Cash and Feedback

[mitscherdinger]

Hi!

Last weekend I earned a little money and because QLC+ made me look good at my job I'd like to express my thankfulness for this cool tool and make some donation. But: i don't like to donate via paypal. Is it possible to use other ways? I guess it might not be so complicated as we both live in the EU.

It was the first time I used QLC+ for a professional job. If you like, I share my impressions to help to advance things. Not all developers like that, so I ask first...

Greets!
Mitsch

[mcallegari]

Hi, glad QLC+ helped you.

Unfortunately the only way to support the project is via PayPal donations. I think you can make one with your credit card even if you don't have a PayPal account:
http://aifs2.pvdveen.net/?p=152

As for impressions, please do share them. We're always eager to improve the software based on real feedbacks of "field usages"

[mitscherdinger]

Okay! Then let me tell you about the setting, first:

I had three working days from friday, the 27th, till sunday, the 30th november.
Friday, there was a hiphop-event with 14 acts, both dancers and rappers. Saturday was all about modern dance, 12 acts. And sunday, there were two events with improvisation theater, one for children and one "x-mas-show" for the adult. In every show, there was place for about 150 viewers.

My setup was the already installed conventional light equipment (2 dimmers with 12 channels each), 2 of my own IMG Stage-Line PARL-4SET, my laptop running QLC+ 4.10.1 on debian testing with a realtime kernel, an Enttec DMX USB-Pro and a Behringer BCF 2000.

For all the shows, things went great using QLC+, although I always was in a hurry to get things done. Neither hard- nor the software broke down while the show.


While programming, I experienced some more crashes. One crash was especially annoying as it killed my qxw-file and therefore hours of work (See: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9227&p=40540#p40540. Since then, all savings was done in two files, seperately, to avoid standing naked in the show.


To explain some of the problems I had with QLC+, I'd like to focus on my work for the friday show:
I already had all the music that was needed for the show on my computer the weekend before, so I decided to make a lightshow for every act, at first. I started programming the LEDs at home to make them work together with the music and use the conventional light later for a simple frontlight bound to faders on the BCF2000. I mainly worked with the QLC+-show-manager, importing mp3-audio-files and chasers respectively scenes for special effects. After a couple of hours I realised that it just wasn't possible to finish in time.

There were several reasons why I was so slow. One reason of course is, that I've never used QLC+ that seriously and I really needed to practice. Second, I didn't knew about the concept of RGB-matrices, which might have led to nicer effects in less time.

But there were also some hurdles in QLC+ itself:

* Using mp3 as a time base is nonsense. It may work if you always go through the whole track at once. But if you jump inside the track, f.e. to check your latest edit, you're always out of time. Using wav-files instead worked perfectly. So, I transcoded every mp3 to wav, once, I realised that mp3 doesn't work that good - it didn't matter that much, because in my workflow I'm relatively good prepared to transcode audio-files. For the normal user I guess it would be better to transcode mp3-files internally before using the track, OR pop-up a message that warns about using a mp3-track as a time base. (Of course, the best option for the user was to fix the time-inaccuracy with mp3-files, but I *guess* this is the most complex way to fix that.)
I only talk about mp3 and wav, because that weekend I only got in touch with them - don't know, if the use of ogg, flac (or other formats I'm not that interested in ) are also working.

* It would have helped me, if the audio file I want to make a lightshow to, would not only be a coloured bar. A waveform as an orientation would be great, especially for getting the bpm with no bpm-counter at hand.

* Snapping to grid in bpm-view didn't work. Maybe I did something wrong?
If it would work some day (for me), there is one feature of the DAW Ardour, I'd really like to see realised in QLC, too. Instead of clicking "snap to grid" to activate or inactivate, just use "Shift" or "CTRL" to override snapping. I'd love to see that feature also, if I want to move a function just a few (hundred) miliseconds.

* Full numbers is not precise enough when working with bpm as a time base. You need one digit after the point, at least for the vast majority of songs with less than 100 bpm.

* Copying an item (chaser, scene, whatever) and insert it again caused QLC+ to crash. I was bound to press "+" and choose the function from the list.

* Zooming wasn't fun. See: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9229&p=40549#p40549
Besides that: Zooming in was detailed enough but I wished I could zoom out more than the ~ 6 minutes.

* The information on the left side must stay there and mustn't be scrolled away. It might be in the way for small displays, but it would be better to get smaller instead of getting out of sight.

* Chasers didn't work reliable if they're too close to their predecessor or cross them in time.

* If you choose to insert a chaser you have to make him "single shot" and copy it as often as you need it. If you don't, the chaser goes on and on and on till the end of the show.
I'd prefere that behaviour: Insert a chaser and make him "loop", "ping-pong" or "random", insert another function on the same track makes the chaser stop and the show continues with the inserted function. If you want the chaser to continue - use another track!


Besides the mp3-problem which I could workaround relatively easy, all the combined issues listed here really slowed me down. I guess, a 5-minute-track with - let's say - 4 diferent chasers and some scenes as special flashes has cost me several hours to complete. I only got a continuous working chaser with no hole if I'd manually put them 0.2 seconds away from each other in "single shot" mode… And that is really time consuming…


Maybe someone would say that my working flow is just too detailed and complicated or maybe I just didn't understand the way QLC+ should be used. On the other hand I think: Sometimes I want to have a chaser to exactly follow the beat and sometimes I want a special scene on some special note. And QLC+ is not that far away from that to program such a show in arguable time. So, I hope it won't be too complicated to implement some of my wishes…

Keep going!
QLC+ is really a phantastic project!

