Feed back about the app and the use case of Midi Maestro

Actually all these below can be applied to any kind of midi controller

For me I am using the controller to send out command to 2 devices only, Empress ZOIA & Source Audio Reflex foot controller. But I have already fed up with everything I need to do.
It is true that when the device comes more generic, more work have to be done to achieve something, even it is very simple.

But the app really gives me more and more work to do.

So please concentrate on how to reduce user workload when they want to achieve something. For me, assigning just 10 PC commands costs me 20~30mins, I think.

  1. I have to assign 10-times sperately, field by field, for every similar patches/commands. So please consider letting us simply config those command by just a csv file

  2. 6 commands x10 pages is far less than enough, for even a single device.

  3. Crash when Browsing custom mode

  4. Avoid duplication when downloading custom command/mode

  5. Unable to delete the command

  6. Difficult to rearrange the position of the command

The below points are related to how we share those custom command. There should be a better organised custom command list.
It is like how you are going to manage a database / something like MIDI 2.0 principle.
7. How do you sort out the same command uploaded by different users, for example, they are using different channel for the same device?
8. How do you handle, when different users upload the same command for the same device, but they a using a ā€œDIFFERENT NAMEā€ aka Beatbuddy & BEATBUDDY?
9. How do you cope with, when the target device is also genericly designed for user defined command/preset eg. Empress ZOIA % other multi effects? (Unlike there is already a defined Command mapping like Beatbuddy)
10. How do we/you verify whether the command provided by user is correct or not?

The idea is good, but when it comes to practical, everything mess up.
Hopes you will improve the situation.

3 Likes

I would like to know when Singular Sound is going to fulfill their promise to make midi maestro work with Aeros. We keep being told is in development. I hate to go back to old ground but, when I first saw these products I was really jacked up and bought all three of them. Midi maestro is useless for anything but Beat buddy. The ad showed the ability to use it for those two products exclusively. But now weā€™re told youā€™re working on it. Pretty much false advertising to begin with. Iā€™ve tried to be patient but I think you should take these back if they will not work. I can use my BeatBuddy without the maestro I can use Aeros without the maestro. I paid good money to get all three of your products at one time. Knouff said Iā€™m tired of talking about it

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This works in the current version being tested so your wait is nearly over, you should be able to get your hands on a beta very soon.

Noted.

Here is the response from the dev team

  1. weā€™re looking into making this easier ā€“ maybe not exactly a csv, but a quicker way to do things.
  2. 6 commands is not quite it. Itā€™s 6 buttons, with up to 8 commands per state, and up to 2 states (so you can toggle)ā€¦ so about 96 commands per page. Weā€™re increasing the amount of commands you can send per state dramatically in an upgrade coming before the end of the month. In any case, is there any suggestion as to how the availability should go? we may be able to accommodate different needs.
  3. This crash is being addressed for the aforementioned release.
  4. Weā€™re working on this, too.
  5. This has been addressed in the aforementioned release.
  6. This also is being addressed - some fixes in the mentioned release, some forthcoming soon.
  7. is also being addressed - coming soon
  8. Not great, weā€™re bringing up a solution to this in the near future, part of it will involve normalizing existing data
  9. Not great, either. This is also something that is coming in ā€œthe near futureā€. Like 8, itā€™s not this month.
  10. By trying it, weā€™re not doing QA in shared commands at the moment. We are planning to address this ā€œin the near futureā€. Like 8 and 9.
1 Like

Thx for your reply and it must be plenty of stuff for the developer to be done

For the page and numbers of commands we can assign, I come up with this just because, like Beatbuddy, it has already occupied couple of pages, so it is not enough for more and more devices/software.

For generic midi device/software that user can assign any command as they wish, I think it is difficult to cope with, even with you established a shared library, since everybody use case is not the same. Pt 7~10 are really out of the scope for you guys, just like every command for every device have its own fingerprintā€¦maybe this is what MIDI 2.0 is doing. But who to verify? Manufacture themselves? How they update the whole list? How they sync to every device. (sorry for bs)

The idea of sending multiple command in a single press is good butā€¦I cant think how it could be used by user, maybe they have a part of song that need this, maybe they are sending a chord to the sampler.

(May be as user is not necessary to press 2 buttons to send multiple commands, please consider to let us config press 2 buttonā€¦for next page. This can save some space on the pedal board for the ext switch

Anyway for any midi device. It is painful for user to

  1. Make sure what they really want to do
  2. Set up the device themselves
  3. Assign the functionality of each button, one by one
  4. Test it is working, finally.

Thanks for your reply,

After having a conversation with the dev on your reply, hereā€™s what we can say:

We think, as we keep evolving the deviceā€™s capabilities, use cases will evolve, too. We can even visualize the MM having more than one custom mode at the same time, and switching among them. So you could have different setups for different parts of your set, for instance. The world is our oyster, in a sense (A memory-limited, input-limited, situation-specific, multi-layered but manageable oyster.)

We expect the capabilities for the MM to keep evolving, and people will use it differently! Making the toolā€™s niche come into better focus, directing our updates from there.

One use-case for several commands at the same time is being able to change page on a music score or lead sheet while triggering a BB transition, for instance

To quote one member of dev team:

ā€œI feel in my bones the vision is still taking shape and that possibilities are endlessā€

2 Likes

I have some ideas after using the Ios betha app for a better user experience:

The utily to assign the midi channel to a device.
Organize the (user defined) controls in device categories.
So in the app you could have the list of devices u use and the accesory commands.
When u want to assign a button to a control you only have to choose your device (midi chanel) and scrol through the list of control commands.

At this time the app is barely useable, to much trial and errorā€¦

Need to backup custom settings. My Android tablet crashed, had to get a new one. Lost all the custom settings I had created on the old tablet.
Is there a way to download them from the MM?

Can SS just get rid of the default modes on the MM and just make them available for download if anyone wants them? Three custom modes on the MM is definitely a lot more useful specially if users are not interested with just the AEROS or Beatbuddy mode. I have all three devices but I still use a custom mode.

2 Likes

agree with you!
One for a 2x2 mode, another for a 6x6 and 10 pages for each mode could be VERY NICE !
:athletic_shoe: JUST DO IT !

2 Likes

Weā€™ve toyed with this idea and may do it eventually but first things first is v2.0.0, it should not be a lot of work after that to make this doable, but it is not our priority at this time.

Thanks for the suggestion!

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I bought all three as well and everything works seamlessly. I use a custom MM mode to trigger commands on both the BB & Aeros on different channels.

Does anyone have experience with combining Ableton, Beat Buddy and Maestro? How does it work? My goal is to have an easy drum machine for performance or jamming and to be able to move around in scenes and clips in Ableton. Thanks.

I just want to point out a lot of the issues reported in this thread have been solved between version 1.5.1 and the latest version of apps 1.6.1:

1 Like