[POLL PLEASE RESPOND!] While Stopped: Change Overdub to Solo By Default

Hi Guys,

We’ve had a very passionate request from @popa in this thread to change the overdub function of the RPO button while the Aeros is stopped to a Solo button. Pressing this would restart the Aeros with just this track playing and all other track are muted.

The RPO of this track would now say “Unsolo” which would unmute all other tracks when pressed – this would remove the option to overdub while this track is soloed. If in 6x6 mode and you unmute another track directly (not through ‘unsolo’) then the ‘unsolo’ option is not displayed on the playing tracks and ‘overdub’ is again an option.

This solo option would remove the capability to begin overdubbing immediately when the Aeros is stopped.

Please vote: Implement this or keep as-is.

  • Implement solo command when stopped
  • Keep As-Is (overdub option)

0 voters

FYI: We do plan to implement a solo option in the Mixer.

Shouldn’t the poll include another option? “Implement and let the user enable Solo as a setting”

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Yes, we can make a setting for everything. But I want to know what people prefer as a default.

I would also like to keep the number of settings to a minimum, since that adds complexity. If everyone prefers the default one way I would prefer to avoid making a new setting.

This might not be a bad way to slip this one feature in … as long as it doesn’t get in the way muting or undoing from stop.

My guess is overdubbing from stop is unlikely to be much different than pressing start and then overdub right after that? My overdub needs to be in time with the loop and that’s hard (for me) when starting from stop. Suspect someone has a good case for that and can only pull that off with the current setup.

Is not possible having the Solo button on the mixer screen?

This is a separate topic, let’s try and stay on this one here, the solo on the mixer screen will be a separate goal than what we’re asking here.

What we really want to know is, will this be a dealbreaker for anyone as a new default setting?

If need be we could possibly add a toggle back to its current state, but first we want to know if anyone really needs overdub to be the command available from stopped screen.

@Quad if we want to have all actions on the downpress (either overdub or solo) then undo during stopped state will start that action for a half a second before the undo command (hold) is detected, so you will have a small amount of audio playback either way.

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Perhaps in that case there’s another way to undo while stopped that works. OK to have multiple ways to undo.

I suspect the timing of undo is less important when stopped (or at least you have time to “get ready” to trigger actions in time when stopped)

I think this might leverage some of the ideas in Hands-free song selection

Hi David, what is your conclusion on the poll?

Alright guys, thank you for your input, one more question, if you were to start a track in solo mode, would it be better that the RPO label/command is “Unsolo” or stays as “overdub”

Once a new track is recorded or a track other than the one currently soloed is un-muted, the “unsolo” command/label would revert back to normal.

  • Un-Solo
  • Overdub

0 voters

The above vote was a hard one to make and I’m not sure I made the right choice … for me.

It may not be a fair question to ask as it’s not clear what would happen next in either case. How would you get out of solo mode otherwise. How would you do an overdub? Voting on just the label change doesn’t surface the full set of tradeoffs. Now that I’ve biased the poll with double devil’s advocacy and meta comments, let me see if there are any other bright ideas.

Would it be OK to change “Play/Stop All” to Exit Solo (and keep overdub as-is)?

That would be similar to what @DavidPackouz proposed to do for “Exit” in Song Selection. And Un-Solo is sort of like an exit (so it’s reinforcing the consistent use of a modal Exit button) The tradeoff is that if you wanted to stop all in solo, you have to tap once to Exit, and then tap one more time to stop.

I’d personally prefer one extra tap to stop the song than to lose the ability to easily unsolo or overdub. Tradeoffs!

Maybe this in an impossible, but…
How possible would be having a full-customizable layout? (don’t lose anything just for asking haha)
Having for each button 2 or 3 action slots (single tap, double tap, hold)
So, this way everyone can customize the layout as pleased

So, this way you’re not gonna be able to actually stop in solo, right?

You would be able to stop in solo if you double tap.

Unlikely, we don’t want to take away the immediacy of stop.

You would have to unmute, or maybe we can find a way for the unsolo option to only be there for the first loop. We are also looking into the ability to turn this into a toggle, so it would either works as it does now (the current default of overdub form stop) and the new un-solo command as the new default

In a perfect world, but I don’t think we will ever get to that point, we believe in the main layout as is, and the large number of possibilities for issue arise with this complexity, making finding and dealing with bugs a nightmare.

Rather than immediacy, it might be better to think in terms of:

  • Timing accuracy - Can I trigger it exactly at some point in time (e.g., on the beat)?
  • Ease of access - How hard is it to trigger this action? (How much tap dancing is needed? Are there any visual cues/labels to remind me how to perform the actions?)

In many cases it’s timing accuracy that is important (assuming the ease of access is OK). Putting actions into a secondary “menu” makes it harder to access, but the actions can be trigger with high timing accuracy.

IMHO: A single press is easier than two consecutive presses of the same button … is easier than hold/double tap … is easier than a sequence of pressing more than one button (e.g. left button then right button) … is easieror about the same as a sequence of more than one buttons that has a delay/wait between the two steps (left button … wait for screen to open … right button).

I’m not sure I see your point, we aren’t going to remove or change the play stop all functionality during playback.

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Thinking only about immediacy, might overlook designs that improve timing but worsen ease of access (or vice versa).

This goes beyond this one, local decision for Solo mode. I suspect thinking about the UI in these terms will help out across the board.

I wouldn’t say it’s a dealbreaker but when I’m doing traditional looping, sometimes I want to stop and mess with something before recording an overdub.I can’t think of why I’d want this to be the default. It does seem popular, though, so if you do it as default, please give the option to also have the old way.

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