Greets!
Mitsch

[mcallegari]

Ok, so much stuff.
I'll try to reply to the easiest ones first.
One thing though. It seems logical to me that if you intend to use a QLC+ tool, you should read at least the documentation of that tool before you begin.
In this case, it would have took you 3 minutes to read the Show Manager documentation to learn how to use it.

* Using mp3 as a time base is nonsense. It may work if you always go through the whole track at once. But if you jump inside the track, f.e. to check your latest edit, you're always out of time. Using wav-files instead worked perfectly. So, I transcoded every mp3 to wav, once, I realised that mp3 doesn't work that good - it didn't matter that much, because in my workflow I'm relatively good prepared to transcode audio-files. For the normal user I guess it would be better to transcode mp3-files internally before using the track, OR pop-up a message that warns about using a mp3-track as a time base. (Of course, the best option for the user was to fix the time-inaccuracy with mp3-files, but I *guess* this is the most complex way to fix that.)
I only talk about mp3 and wav, because that weekend I only got in touch with them - don't know, if the use of ogg, flac (or other formats I'm not that interested in ) are also working.

It's written in the documentation: http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/showmanager.html
See the description of the Stop button.

* It would have helped me, if the audio file I want to make a lightshow to, would not only be a coloured bar. A waveform as an orientation would be great, especially for getting the bpm with no bpm-counter at hand.

It's implemented, but you didn't see it or read the docs. Just right click on an audio item.
See paragraph "Just 4 steps", number 3.

* Snapping to grid in bpm-view didn't work. Maybe I did something wrong?

Well, this is supposed to work. I'll check what's wrong an in case fix it.

If it would work some day (for me), there is one feature of the DAW Ardour, I'd really like to see realised in QLC, too. Instead of clicking "snap to grid" to activate or inactivate, just use "Shift" or "CTRL" to override snapping. I'd love to see that feature also, if I want to move a function just a few (hundred) miliseconds.

See next item.

* Full numbers is not precise enough when working with bpm as a time base. You need one digit after the point, at least for the vast majority of songs with less than 100 bpm.

The BPM usage has to be completely reviewed. Most likely QLC+ 4 will not see any change about it, but QLC+ 5 will handle a BPM mode all across the software, including on Chaser steps

* Copying an item (chaser, scene, whatever) and insert it again caused QLC+ to crash. I was bound to press "+" and choose the function from the list.

A few fixes have been done recently, so hopefully 4.10.2 will not crash anymore.

* Zooming wasn't fun. See: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9229&p=40549#p40549
Besides that: Zooming in was detailed enough but I wished I could zoom out more than the ~ 6 minutes.

Probably QLC+ 5 stuff.

* The information on the left side must stay there and mustn't be scrolled away. It might be in the way for small displays, but it would be better to get smaller instead of getting out of sight.

Yes, this has been reported a few times. Probably QLC+ 5 stuff as well.

[mitscherdinger]

* Snapping to grid in bpm-view didn't work. Maybe I did something wrong?

Well, this is supposed to work. I'll check what's wrong an in case fix it.

Just a quick answer, before I cause unnecessary work.
You're right! It's working. Kind of.
I couldn't use it, because the BPM-setting was too unprecise on one hand and on the other hand it didn't snap on the grid itself, but always relative to the grid, depending on how it was inserted. (Hope, you understand.)

But: You adressed the problem, so nevermind. Can't wait for QLC+ 5.x!

Greets!
Mitsch

[mitscherdinger]

It seems logical to me that if you intend to use a QLC+ tool, you should read at least the documentation of that tool before you begin.

Yes, of course. You probably caught me, here.
You really have a very good documentation. And, well, I really spent hours to go through it. I've watched all the tutorial-videos and I've also read the documentation, if it was necessary.
Yes, I try to solve things intuitively, if the tool allows it. (And QLC+ does allow it for most of the tasks.) Because: Even, if I had read the whole documentation before using QLC+, I wouldn't have a chance to remember it all - besides the fact that if I don't know a program, I can't understand all the phrases and labels you gave for all the features.

In this case, it would have took you 3 minutes to read the Show Manager documentation to learn how to use it.

I guess, you overestimate my reading ability. Think about ten times more…

* Using mp3 as a time base is nonsense.

It's written in the documentation: http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/showmanager.html
See the description of the Stop button.

Okay, but do you really think that I look for a stop button if I have a problem with synchronization?
I read http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/concept.html#Audio but that didn't seem to be the right place for getting information about mp3-synchronization problems. Maybe you'd print the warning in there or rethink my approach.

* A waveform as an orientation would be great.

Just right click on an audio item.

My fault! Thanks!

* Full numbers is not precise enough when working with bpm as a time base. You need one digit after the point, at least for the vast majority of songs with less than 100 bpm.

The BPM usage has to be completely reviewed. Most likely QLC+ 4 will not see any change about it, but QLC+ 5 will handle a BPM mode all across the software, including on Chaser steps

Awesome - that's more I even asked for!

Did I already say that I'm looking forward to QLC+ 5?

Greets!
Mitsch