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Official Feature Wish-List

edited August 2018 in Feature Wish-lists

What would you like to see in a future release of Group the Loop?

Current version: GTL 1.4 August 2018

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Comments

  • First of all, congrats for the amazing work you have done Jack.

    As usual I will share my needs alongside my opinion since when someone ask for a feature that person should argument a bit to share the background. Said that...

    Background.
    Since backing tracks workflow is now near to perfect (I probably miss something but I can think what else someone should need from than perspective aside midi clips?) I think it could be time to focus towards post production audio editor (improving the basic one GTL has) and maybe iPhone version (I will open a dedicated thread for that topic).

    In the advanced audio editor and following a bit actual workflow it will make sense to have the option to record into a timeline but grouping the tracks by some coding (or position in the window). Let me explain a bit.
    We have main group and song parts groups. We can record these into a timeline just with 2 audio channels and it will as start point useful but what about recording the main group as 4 dedicsted audio lines/channels and another 4 (or maybe more) for the song parts clips. We can do that also from position (top clips in dedicated channel, 2nd to another, 3rd to another and lower to another) or by color coding (you add a color to the clip and the color bus its output to a dedicated channel let user to mixbussing by color which should be related to the clip content).
    If we match position and color we will have some kind of continuum too but making them seprste gives more flexibility (or mesh) to the user. Just an idea.

    So when we hit rec in the advanced audio editor and perform we end with multistem project suitable for further edition. In fact this should be called advanced recorder since we don’t have an audio editor yet (right?).

    This approach brings 2 workflow possibilities which will worth explore.
    1- Multistem recording which could permit DAW export (Ableton export works with stems too?)
    2- Performance recording. Instead recording audio, just recording the performance (which clip was active, color, fx, etc) as metadata suitable to be crampd into a xml file (and again ableton exportable like BlocsWave does into Launchpad app/ Ableton) giving the users a step in the middle to edit their performance (if we limit all the channels/clips to match Ableton LE version it could be a touchdown since most users use iOS app in junction with Ableton export and give Jack more time to improve internal advanced audio editor meanwhile we have a workaround). Even Apple has Logic Pro export from Garageband pointing the “maybe it’s still to soon to use iPad as computer, let’s make another ad saying the opposite to funnel people” :trollface:

    This 2 approach seem the competence paths (multiple outputs into AUM or DAW) and sequence performance like loopverse or alk desktop looper which seems to be the most requested features at the forum.

    Now some videos snapshots to do the required pedagogy for all my crazy post. I talk like everybody could see my brain from inside, I know.

    https://zenaud.io/

    Arranger looper concept. Similar but requires know the song structure before start which IMHO defeats too much the experimental or on the fly character of live looping itself.


    Mixtape feature of the failed Serato The Bridge Ableton partnership. You can see a similar approach to another live performance (turntablism) and how a metadata to xml recorder could work. It’s possible to do something even better but that’s another history...

    I hope this clearify the idea behind my proposal. ASAP I will try to mockup the color bussing method I described. Meanwhile please share thoughts and questions.

  • It's a real pleasure using the latest version of GTL . Very happy with the latest release.All the work on the transport/solo etc gui has made it much more fun. I use GTL for live impro in manual CUE off mode. I would love to have the option of having a 1/4 time sig. so that it would be easy to record quantized loops of different lengths.
    The other thing I'd like is some kind of record arm track option. I use a midi pedal so it IS possible to highlight (select) the next loop location to record into, but sometimes this means pressing the pedal many times to get from one location to another. Using the touch screen would make it much quicker to jump around from, say loop 3 of group 1 to loop 2 of group 4 for example.

  • @jazubon said:
    It's a real pleasure using the latest version of GTL . Very happy with the latest release.All the work on the transport/solo etc gui has made it much more fun. I use GTL for live impro in manual CUE off mode. I would love to have the option of having a 1/4 time sig. so that it would be easy to record quantized loops of different lengths.
    The other thing I'd like is some kind of record arm track option. I use a midi pedal so it IS possible to highlight (select) the next loop location to record into, but sometimes this means pressing the pedal many times to get from one location to another. Using the touch screen would make it much quicker to jump around from, say loop 3 of group 1 to loop 2 of group 4 for example.

    Glad you're enjoying the update!

    Yes a 1/4 time sig would be great. It's been requested before so i'll bump it up the todo list.

    Record arm track option - I'd like to see this too, I will give it some thought.

