There should be an easy way to just delete an entire part with all of its tracks.
2 Likes
Hey there, because of the simplicity of the Aeros 's physical design, it becomes complicated to assign just one tap to achieve a command. We hope to make a Delete Song MIDI command that will act just like deleting the song on the Aeros, we are considering not using the pop up in the case of a MIDI command, since the user is probably sure they want to delete the song.
This is not currently a priority but we do hope to get to that soon.
That feels like an excuse. Four buttons and a scroll wheel should be enough with a good design. Thinking of each command as âjust one tapâ is leading you in the wrong direction.
The Aeros is limited without some ability to bring up another page or menu with access to a variety of other commands via foot control. The mixer is one example of how to fix this.
MIDI is great, but it canât be the answer. Adding more (MIDI) buttons for each feature is a crude design.
Unfortunately, the limitations are what they are, we cannot add a functionality that counteracts another existing function. All buttons on the stopped screen are used and cannot be (nor do we intend to) reformatted to support a simple click to delete. We do not see use in removing the deletion pop-up, as the risk of someone losing their saved material supersedes users wanting a faster option. If you want a one click approach, we may be able to give that option, but only though MIDI.
We have noted the other suggestions like a "sand-box modeâ and removing the banner, but the latter is not an appealing concept to us.
1 Like
Thanks Brennan for the quick response. There is some confusion here though. I am not talking about deleting a song but rather a song PART. And Iâm also not talking about a one button solution. When I hold down the Play/Stop All button I get a pop up that asks if I want to delete all tracks and start constructing the song from the beginning. Why canât it ask instead if I want to Delete all Tracks or just the current PART and allow me to answer by clicking one of the three available buttons either, CANCEL, PART or ALL?
4 Likes
Thatâs definitely a good way to do it that doesnât require any extra button functions.
You can have multiple options with the scroll wheel as well. If you make it so that you can turn the wheel with your foot all you have to do is make the choices through larger rotations. Hands are accurate, feet are clumsy, but 1cm apart selections are possible with the feet.
I like the simplicity of the idea.
Just one remark, when you are in this screen the song is actually already stopped.
This is not a problem in the scope of song deletion, but the point is that if we talk about part deletion we would like potentially to be able do it while the song is playing (in case you screwed one of the part or whatever use case)⌠meaning that for that we are back to the point @BrennanSingularSound mentioned (all buttons already assignedâŚ), and the simplest solution seems MIDI at first sight. I didnât yet really figure out about a clean way to add it as foot command, nor did I see consistent suggestion about. But it clearly doesnât mean itâs impossible.
Nevertheless, you are perfectly right that when we are on the song deletion confirmation screen, there is one button (middle) available to implement what you request. And that should be no big deal, even if low priority.
You just need to be very conscious that you do not address the use case of the part deletion while playing, which, for me remains the most interesting use case in live situationâŚ
My guess is SS wants to be able support more actions, but thinks this is not possible. Hereâs one idea that seems to be workable, has no compromises to existing features, and looks to be extensible.
Seems like the mixer is a good place to add some hook for extra foot based commands. This looks like it will work for when the Aeros is playing or stopped.
How about:
- When in the mixer a long press on the bottom left (exit) or middle (select) brings up some mechanism for selecting from a set of âextraâ commands. The primary action (e.g., exit) of these buttons do not need to be on-press.
- The mechanism for selecting the extra commands might be similar to what @DavidPackouz proposed for Hands Free Song Selection. Or it might be something else (popup window, use scroll wheel)
- Long term, would be nice to let the user customize which commands are available here (or sort them so their important commands appear âfirstâ).
- Note: While it make take a few steps to select to a specific command, in may cases the command could be activated in real-time (e.g., on some beat). This needs some separation between select and activate (perhaps similar to how one selects and the opens a song)
This would solve a lot of current and future challenges for SS and the Aeros.
Hopefully this is not categorically rejected on philosophical grounds!
Feel free to ask this comment to be moved to a more general feature request.
2 Likes
I have had a Beatbuddy for a couple of years but just got my Aeros a couple of weeks ago. I would very much like to use the combo for live performance but it is proving to be a challenge with a 4 or 5 part song that has a complicated song sequence e.g. 1,2,1,2,3,2,4,5 It requires an awful lot of tap dancing and looking down at your feet while trying to sing into the mic at the same time and losing eye contact with the audience, etc. Even if you do everything perfectly it just kills the performance and having extra parts that you have to skip over to get back to part 2 for example is just a nightmare and almost not worth the effort. This could be a very powerful live performance tool with just 2 additional features. (1) sequencing i.e. add the capability to create all of the parts then program the sequence, (2) robust song editing so I can just delete unwanted tracks or parts if I make a mistake during song creation. As is is now if I make a mistake and create a part with the wrong number of measures Iâm stuck with it. I canât delete the damn thing! Crazy.
I just accidentally âkind ofâ deleted a whole song part with all its tracks. I created a part with 6 tracks and unintentionally Muted them all in the Mixer. It took me a minute to figure out what Iâd done as Iâd also somehow must have accidentally hit the Next Part button so I momentarily couldnât see where my 6 tracks went. Itâs far from an ideal method, but if one didnât care about losing a Part one could Mute All of the part youâre working on in the mixer, then start recording in another part and you still have 5 parts to play with. Oddly enough, when I went to the Delete All screen and pressed it, the screen always showed there was still 3% or 4% used. I ultimately had to go back to the Songs section to delete the entire song. I agree a simpler way to completely delete a part (without losing a part altogether) would be a great thing to have that should be standard in the toolkit of such a device.
