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Comments
@SevenSystems : it is much friendlier to not require the user to preset the meter first. It is often when selecting the loop and fine-tuning it that I might realize that I’m working with an odd meter. It seems much better to not require the meter to have been entered first.
And one bar should definitely not be assumed. One might be working with many measures.
Browsing inside document bundles (.band, .logicx etc.) could be handy for digging out audio, they are technically just folders with sub-folders and files.
Wavebox can do this once the top level folder is added to its built-in browser…
If I’m not mistaken it’s possible to allow the document picker to browse bundles.
Oh yeah could have just tested that myself directly from the files app 🤦♂️
Thanks
So @SevenSystems if I go to the file app, long press on a wav file and copy, I can then paste into a loopy pro. So seemingly it does use the system clipboard, and allows pasting the audio file.
So I’m thinking it’s a little strange that if I share and copy from Meow, I can’t do the same, if Meow is copying ‘the wav file’, no?
I’ve just tried copying from Meow into the files app and it pastes a text file with the name of the wav file in. So I think that’s the issue, unless that’s what it’s supposed to do?
OK @Samu @espiegel123 it seems like others have more experience with this scenario so I'll succumb to the masses 😜
If you want to suggest the optimum way you envision this to be represented in the existing UI (tempo dropdown), I'll follow your advice as best as possible.
(the goal is to communicate to the user what to do, having an UI to communicate to the app the number of beats that are selected, and to also let the user know that the 'ruler offset' will be adjusted according to the selection too)
Simple. In the guess bpm panel have a field in which an integer can be entered. The prompt can say something like “Enter the number of beats in the selection “.
You can 'Share' in Meow, then select 'Copy', and then go to the 'Files' app and select 'Paste' from the context menu -> WAV / MP3 file appears. (I'm not sure why the additional text file appears, I'm definitely not telling iOS to do this. Will investigate).
'Copy' in the iOS Share sheet apparently just means that the file is "tagged as having been copied" (as if you had hit 'Copy' in its context menu in the Files app), so it can be "pasted" in the Files app. It is not that its contents are copied to the system clipboard. These are two separate things.
For me, it pastes two files, the actual audio file, and that strange text file indeed. That is new and it didn't do that before, will investigate this!
Seems like this whole 'Share' business is pretty flakey... but what isn't in 2024 😂
It must exist because it can be opened by miRack. But, no matter. 😎
The error you're seeing is literally passed on from iOS by Meow to the error dialog. iOS is literally telling Meow that the file doesn't exist. I know it's not your fault, but it's the truth!
I've stopped wondering about the "intricacies" of iOS file management 😄 (sorry. I sometimes just give up. The very act of accessing a file, something which used to be easy even on the C64, is pretty much a combination of 3 rocket sciences on iOS, with all kinds of strange unexpected behaviours and flakeyness, probably because of all this ridiculous pipe-dreamy CLOUD stuff that simply cannot realistically work. Oh and SECURITY of course!)
I think I've overworked and need a break anyway, so don't take me too seriously... I still appreciate the feedback. But believe me, software development, especially for iOS, these days is 90% navigating around odd quirks and bugs in the operating system, while actually spending 10% of your time doing productive and creative design and development. It's kinda sad.
(that's also why, you might have noticed in other threads, I absolutely detest implementing any platform-specific functionality!)
Ahh - that's interesting about the error message being passed by iOS. Just out of curiosity, do you have miRack installed? If not, then maybe the "non-existing" file is related to never having .mrk as a registered file type.
Not that it matters. It's just hard to let mysteries like that go ... as you know. 😂
I really hope you don't overwork yourself over this thing. Welcoming feedback from the AB forum is a recipe for chronic burnout.
No, just checked...
It's not the forum's fault! I'm never faulting my users... but there's something going on here that is very hard to communicate:
Basically, everyone (users & developers) are working with an extremely complicated, badly designed platform (iOS) that triggers unrealistic expectations ("Cloud").
So, most shops have the energy and budget to spend 90% of their development time digging around iOS APIs and trying every possible combination of files, situations, network connectivity, etc. etc. to make all those edge cases (like your mi-rack case, or gregsmith's "Copy" situation) somehow work with 200 yards of band-aid.
But I don't have the time and energy and frustration tolerance, unfortunately. If I had 3 code monkey employees that could spend their $10 / hour on hunting down these issues, I'd be happy to delegate this 😄
So, users (rightfully) see something doesn't work with Meow, and they think the developer is incompetent. But the developer then tells them that the platform (and Apple) are incompetent, which must sound completely ridiculous to the user, as "surely Apple can't be incompetent"?