  • edited October 2018

    I updated my iPhone post with all the mockups related to multiple outputs and AUv3 version of GTL. Please take a look and comment.

    http://forum.grouptheloop.com/index.php?p=/discussion/190/iphone-version-let-s-talk-again

    Also reviewing my own post above talking about performance recorder I strongly believe it should be mainly metadata (midi, interface interaction like Ableton and audio as raw under any fx chain or modificator) to make somethng like the Serato the Mixtape feature I pointedand keep things in place. I know it could seem a total revamp from actual app but I feel it could be a hit and @jack has the bits at his hands.

    Hope it helps bros.

  • I’m not sure if the new apematrix AU plug (bus send bus recieve) could be helpful to send audio outside GTL...
    https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/28905/apematrix-big-update-incoming

  • It seems not but maybe for bussing between groups could be useful for someone...

  • Interesting, thanks for the link!
  • ashash
    edited November 2018

    Please add per loop volume control.

    Figured it out by accident (tutorial has a habit of quitting when it doesn't like something).

  • @ash said:
    Please add per loop volume control.

    Figured it out by accident (tutorial has a habit of quitting when it doesn't like something).

    Rodger that, I'll look into it :)

  • @Jack. Still loving this app. I may be in the minority here but I mostly use GTL for recording and it works well for me. I would like to see song mode and the ability to edit/trim loops added.

  • @Ben said:
    @Jack. Still loving this app. I may be in the minority here but I mostly use GTL for recording and it works well for me. I would like to see song mode and the ability to edit/trim loops added.

    It's one of the usual workflows... which makes me think even more in the AUv3 version inside a regular DAW (such Garageband or Cubasis)

    worth a look?
    http://forum.grouptheloop.com/index.php?p=/discussion/190/iphone-version-let-s-talk-again#latest

  • edited November 2018
    @Ben, yes a song mode would be a great addition. Not sure when we will see it.

    I’d like to add a trim/editor function fairly soon. I was thinking of allowing the user to adjust the loops beyond the punch in/out points. So if you get the timing slightly wrong you could shift these points forward/backwards in time. GTL buffers the audio input so it's actually possible to reclaim audio before you punched in.

    @dubbylabby, an AUv3 version will happen. It’s certainly the way to go now now.
  • @Jack awesome! I strongly feel it could be good for you and it shouldn’t not harm GTL sales but even fuel them.
    Using an AUv3 the way I described makes resampling even easier with audio routing. We can record inside looper and later record the output of these loopers linear in any DAW... even realtime so step by step build from scratch to full songs (pauses for smile).

    IDK how hard is to code what I envisioned (or your approach based on that since I put the common icons without wondering how to use them lol just for mockup and inspire) but I hope AUv3 SDK makes some parts staightforward so once done you can think next steps in GTL strategy (and make some money mate!)

    :)

  • @Jack said:
    @Ben, yes a song mode would be a great addition. Not sure when we will see it.

    I’d like to add a trim/editor function fairly soon. I was thinking of allowing the user to adjust the loops beyond the punch in/out points. So if you get the timing slightly wrong you could shift these points forward/backwards in time. GTL buffers the audio input so it's actually possible to reclaim audio before you punched in.

    @dubbylabby, an AUv3 version will happen. It’s certainly the way to go now now.

    That’s good news. Are you thinking that we will be able to adjust the start and end points of a loop independent of each other? So more like trimming than a shift of the loop as a whole. Having the ability to do both would be amazing.

  • @Ben, yes exactly. :)
  • Hi @Jack - I've not posted for a while - good to see all the progress :)

    I'm setting up GTL for my wife as a way to perform her songs live. Essentially we have a core set of backing track sections and am importing the audio loops into Groups so they can be triggered during performance and also have the ability to do additional looping live! Nice :)

    When making a tune there are some sections that only ever play once - for example the very beginning introduction of a tune might only need to get played once and then go straight on to the next section which could loop round until swiped manually.

    So I was wondering if there might be an option that you could assign to a Group to:
    1) Loop (as currently is)
    2) Play the group Once and then go on to next group
    3) Play the Group once and then stop (for the ending of the tune)

    I guess these options are really only useful to people who are trying to set up a song structure in advance rather than looping on the fly.

    Also I am wondering if it is possible to set up the current MIDI bindings to do this?
    for example - could there be a binding that would Play Group 1 once then Play Group 2 right afterwards?
    or Play Group 5 once and then stop the whole song?

    It might work depending on how you have CUE set I suppose?

  • Like Ableton live follow actions and related to the workflow explained time ago in one of my previous comments.
    I love the idea and it could be amazing also it remembered me about Prime app which has quantized loop triggering over backtracks.
  • @ricksteruk,

    It’s a great idea, some sort of song structure sequencer/creator I suppose. It’s been requested before and I’d love to add it at some point.

