting how and when a track locks in real time is a rabbit hole due to all the things you could be doing before/during/after you lock/unlock the track.

Let’s talk about current limitations. The Aeros is not currently meant to allow “holes” or empty tracks in between recorded tracks. Tracks must be locked in order and kept in that order, for that reason. Changing this core functionality will not be pretty, there are a lot of corner cases for this. Locking/unlocking tracks is not going to be doable in any part other than part 1 due to the complexity of things that can be done instantaneously if the Aeros is set to do so. This virtually eliminates the possibility of real-time changes without audible issues that are hard to cover in all cases without spending a very long time trying to do it – and it may never work.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that it is impossible but that takes me back to my first assertion in this post: we want to make you happy and do it quickly and also stick to our frequent releases.

We think that if we get stuck here and try and meet all these expectations, we won’t be able to meet these expectations quickly and all other things that we want to do will suffer and be pushed back. We are eager to move on and keep improving all the functionality further. The next few releases we are looking at are the Hands Free Song Selection Release, an undone logic revamp, and a memory handling improvement release.

These are the last few updates that are focused on improving logic and core use. We will soon be able to move on to more advanced and coveted features like Auto-quantize and a reimagination of audio routing and manipulation.

We understand that this is not exactly what everyone wants to hear, but we want you to know that we have seen your points and many of them make sense. Still, we prefer rounding out the edges and gradually improving the overall experience of the entire unit before we polish just one feature so heavily.

6x6 locked tracks mode is something no looper has ever tried to do. It definitely has room for improvement, so thank you for elucidating us to your use-cases and your wish-lists because we do value that perspective you all give us.

We’re looking forward to this official release and to continuing on our journey of improving the best looper ever made.

Keep Rockin’!

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Hi David. Thanks for your info into locked tracks etc. I understand the difficulty in advancing any further with locked tracks, and would be happy to leave the function as is, with just one other improvement, a MIDI cc function to lock the tracks, or just the first track, as holding down the the button to enable mixer and then to hold again to lock a track is too awkward when Aeros is on a stand. I would much rather see the other functions you mentioned being developed as soon as possible.

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Pre locking track 1 Before Recording would also be a great benefit

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Speaking only for myself, I’m always happy to accept a limitation that is done out of pragmatism.

The annoyance I get with products and companies is when one says, say, “this keyboard I bought doesn’t support capital letters” and are told “we always planned to be lower case only, the vision for the product would be damaged. And anyway, why would you even want capital letters, they’re an archaic affectation that no right-thinking person would want anyway”.

I think your message is a perfectly acceptable response. To paraphrase, “Locking tracks is hard, and while we don’t think what we can do quickly is perfect, it’s good enough to get you the feature and let us move on”. That’s excellent and isn’t trying to persuade the user that they’re wrong.

Locking tracks with a few caveats is better than no locking tracks.

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Where is track/part fade in/out in the release schedule?

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For me is the most important feature to get into aeros… I’m still using infinity looper because the feature call aging.
My first looper was echoplex and it had a knob for feedback. From 0 to 100. 0 not loop. 100 loop without fade out. In the middle, obvious abrupt or smooth fade out of phrase

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I will globally agree with what has already been said. Although I definitely do not like to have to plan in advance which track(s) I may need to lock, I can clearly deal with it the 2x2 mode locking track mechanism as it is thanks to the two record buttons directly available.

Regarding the 6x6, the pattern I described (ie starting by a track you do not want to lock) is simply not possible. But ok, it remains possible to use the mechanism as it is in case you can start with something you want to lock. So it remains a solid intermediate feature.

I agree with the fact that, as you are now in a RERO (Release Early Release Often) delivery mode, the goal is to deliver something usable regularly. And what you just did is perfectly inline with that, and that was what we were expecting. I really hope you’ll be able to maintain this one release per month pace.

Nevertheless, I hope we agree as well on the fact it cannot be an umbrella to have nothing delivered which exceeds what fits within of one of those releases. If there is something big to be done (like, for example, what you mentioned about a potential refactoring to be done at file structure level and UI), it has to be splittable into smaller (usable) chunks that fit themselves within releases… If you can’t do that then it would just mean you prevent yourself from having a long term view/plan, which I can’t believe.

Refactoring is never sexy to sell, as it generally bring no immediate visible benefit but it is supposed to open new possibilities for the future. Thus explaining those expected benefits/limitations always matters.

Finally, :clap: for the fact I don’t think any regression has been introduced with this release (maybe I missed something, please comment), which is very encouraging, and necessary to be able to test new features regularly. So congrats for that.

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Hi David

Thanks for providing lock tracks and for clarity on your future steps.

We do understand that time and manpower is limited and not everything can be done at the same time. Please keep focusing on a certain simplicity while performing, make things round if they are not yet and keep musicians before your eyes instead of implementing any technical gimmicks.

And … as you have designed a device with a separate start/stop button, make this button not only start but also stop the music with a single tap (this is currently impossible due to the combined track change settings).

We all rely on your announcement to bring usable features on a monthly basis. Thanks for this.

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it is a foot pedal it is not designed to be on a stand

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this is possible through midi with midi maestro

I do not want to buy another 6 buttons to make Aeros stop :slight_smile:

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that being said I used it on a stand today and it was awesome so you could potentially do both

maybe you could get an external foot switch like the boss 7s to stop it like with the midi commands? maybe

Thanks for your inputs …

However, the most obvious and pracitcal and cheapest is that the Aeros start/stop button does what people would expect: To stop when tapping onto stop (like to start when tapping onto start) … which is already foreseen, but illegitimately combined with another setting.

This only needs a separation anyway.

I am sorry but I have to disagree with you on that.
I am perfectly fine with the stop button as it is: simple tap ends at end of measure, double tap ends immediately…
It doesn’t mean that the behavior you request is not something that should not be implemented (driven by a config flag) if some people want it, but current behavior is absolutely not illegitimate.

There have been long discussions in this forum about what to trigger on tap event (vs on release or double tap) as when something is requiring a real timely action, (which is not the case of stopping a song) it implies a lot of things to other actions attached to that button.

When you end a recording, few milliseconds matter for your loop to be correct which is crucial, this is not the case when you stop the playback, the few extra milliseconds to stop the playback by having to double-click do not imply any problem to what has been recorded, and should not even be noticed by the audience.

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