Urgent Change Request: Song Settings (Lock Track related)

I’m urgently asking for a song setting optimization as there is a logic breach (even in your documentation). This has become very important with the lock track feature.

Please uncouple CHANGE SONG PART and STOP SONG. These are two completely different things, technically and particularly from a musical point of view.

  • It’s very likely that you want to stop a song immediately and change a part only at the end of a loop, for example.
  • There are many reasons for stopping a song, not only at the end of a part or song. So immediately stopping is required very often (I know that double tap could also do this. However, I’d prefer to stop by single tap, at the exact moment it’s needed).
  • And by the way, the end of song is usually at the first note of a bar/chorus and not at the end of the previous one. Not so the end of a part.

In addition, please move all the settings for CHANGE SONG PART, STOP SONG and MUTE UNMUTE TRACK to the song settings where they belong to, according to your documentation.

What I suggest are three separate setting for

STOP SONG:

  • Immediate
  • EOM (*)
  • End Of Loop

CHANGE SONG PART:

  • Immediate (n/a if quantize = on, if you like. Or define your favorite behavior)
  • EOM (*)
  • End of Loop

MUTE / UNMUTE TRACK: as is

  • Immediately
  • EOM*
  • End Of Loop

(*) In the Quantize = Off mode: Change or stop at EOM could be interpreted as the next end of any loop within this part (makes sense for many applications with a beat box track, which is usually a sort of a placeholder for a measure). Or is there a better option considering the planned auto quantize function?

I would also support this request from LaurentB in a dedicated topic
It’s about Aeros wide settings as a kind of preset which is then inherited to a new song and adaptable there.

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I fully agree with the fact that a setting should be used only for one purpose and sharing is not a good idea.

Nevertheless I have couple of remarks:

That’s clearly THE reason not to share the same setting for various behaviors. Although for me the double click on the stop button to stop immediately makes the trick. I doubt the single tap will happen anytime soon as the current behavior is the result of a lot of discussions.

But if we split the two settings (stop song and change song part), I do not see any reason why if you set the “stop song” new setting as “immediate”, the stop button would not react to on-press event… But it probably requires further analysis.

Unfortunately for that, I am afraid I can give a definitive statement: It will never happen… If you don’t want to stop at the end of something (measure, bar, loop whatever) there is absolutely no way the system can determine where to stop.
What I do generally to stop properly something that requires this kind of behavior, is that I play along the last bar, click on “stop” to stop it at the end of the measure (I am always in stop at EOM mode), and then do myself the missing part to finish properly… You can turn this as you want I doubt there could ever be any other way to do it…

Last point is, yes, the split between song and global settings is not logical. And in this particular case this very obvious as we have in the global settings a flag which is clearly related to the song behavior…

My proposal regarding settings management is probably one way to fix this, maybe not the only one nor the better, but I think it’s simple, resilient to system updates and versatile enough to be taken into consideration. Currently it is tagged med-long-term, but the more the system is stabilizing (and it’s clearly doing), the more we need a better config management.

I did not ask for the system to stop at beat one of a chorus. What I want is to stop a song manually and exactly at a specific note, therefore SONG STOP = immediate. I was happy with this setting by now.

However, immediate is definitely no option for PART CHANGE. EOM or End of Part do work. Therefore separation is mandatory. I did not use part change before lock track.

There is no doubt that one setting for one feature is definitely the way to go…

My personal taste would be to keep the EOM for song stop as it provides the possibility to end immediately with a double tap and therefore for me it gives the best of both world (which is not the case with end of song setup as “immediate”). But again this is just a question of taste.

Missing the statement from SS!

Our statement on the lock tracks thread kind of covers this but to be more specific: we do want to look into a total re-visiting of our settings, but this will not be done for some time.

We have already noted your issue with setting up change song part and stop all to be separate settings with dev. We believe it is a small issue but even small issues can be tied to other parts of the code, we first have to check how big of a deal it is to change it and then once we are sure it is
working we can have this out on a release.

If it does not seem possible to get this done quickly, it may not be available on the following release for lock tracks but on the one following.

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Thanks Brennan, I’m sure your dev team gets this done as a quick fix.

Clarification on my immediate stop request

I’m using the Aeros mostly without BB, only acoustic guitar, some effects and vocal. And many times totally mobile (9V battery), my street musician mode. Therefore additional devices are no options.

Before the lock track availability I could not use multiple tracks as I only work in the quantize = off mode. I only worked with the stop song = immediate setting, as I did in the past with many other loopers. Unfortunately, this setting is not feasible with changing song parts.

Therefore, I urgently asked for a settings separation for change song part and stop song in this chat. @laurentB, I’ve never asked for changing the current behavior with the immediate double stop feature.

Currently, there are two options to stop a song before the end of a loop in “stop mode = end of loop”:

  • Double tap very quickly at the point you want to stop: This is definitely not my thing as it causes additional “stress” (see ex. 3)
  • Tapping the stop button once early in a bar (I call it “loading” the stop button) and then tapping it a second time exactly where it’s needed. This is a nice option as it makes stopping more natural, just like a single tap. However, it does not work for things like ex. 2.

As explained in earlier posts, I urgently need the immediate stop setting. More details in the following examples and chart:

Ex. 1: This is what Aeros does automatically. This is not my favorite point to end a song in many cases

Ex. 2: For years I got used to ending a song after the 1st note of the beginning chorus. In many cases this seems more musical to me. And this is what does not work with the “load” stop technique. The song stops automatically at the end of the previous bar and Aeros interpretes my second tap as a restart.

Ex 3: This is what I do very often to vary loops: A short stop, typically at the end of a chorus. And in the gap before starting the next chorus or part I fill in variations like
a) Guitar fill in or a beat box or vocal fill in
b) Chord alterations
c) Starting a solo
d) Preparing a change of a part (change part button)
e) Switching a sound by pressing one, two or more effect pedals
f) AND VERY OFTEN even combinations of this

This is what I marked as the “stress phase”, with a very limited time depending on the song tempo. A double tap for stopping is then one tap to many.

And therefore, dear SS guys, musicians like me need an immediate stop setting (which remains the part change at the end of the loop) as it’s already foreseen.