    I’m not sure how you would achieve this with the current midi bindings. I think the best aproach would be to trigger the groups manually with CUE turned off. Maybe a pedal for each section of the song, tap the pedal at the end of the section to switch to the new one.
  • @dubbylabby said:
    Like Ableton live follow actions and related to the workflow explained time ago in one of my previous comments.
    I love the idea and it could be amazing also it remembered me about Prime app which has quantized loop triggering over backtracks.

    Yes I remembered that you mentioned before that you were using GTL to set up the loops in advance and perform live with them :) I just thought this would be a simple way to implement a kind of song structure mode that would help.

    @Jack said:
    I’m not sure how you would achieve this with the current midi bindings. I think the best aproach would be to trigger the groups manually with CUE turned off. Maybe a pedal for each section of the song, tap the pedal at the end of the section to switch to the new one.

    I was thinking that if a MIDI binding said "Play this Group" and also "Play next group" it would work - but I suppose the second Play Group message would have to be delayed until after the First Group had started playing.

  • @ricksteruk said:
    I was thinking that if a MIDI binding said "Play this Group" and also "Play next group" it would work - but I suppose the second Play Group message would have to be delayed until after the First Group had started playing.

    Yes that’s right, the second command would have to be delayed if you wanted to run a sequence. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment.

  • @Jack said:

    @ricksteruk said:
    I was thinking that if a MIDI binding said "Play this Group" and also "Play next group" it would work - but I suppose the second Play Group message would have to be delayed until after the First Group had started playing.

    Yes that’s right, the second command would have to be delayed if you wanted to run a sequence. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment.

    Oh well, no problem we'll just have to cope ;)

    I had a really enjoyable session with GTL last night - hosted in AUM, with several inputs (guitar, vocal, several AU and IAA synths controlled by MIDI guitar) that had a post Mix Bus send on them - so all I had to do was make sure that only the synths / channels I wanted to loop in GTL were unmuted and then GTL could loop any of them.

    It was really inspiring! I love being able to play synths on my guitar - and it's so great to capture my ideas in GTL and build them up into little arrangements.

    I did have one issue upon reloading it having closed down all apps. I did several tests as I am trying to get this setup ready for my wife to use. I reopened the AUM session and most of the settings appear to work correctly - except in GTL I have to reset the Audio input to IAA audio to connect to the AUM mix bus.
    On one reload the AUM tempo weirdly went to 20bpm. I set it back to 120 - but then this caused GTL to time stretch the audio tracks in the first group but not the second.

    So what happens now is that Group 1 in this song is has been slowed down to about 1/4 of the normal tempo.. but Group 2 still plays at the correct tempo. It is very odd! Is there any way to undo this? There did not seem to be any way I could undo.

    Have you come across this behaviour before? Is it safest to make sure GTL is closed on a blank / empty song just in case of problems when reopening?

  • edited March 2019

    @ricksteruk said:

    @Jack said:

    @ricksteruk said:
    I was thinking that if a MIDI binding said "Play this Group" and also "Play next group" it would work - but I suppose the second Play Group message would have to be delayed until after the First Group had started playing.

    Yes that’s right, the second command would have to be delayed if you wanted to run a sequence. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment.

    Oh well, no problem we'll just have to cope ;)

    I had a really enjoyable session with GTL last night - hosted in AUM, with several inputs (guitar, vocal, several AU and IAA synths controlled by MIDI guitar) that had a post Mix Bus send on them - so all I had to do was make sure that only the synths / channels I wanted to loop in GTL were unmuted and then GTL could loop any of them.

    It was really inspiring! I love being able to play synths on my guitar - and it's so great to capture my ideas in GTL and build them up into little arrangements.

    Very glad to hear!

    I did have one issue upon reloading it having closed down all apps. I did several tests as I am trying to get this setup ready for my wife to use. I reopened the AUM session and most of the settings appear to work correctly - except in GTL I have to reset the Audio input to IAA audio to connect to the AUM mix bus.
    On one reload the AUM tempo weirdly went to 20bpm. I set it back to 120 - but then this caused GTL to time stretch the audio tracks in the first group but not the second.

    So what happens now is that Group 1 in this song is has been slowed down to about 1/4 of the normal tempo.. but Group 2 still plays at the correct tempo. It is very odd! Is there any way to undo this? There did not seem to be any way I could undo.

    Ah shoot, something has got confused here. I've reworked the way groups handle tempo in the forthcoming update so, fingers crossed, this issue will be resolved.