Ah well
Again to emphasize: I deeply appreciate the feedback and would always do a public beta again. I'm not faulting users for reporting genuine problems, even if they're frustrating for me because they're NotMyFault ™
OK, so just a single button 'Guess BPM from Selection', and that pops up a normal "value entry dialog", with a prompt "Number of beats in selection", maybe pre-populated with the numerator of the time signature (might be wrong but will probably often be right!)
Yes?
Yeah I get this. This isn’t what I’m saying. Loopy Pro allows you to copy a wav file from the files app and paste in, and it works just fine.
You’re right, I missed that it was pasting 2 files.
I get what you’re saying, but the copy in Meow must be different from the copy direct to the files app, otherwise they would both paste into Loopy Pro. Make sense?
I just tried exactly the same with TwistedWave using the share sheet, copying, and was able to paste just fine into LP, and into the files app without creating a text file.
This suggests it’s a Meow bug and I’d say the text file thing is probably a clue.
OK, this thing has haunted me and I've investigated, and I managed to fix the 'Text file + Audio file' thing. I also now tried 'Share' -> 'Copy' from Meow, and then, lo and behold, the audio file was available in the 'General Pasteboard' in Cubasis 2!!! So that looks like progress.
I have a few bugs on the list currently that I want to fix first, but I'll then push an update and you can try again!
Thanks as always for the help.
Believe me, I can relate. I made a concerted effort for almost a year before I threw up my hands and decided iOS music app development is beyond me. I know I could have managed it if there was decent documentation and some acceptable level of consistency. I just couldn't deal with the crap state of things and didn't see it ever improving.
A few very generous 3rd party contributors have posted high quality example code since then, but it's still abysmal trying to piece everything together. It's a shame.
Yes, that is currently not possible in Meow, but will probably be in the future. Not in v1.0 though.
I think so.
Excellent! This completes the app for me as it means you can effectively get audio in and out without ever having to save to a file.
I was actually just trying to explain the test scenario (I’m not communicating very well this evening 😂)
But nevertheless, this would be a great feature for meow at some point. I’m just very happy you’ve added the new ‘open in’ functionality.
New build submitted to Apple and hopefully available shortly!
If all goes well, I'm looking for a release in about 1 week's time. Thanks for your continued input and support.
@espiegel123 and others, here's the UI for the 'Guess BPM' feature. I've decided to integrate it all
into the menu. This will reduce the number of clicks for the user if the number of beats they selected stays the same. Also it neatly brings it all into one place. I've also added a "Round to whole BPM" button, because that's IMO still the most common scenario.
@SevenSystems Just a quick question...
Is there any particular logic to the 'artistic way' the waveform is drawn?
Most sample editors just show a straight line when zooming in...
...but in Meow a single cycle sine-wave looks like this almost like every sample has both positive and negative points?!
Maybe I'm just too used to the way other audio-editors display the waveform?!
Anyways, not a biggie just something that puzzled my mind...
Cheers!
It would be nice to be able to turn off that mirrored image -- there are cases where some things would be more obvious without the mirror.
I'm being pedantic, but it's not really a guess if the length of the selection and the number of beats is set, is it? I mean, it could be a guess on the user's part, but it's really just a straight-up calculation on Meow's part, isn't it?
"Guess" implies analyzing of the audio to come up with a likely tempo, like some apps do.
My point is it isn't Meow that's doing the guess. It's the user. Meow is only doing a straight-up calculation based on the duration of the selection and the beats the user has entered.
No big deal. It's just to me when you're pressing a button you're asking an app to do something. That something should reflect what the app is doing and it shouldn't be ambiguous. "Guess" is ambiguous because it could imply that the number of beats is just a guideline and the app is actually attempting to do tempo detection based on the audio content.
This is already a few too many posts on such a minor topic. I'll just leave it at that.
Yes. It's not really "artistic"
The dark-grey part shows the envelope of the wave, i.e. the amplitude or "physical loudness" at that point (which is independent of polarity). When zoomed further out, all that gets drawn is the envelope (in a brighter grey). When drawing switches to individual samples, the envelope is still drawn (darker), and in addition, the individual sample levels are drawn as lines.
Yes, that's also a valid representation, but I'd say Meow's is actually better, as it contains more information.
I think the above answers the question
I can make the envelope optional at the sample level, this can be added to a general "Settings" menu in v1.1!
No worries, always good to ask!
Honestly it would be enough to make a selection and tell the app its x number of beats and it would calculate the bpm.
If nothing is selected and the file is very long the BPM might get a bit whacked and the "/2" and "*2" BPM could be used to get in the right ballpark, visually adjusting BPM is quite often enough to make the grid-lines match the content.
I kinda get that. Suggestions? It has to fit. "From Selection"? Any combination of text in the input field (currently 'Beats in Selection') and the label of the 'Guess' button that conveys the same amount of information (and better) that the current situation does is welcome!