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Comments
Not so much for me as for you, I suspect. Don't do it just on my say so though.
@PaulB LOL I understood that completely, scary. hehe
@Rhism I wouldn't find post midi out editing useful personally as it'd destroy the expresseive nature of the strum to quantize it. But it's just something midi out would bring to the table if people wanted it to. Midi in I wouldn't use for the same reason. I do see Pauls point on adding things after. But midi is just so dam precise I have to admit for most styles of music it kills the way a guitar sounds.
Also, using midi out with guitarism will not just automatically work with every synth, it will "work" but users will have to be very 'picky' when they decide what to use with Midi out as mono synths won't sound very good. Korg's iMS-20 for example is an app that'd never work with guitarism, being a mono synth the strings can't ring out properly at all. Korgs iPolySix would work with any of the poly patches.
@PaulB It goes both ways. Since it's a lot of work for you, I suspect you wouldn't do it too often, and not too many other people would do it. So it automatically becomes harder to justify. That said, I've heard that Rob Fielding offers a lot of help to developers trying to make Geo-compatible synths, so maybe it won't be too bad.
@Ryan Yeah I tend to prefer the natural timing too, but a LOT of people prefer more precision. So I can see it'd be really useful for those people. As for midi out with synths, it's not just about mono vs poly. Even poly synths that don't have a natural decay in their sounds will just sound flat when strummed. E.g. try strumming the TJ pipe organ from LG or WI Guitar. It's fun but not super-useful, you may as well play it from a more keyboard-like controller, or something like PolyChord / Chordion. The only useful patches to strum are those that are polyphonic and also have their own natural decay, such that you get to hear the sounds in a strum-like manner. I could add even more advanced features to address this, like using channel aftertouch to artificially decay the synth sounds like a guitar. But it'd still sound weird. So I'm trying to understand if people have successfully been able to strum a synth, and they find that actually useful and valuable.
@Rhism Agreed. I just used mono synths as my example as it's the most obvious problem that a lot of users may not understand. I could see a lot of "Make it work with iMS-20" kind of posts/reviews after it happening. lol So yeah, all in all it's going to have to be up to the users to find the right fit with midi out, so yes, a lot of work for them too. :-)
@Rhism and nope, I haven't had any luck with strumming synths at all. Pianos, and guitars have worked the best. Might be neat with wind instruments too, but I have not tried it yet.
People strum guitar synths all the time. Of course the synth sound has to be polyphonic, but sustained sounds shouldn't be truncated, IMO. Just send a note off message when the next note is played on the same string. Or if mute is on, when the finger is removed from the chord button.
A lot of this stuff hasn't been done much on iOS devices before because, although possible, it hasn't been practical. If someone steps up and makes it practical, it will be done more often.
@Ryan Whenever something is 'up to the users' only a small fraction of them (like the folks around here) will figure out how to do it, the rest will just get confused and post negative reviews. This is especially true of guitarism as it attracts a fair number of casual, non-musician users - more expensive pro apps typically have more sophisticated users.
Wind instruments are just as bad as synths. They have no decay either. So I worry that it only really works with guitar sounds and acoustic piano sounds... which is very limited.
@PaulB Can you suggest some examples of people strumming guitar synths? I suspect when people play a midi guitar they are using it for melody work more than chord-strumming. I'd be super-delighted to be proven wrong on that.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=ELu7MnRrf5w
(Crap video, but nice sounds.)
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=hBZvSs2PyYE
@PaulB He's not strumming in that video though. He's using the finger pluck method. ;-)
EDIT: Nevermind I'm wrong lol
@PaulB Thanks, this is helpful.
explodes :-) :-)
I used the shit out of guitarism on iPad today doing a sorta wall of sound dream track. Sort of insane the sounds you can get out of it + jamup. I had to apologize to my jazzmaster when I got home.
@syrupcore I hear that! I exploded earlier (with happiness) after a session playing guitarism.. I love it so much. So thankful to be part of developing it now. Being able to work on something you truly love is just an honor. :-))
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Rhism wrote: " In the meantime, any input I get from you guys wrt how you'd intend to use midi in guitarism helps a ton as it helps me focus my time. "
If guitarism and auria had midi, I would have used it to correct a few passages tonight (edit the midi, send back to guitarism and rerecord the audio). To be clear, I'd always record the guitarism midi out specifically for this reason - sonic backup/good take insurance.
I also would have tweaked the jamup effects for one of the two guitarism tracks in the process. As it is, I did a little audio editing to correct a couple of big flubs and just decided to get ok with the processing.
Also, neck bend/tremelo arm please!
Give my guitar one more reason to dislike you and hate me. Definitely something I'd pay for.
@Ryan Working with you has been (and is) an honor. Glad to have you on board! And yeah, working on something you love is pretty unbeatable
@syrupcore Would love to hear that if you've got a recording! There's a lot more insane sounds on the way...
This is a good segway as I've been thoroughly enjoying the pricing discussion on that "other thread" but things were getting a bit out of hand over there. I'm going to pick out some comments from there that I found very interesting and insightful:
@AQ808 discussed "time spent using app" as a way to measure "value received from it" which is IMO reasonable. However it's not as linear as saying that a movie is ~120 mins for ~$12 so the entertainment is worth 10c/min. Going back to @syrupcore's "3 stages of users" theory from earlier on this thread, there are 3 distinct phases of usage: (1) learning curve, value/min is low and sometimes negative for complex apps, (2) novelty enjoyment, value/min is high but drops over time (as the novelty fades away), (3) mastery and workflow integration, value/min is high and consistent over time. Net-net "it's complicated" because it's non-linear, but we can probably still say that more time spent means more value received.
