SwissPol's dashboard

SwissPol replied on August 01, 2009 19:58 to the problem "BPM matching not reliable since last firmware update" in Tonium :

I see what you mean, but this is not the problem I'm reporting: the beats are distinctly out of phase, not even considering the bars.

In any case, I tried reproducing again with several random tracks and no problem doing so following the instructions I indicated above.

Can anyone else give it a shot?

SwissPol replied on July 27, 2009 03:48 to the problem "BPM matching not reliable since last firmware update" in Tonium :

I found at least one bug, that I can reproduce everytime:
1) select & start track 1
2) select & start track 2
3) Press P-Switch down + Play to beat-match track 2 to track 1
-> the beat match display thing should be aligned
4) Pause track 2
5) Unpause track 2
-> the beat match display thing should be misaligned, but at this point since the BPMs of the 2 tracks haven't changed they should only be out of phase
6) Manually beat-match the tracks by dragging the finger along the touchpad rim to adjust the phase, but only rely on the beat match display info i.e. align the lines

-> The tracks are out of phase as it appears because the info provided by the beat match display has been "corrupted" by the pause / unpause. The only way to fix this is to press P-Switch down again.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't there in the previous firmware...

SwissPol replied on July 15, 2009 16:57 to the problem "BPM matching not reliable since last firmware update" in Tonium :

As someone with quite a bit of software engineering experience, I can tell you that even if nothing has theoretically changed in the "auto beat match" itself, something else that has changed might have affected it (unlucky / unpredicted side effects).

The only way to confirm or infirm this problem is to downgrade the firmware and run similar tests.

I'll try to isolate a degenerated test case...

SwissPol asked a question in Tonium on July 14, 2009 20:37:

How do I downgrade the firmware?

I want to downgrade the firmware on my Pacemaker to the version just before the current one because of this issue:
http://getsatisfaction.com/tonium/top...

How can I do this?

SwissPol reported a problem in Tonium on July 14, 2009 20:36:

BPM matching not reliable since last firmware update

I've updated the Pacemaker to the latest firmware about a week ago. Since then, beat-matching with the "P switch" + Play thing is certainly not as reliable as it used to: it's not really drifting, but the phase doesn't sound right. They are slightly off or something, even on very easy to match tracks with clear beat.

I did remove all tracks from the Pacemaker, re-analyzed them all in the editor, then re-uploaded everything, but still no improvement.

I had a typical example yesterday: 2 easy to beatmatch electro tracks, press the P-Switch + Play combo, the BPMs are matched and the bars aligned, but the phase was seriously off: I had to adjust it by hand by 30% or so and force the bars to be mis-aligned. I don't remember anything like this with the previous firmware.

I also found this topic which talks about a similar issue, so I really don't think I'm imagining things.
http://getsatisfaction.com/tonium/top...

This issue should really be a top priority: mixing with the Pacemaker used to be quite easy thanks a decent beatmatching and it's just not fully reliable anymore.

SwissPol started following the question "Mixing not smooth at all" in Tonium .

SwissPol started following the question "How do i mix on the train properly?" in Tonium .

SwissPol started following the idea "Peak meters" in Tonium .

SwissPol shared an idea in Tonium on June 06, 2009 05:24:

Add new mode in BPM filter that filters around current deck BPM

It'd be useful to have some new entries at the top of the BPM filter list to not filter by absolute BPM (e.g. 129-130, 131-132...), but relative to the current deck BPM (e.g. +/-1, +/-2, etc...)

Pierre-Olivier Latour started following the idea "Loops snap to beatgrid" in Tonium .

Pierre-Olivier Latour replied to a topic that has since been removed from Tonium . see the change log

Pierre-Olivier Latour shared an idea in Tonium on June 06, 2009 05:15:

Promote getsatisfaction.com as the primary way to provide enhancement requests and bugs

There are currently several ways to provide feedback to Tonium - I can think of at least: email, the forums, or this website.

This is not optimal for the community as feedback might end up being duplicated in several places and there's no easy way for Tonium to figure out which feedback should be considered most urgent to address first.

Short of real bug tracking system being open to the public, getsatisfaction.com is likely the best solution for the community to reports bugs and enhancement requests. It's easy to participate, it's fairly organized (more than a forum), and most importantly, it's easy to see what users really want: the more follow a given topic, the more important it is.

I would therefore suggest that Tonium actively promotes getsatisfaction.com as the one system the community should use to provide feedback. And for general help, and discussion, forums might still be the best however.

Pierre-Olivier Latour reported a problem in Tonium on June 06, 2009 05:08:

Current track is barely visible in track browser

The current track is displayed in bold in the track browser. Problem is the bold font has only a slight different in weight compared to the regular font, which makes it almost indistinguishable from the other tracks.

I would highly recommend just making it an obvious color instead like orange, red or whatever.

Pierre-Olivier Latour replied on June 06, 2009 05:06 to the problem "Fast forward / Fast reverse is too slow" in Tonium :

Thinking more about this issue, one short term fix would to simply allow to change the FFF / FRW speed in the settings e.g. 2x, 4x, 8x, etc... The audio engine can already do it using the trick above, so it's just a UI problem.

I think this would already help while waiting for a full-featured in-track navigation system to be added.

Pierre-Olivier Latour posted a topic that has since been removed from Tonium . see the change log

Pierre-Olivier Latour replied on June 02, 2009 02:12 to the problem "Display circular battery indicator inaccurate" in Tonium :

Just imagine car tank gauges were like that: just 4 levels, that would be a major problem :)

A much better indicator would be an estimate (even if not super accurate) of how much play time is left.

Pierre-Olivier Latour shared an idea in Tonium on June 02, 2009 01:58:

Don't leave the initial post-bootup screen empty

After you boot up the Pacemaker, the initial screen is completely empty: the main part is just black except for the 2 gray levels on each side.

Because of this, the Pacemaker was one of these very rare devices with which I didn't know what to do after turning it on the first time. I had to check out the manual.

I would highly suggest displaying a message like: "Empty deck: double-tap to load a track" or "No track loaded: double-tap to display browser" or something equivalent.

Pierre-Olivier Latour replied on May 26, 2009 14:30 to the problem "Fast forward / Fast reverse is too slow" in Tonium :

Hummm... it does something, but it's not intuitive: first of all there's no visual feedback you're in a different mode (e.g. you could have >>> instead of >>), and second of all, the behavior of stroking in the opposite direction is strange (i.e. CCW for FW or CW for RW). It seems to do something in one case, but not the other.

I would suggest:
- P-switch down with FW / RW for much faster fast-forwarding / fast-rewarding
- stroking the touchpad with either FW or RW down shows the timeline of the track (ideally a waveform), and you just position the playhead directly to where you want

Pierre-Olivier Latour replied on May 26, 2009 05:37 to the idea "Provide waveform preview of track" in Tonium :

I would guess it could be made to use very little processing power: you don't need to compute the waveform on the Pacemaker: the editor can pre-compute it, same as for the BPM. Then the only thing the Pacemaker has to do is draw the pre-rendered waveform and overlay the playhead.

Pierre-Olivier Latour shared an idea in Tonium on May 26, 2009 03:47:

Provide waveform preview of track

It'd be very useful to have a waveform preview of the track on screen with an approximate playhead, next to the title & artist.

When you don't remember exactly how the track evolves, it helps to know if the next "quiet" moment happens, so you can mix properly with the other track.

If there's not enough precision on screen to display the entire waveform, at least 1mn ahead would be quite useful.

Thanks for your consideration!