1 Like
This would work but since the part is still there when Iâm performing live I have to skip over it to get to the next part. I hate all the unnecessary tap dancing which just creates opportunities to screw up while performing in front of an audience. In a studio or informal situation there are ways to work around just about anything. Live performance is when it gets dicey.
1 Like
This is something we hope to get to eventually, it is likely that once we implement our hands-free improvements that can include a deletion of the current part, dev has told us that is not a light issue and it will not be done quickly. Also, the Aeros is not meant to work with empty parts between full ones, so this would mean a change in the logic of how the Aeros handles a deleted part and those around it.
The current tested version has vast improvements to the âundoâ command and may make it easier for you not to need to skip over an accidental part in the first place, just record it again. Thank you for your feedback here.
Weâll see what happens with the new update but i agree with you. The Boomerang offers 3 parts and has a button for each part - perfect. Skipping and jumping through all the parts to get to the one you need on Aeros is definitely not ideal. Itâs been suggested to have an option to choose beforehand how many parts one wants to use in each song - 3, 4, 5, or 6. That way one would not have to click all the way down to the bottom of the 6 Parts before coming back to the Part you want if you only had a 3 Part song. THAT could make a huge difference and in my non-code-writing brain seems like something that COULD be accomplished. I write complex songs but I rarely need 6 Parts. Itâs nice they went the extra mile but if they made it with 4 Parts standard and an option to add 2 more Parts I think that would cover 90% or more of peopleâs compositions. I too hope functionality gets simpler over time.
2 Likes
Donât you mean that the Boomerang has 3 loops on 1 part? Or, I guess you could look at it as 3 parts with 1 loop each. I use midi as side-car so I can also use loop 4, so I guess that would be 4 parts with 1 loop each? Or have I overlooked Boomerang parts that can each have 3 (or 4) loops?
meadowbrook, It seems to me you are comparing Boomerangâs 3 (or 4) tracks to Aeroâs parts, each with up to 6 tracks. As far as I know, Boomerang has a maximum 4 loops, all accessible at the same time, but doesnât provide âpartsâ. So, there wouldnât be an equivalence between Boomerangâs tracks and Aeroâs parts. I guess you could look at it as Boomerang having 1 part with up to 4 tracks, and Aeros having up to 6 parts with 6 tracks each. Please let me know if I have overlooked something on my Boomerang and I am only using 4 loops when I could be using more. FYI, I use midi to control the Boomerang like the Side Car, allowing me to use the 4th loop and have all controls available from the Side Car.
You have not overlooked anything on the Boomerang. Weâre just conceiving of these two devices in different ways and the companies use completely different terminology for the same thing, which makes the verbal comparison a bit confusing.
So, youâre right, i am âcomparing Boomerangâs 3 (or 4) Tracks to Aeroâs Parts.â BUT, what Aeros calls âPartsâ (and you have called âtracksâ on the Boomerang), the Boomerang in its manual calls âLoopsâ, which on both devices are actually the SAME. I think it makes it easier to think of the Aerosâ âPartsâ and the Boomerangâs âLoopsâ as both describing the same thing - âSECTIONSâ of a song - verse, chorus, intro, middle, outro, etc.
To further muddle the mud, where Aeros provides 6 mixable/changeable Tracks to fill out each song Part, the Boomerang only provides Overdubs on their Loops (Parts on Aeros) which they call stackable âParts!â Boomerang does NOT use the term âTrackâ at all. Confusing, but actually not when you understand what each term means in terms of what it does.
Aeros enables building a richer sonic landscape by allowing layering of 6 mixable/changeable âTracksâ for each song Part (section). Boomerang only allows unmixable, stackable Overdubs on each Loop (section).
For my style of playing on Aeros I typically lay down all the Tracks for one song Part (section), then go to the next Part (section), and on and on. As Iâd cycle through song Loops (sections) on the Boomerang (which I havenât used for a while), having a button dedicated to each song Loop (section) made it easier to go between different Loops (sections) in any order I chose, whereas with Aeros all that up and down tap dancing is required.
At this point with the Aeros I donât play around much with bringing different Tracks in and out on each Part (which I realize others might do), thus once once my tracks are set on each Part I donât have to cycle through them. But I do change Parts multiple times during a song so for me the ability to change Parts without too much tap dancing is much more important than the ability to cycle through Tracks during a song.
I understand this tap dancing is a trade-off for Aerosâ size and greater functionality, but I think there have to be ways (one already suggested) to make the essential action of changing Parts easier to do. Boy, you really made me think about those two devices! Now my brain hurts!
1 Like
I came from the Boss RC 505, so I always thought that a track was a loop. A part is a collection of loops to me.
1 Like
Doesnât matter what theyâre called as long as we know what they do. Aeros is coming more from a recording studio mindset where âtracksâ are layered. Makes sense to me to use their terminology as iâm in their ecosystem now and will need it to keep my conception of Aerosâ functionality in sync with their updates. Got a new girlfriend now - doing it her way.
1 Like
Well in a recording studio a loop is a piece of music that goes around in a circle, so even in Aeros it is still a track.