@AQ808 suggested that perhaps 95% of an app's users only use it for about 5-10 mins. The numbers and percentages may be different in reality, but the general theory is definitely true - most of an app's users use it for a short time and a few use it a lot, typically a power law distribution. So the app offers a tiny bit of value to most of its users, and a lot of value to a small minority. Definitely true.
@AQ808 then suggested that the "right price" is the price that drives enough casual buyers to effectively subsidize the heavier users. By definition this is correct but pretty vague, and needs a bit more meat to make it concrete. There have been some interesting observations / comments about how consumers view pricing:
IMO different people place differing levels of value on money, time, novelty, tools, creativity, productivity, beauty, simplicity, sex appeal, competitors' prices, perception of fairness, etc. So different users should pay different amounts for the same app. That's the only way I can think of such that no one is unfairly subsidizing anyone else, and the developer can make enough to keep on going. An app should know what subset of people it is intended for, and within that subset it should be able to segment itself such that different people pay different amounts for it based on what they get back from it. In some few cases its target audience is homogeneous enough that it can just charge one price to all of them and be done with it. In most other cases however its audience will have considerable variability. @solador78 mentioned flex pricing via IAP and I believe that this is the only way to achieve a sustainable pricing scheme for these apps.
Discuss away, and let's keep it clean
@Simon guitarism is not yet complete in my book, there are two things I have had in mind since the beginning that I want to get done before closing the book on it. These two things are plans I have not yet discussed here (i.e. these are not the midi IAPs we've discussed here). That said, everything I'm doing here does also move me closer to my next set of apps (lead guitarism, bassism, pianism), so it has benefits beyond guitarism.
I agree that the FX slot needs more love but I suspect that's not really my area of expertise - I'm probably better at coming up with new user interfaces for instruments. I'll probably dabble in effects a little bit to prove this wrong, but I'll likely leave the FX stuff to the folks who do that best.
@syrupcore MIDI IAP definitely coming up. Bend/tremolo - hopefully
Perhaps a set of 'Support the Developer' IAPs at, for example, $1, $2, $5 and $10. Serious users of the app can then decide for themselves what value they are getting out of the app (and the developer) and make an appropriate contribution whenever they like. Online role playing games let you repeatedly use IAPs to buy in-game currency, so I think this should be possible.
Yes! Support the Dev IAPs:
$1 - I just had a fun jam session
$2 - I just had a great jam session
$5 - I just made a useable track.
$10 - I just completed an album
$50 - I just signed with a label!
Just make it always voluntary, never tied to feature availability. Drop all your real IAP fees and announce the new system. I'd love to see a little segment of Developers use the IAP structure to turn the App Store into essentially an open source, shareware pricing model. Do it!!
@PaulB @Hmtx Interesting concept
Kinda like Radiohead's release of In Rainbows. Problem is, Apple doesn't allow any "tip jar" / "donation box" mechanisms in apps. So it'd have to give you something in the app, but somehow still make it obvious to the user that it's intended to be like a tip jar, so people don't look at the pricing in terms of what you're getting for it in the app. Not sure if that's truly possible. Thoughts?
Songs. Like the Rhism Nation songs, only by IAP. A new one each month, perhaps.
Game Center badges and ranking :-b
Adil are we just talking about guitarism or music apps in general?
Guitarism is in the unique position of being the only app of its kind on the bus.(no competition)
Would any of these ideas still work if for instance wi guitar was to jump on the bus?
Was pricing discussed on the devs forum
(over the last few days)and did there seem to be a consensus that a new model was needed?
supporter skins/themes (iap) .. same audio engine but different look for supporters.
Skins! Definitely. Scrap all my other IAP ideas.
Skins are totally superfluous, inherently communicate they are just for looks, but do add some value for the user, and mostly provide extra income for @Rhism. You can charge more for the really nice ones. And I have no doubt your graphic designer could put together some really nice looking graphic themes based on classic styles. :-)
This of course would work great for guitarism, which has a good bit of unused visual space. Maybe not very practical as a model for other music apps.
@commonstookie All apps really. Pricing has been a recurrent topic for devs too, yes. guitarism is perhaps lucky to have less competition on the bus (just Live Guitar and GarageBand today, but iShred/Guitar Studio is coming). But a lot of people don't have Audiobus yet, and they compare guitarism to the dozens of other guitar apps on the App Store that are free. Empirically, guitarism can't go above $3 without sales crashing to the floor.
@skinit Agreed that skins are possibly a good angle. But skins will trigger angry reviews about greedy developers nickel-and-diming users with useless IAPs, and these reviews have a huge impact on sales. Ideally it's something that's so obviously a virtual tipping system that no one will feel that they're having to pay for something that they expect to be free.
Looks like Apple offers a workaround: “The collection of donations must be done via a web site in Safari or an SMS. We understand that directing your user outside your app may not be the user experience you prefer to offer your users. However it is a common experience in a variety of iOS apps.”
An interesting angle to explore.
So rather then finding ways to earn more.
Why not open the debate up here.
As here's a good a place as any and everyone is here.
If users and devs can agree an across the board price increase for all ios music apps,that could maybe be fixed for x number of years then maybe everyone wins.
A fair increase so that devs can develop their apps and users feel they are contributing to a worthwhile community..?
@commonstookie 'Price fixing' is of course not a good place to go, but there is perhaps value in discussing what people think apps are worth to them. And also going back to @Sebastian's question of how much people feel a dev 'should' earn per month / per year, as a curiosity question. I'm curious about this too. I have my own thoughts on this of course but would love to hear what you guys think.
A grip of indie games have a 'tip jar' IAP. Punchquest comes to mind. Usually cheap/freemium games where you can buy coins or whatever. The IAP is for gamers that want to say thanks but not cheat the game mechanics. From what I understand, it's actually working fairly well! I've done it a couple of times.