    Have you come across this behaviour before? Is it safest to make sure GTL is closed on a blank / empty song just in case of problems when reopening?

    Obviously this shouldn't happen but yes, I would start with a fresh session just incase.

    If you come across any tempo related issues, exporting the loops then reimporting them into a new session should fix things.

    Cheers

  • @Jack said:

    If you come across any tempo related issues, exporting the loops then reimporting them into a new session should fix things.

    Cheers

    Good trick! that worked and rescued my track. :smiley:

  • edited March 2019

    @Jack

    Well if follow actions can't be added or delay action aren't possible neither...
    what about a midi trigger sequencer?

    A simple "pattern" into song mode like DM1 could be a solution. It even could implement multipliers and be descriptive by group part name...

    Introx1, Bridgex1, phrasex8, bridgex1/2, Chorusx2, 2ndPhrasex8, endingx1, stop or next song binding...

    So in that way this arranger view could be a pre-song editor (it could be possible implement audio to ala Acid...) or even a song editor itself (stems) implementing a internal recorder to improve the monolithic approach... (and avoiding AUM which will be useful for AUv3 version)

    Maybe I will mockup this when we discuss it a bit further since I have lots of ideas but lately not so much time to dable with Keynote (I hate photoshop) xD

  • Yeah a full arrangement mode as dubbylabby described would be nice for sure :wink:

    Just been messing again and noticed that if you've used a MIDI CC to adjust the 'Selected Loop' volume, then the Orange rectangle around the selected loop vanishes. Perhaps this could be considered a bug? Or maybe more like - does not work in the way I would expect.

    Not a big issue - but it does make it a little harder remembering what loop you currently have selected.

  • @ricksteruk said:
    Yeah a full arrangement mode as dubbylabby described would be nice for sure :wink:

    Just been messing again and noticed that if you've used a MIDI CC to adjust the 'Selected Loop' volume, then the Orange rectangle around the selected loop vanishes. Perhaps this could be considered a bug? Or maybe more like - does not work in the way I would expect.

    Not a big issue - but it does make it a little harder remembering what loop you currently have selected.

    Thanks for pointing this out, i will fix it in the update!

  • edited March 2019

    Great thanks @Jack

    Another thing that is proving to be a little time consuming is that GTL does not remember which Audio Input is selected - so that when you load any session the Audio Input switches to the first input available - whether that is iPad mic, or USB1 etc.

    I am using GTL with AUM at the moment - so every time I load a new session in GTL I have to switch the inputs away from the iPad mic / USB1 to the IAA setting and also select the IAA app port.

    Again - it's not a biggie but I would be most grateful if there is any way the Audio Input can either be maintained in it's current state when loading a new session, or preferably the Audio Input be stored within the session when it is saved.

    ( of course there is also room for more complicated audio routing down the line as others have discussed previously eg. selecting different audio inputs per loop, or per group etc )

    For my use case hosting GTL in AUM it is working pretty flawlessly - and is fantastic. It would be even better if GTL were an AUv3 so that GTL opened up with the correct session when you opened an AUM song file. ( or had state saving... I can't remember if GTL does Audiobus state saving? I would use Audiobus rather than AUM but ironically it does not have the "Bus" facility that AUM has, so I cannot set it up as I want with a Bus send feeding apps into GTL )

  • @ricksteruk said:
    Great thanks @Jack

    Another thing that is proving to be a little time consuming is that GTL does not remember which Audio Input is selected - so that when you load any session the Audio Input switches to the first input available - whether that is iPad mic, or USB1 etc.

    I am using GTL with AUM at the moment - so every time I load a new session in GTL I have to switch the inputs away from the iPad mic / USB1 to the IAA setting and also select the IAA app port.

    Again - it's not a biggie but I would be most grateful if there is any way the Audio Input can either be maintained in it's current state when loading a new session, or preferably the Audio Input be stored within the session when it is saved.

    ( of course there is also room for more complicated audio routing down the line as others have discussed previously eg. selecting different audio inputs per loop, or per group etc )

    For my use case hosting GTL in AUM it is working pretty flawlessly - and is fantastic. It would be even better if GTL were an AUv3 so that GTL opened up with the correct session when you opened an AUM song file. ( or had state saving... I can't remember if GTL does Audiobus state saving? I would use Audiobus rather than AUM but ironically it does not have the "Bus" facility that AUM has, so I cannot set it up as I want with a Bus send feeding apps into GTL )

    Yep good point, inputs should be recalled with each session. I'll see what I can do.

    No GTL does not do Audiobus state saving at the moment.

  • some really nice suggestions here! goid to see that GTL is improved actively.
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