#41

I’m pretty sure it’s response to complaints.

Someone over there also had the brilliant idea of forcing you to sign up to use the app on “first” launch, so in a single sitting, I went from making sounds in the seaboard view to upgrading the app and being strong-armed into registering (without 1Password or “pasts” support) in order to… no longer make the sounds I was just making.

:rolling_eyes:

#42

The whole sign-in thing has to be for data collection purposes. I don’t see any other meaningful reason to do it. They’ve launched a new product that is well thought through, but they don’t understand how people will use. Data is the biggest value-added with the launch of a different product. Other competitors in the MPE, grid-based continuous playing surface have better offerings, but don’t meet the market where demand is at (and suffer as one-off specialty or luxury goods). Roli can win if they know what and who to build for. More and more, I’m convinced that this low-price option is basically a test case and they’ll bring a larger version to market once the paying beta gives them a picture of the market. It’ll be interesting to see if other competitors who have been playing catch-up with their Seaboard line (cough K-Board Pro 4 from KMI) will build towards the expected results and cut Roli off.

Man, if they’d just hire me, I could help with these sort of problems – I’m an internet commenting expert, after all!

3 Likes
#43

I would totally get one of the regular button controllers (Live Block) if they had more generic icons. I’d roll my own code for it, and it’d be a pita to remember what the fuck the little metronome icon was, or what the little pyramid of squares was, etc…

1 Like
#44

yeah i mean, it’s plainly obvious that they want the data collection, and i don’t object to the data collection aspects of it. it’s the way that it’s done that strikes me as a gigantic mis-step. forcing that on people at the start, especially people who had previously used the app and who are “upgrading” to the latest version is a friction point, and they’re going to lose people they would have otherwise gotten.

developing analytics tracking that starts out anonymous and leads into registration isn’t rocket science, and you don’t have to be dan norman to figure out how to put that screen further into the product than the front door…

i realize it’s just internet complaining, but i have also complained to them in person last week, and everyone i spoke to said “yeah, we had a really, really long argument about that, and marketing won.”

1 Like
#45

It appears that product and marketing needs to get a bit better synchronized. (Not an unusual situation at all)

2 Likes
#46

I was showing a friend the app right as the “upgrade” came out, so I updated it and when he saw the login info appear, he closed it, handed back the device, and laughed bitterly. We have two decades of UX, UI, and product design between us and it nearly stopped us from using it. You don’t have to be Don Norman, but you also don’t have to be the Anti-Norman (Or the guy who designed the Korg Gadget iPad app).

Jason is right, but I still think that this is putting their toe in, testing the water. It’d be very sad if they stopped at Blocks.

1 Like
#47

Heh, with $50M to pay back to investors, I think it’s safe to say they aren’t stopping with anything anytime soon.

#48

I more-or-less did the same thing right in front of a few of the engineering team folks that I met in London at ADC, and just re-opened the app to see if it had updated and changed.

Still not logging in or registering… I had a nice sound loaded up the last time I’d used it too…

#49

can some of this mentioned latency be due to the MPE protocol, the way each note’s messages are sent on a unique MIDI channel, rotating through all channels (or a defined contiguous block of channels)?

#50

Not really. The MIDI note message size is the same regardless of channel. The only difference is you can’t use running status, but that’s not used in the USB MIDI spec anyway.

1 Like
#51

Roli has released a “new app” called Seaboard 5D that is essentially the original NOISE app. I received an email detailing what it is and how they express their deepest appologies for removing RISE support for the new NOISE. We’ll see where this goes though. I’m just happy i can use my board at the coffee shop again without schlepping around my laptop despite knowing full well that Equator is a far superior engine. I find having less options is a better way to promote the spontaneous, especially when it comes to noodling on the go.

#53

lightpad block arrive in the mail today. My initial impression so far:

  • the combined latency of the block + bluetooth + noise app makes it near unusable
  • the block’s touch tracking itself accounts for roughly 20-25% of the latency
  • some of the “latency” seems like it is really due to how high the initial pressure threshold is for registering a touch
  • once a touch is registered the continuous tracking seems okay latency wise (but not great)

Using via usb and Max 7 was a bit more positive. The latency was low enough that I would see it used for modulation controls but still not something which was playable like a grid.

Hopefully the firmware on the block will improve and connecting it directly to something like ansible/earthsea (with the requisite firmware hacking) will yield something useful.

#54

…I should add that it appears as if it only sends SYSEX messages for everything, not a mixture of MPE and SYSEX for stuff which doesn’t fit within the spec.

Seems like a poor choice which largely prevents any meaningful interoperability.

…actually if Max isn’t running then it appears to switch to using normal MIDI messages (hopefully MPE). Weird design.

#55

I wrote my impressions from spending some time with them at the Apple Store the other day, in a different thread:

#56

If you’re wondering about the technical decisions and the protocol used, this talk by Jules may shed some light on things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawj6GbkK2I&t=1416s

3 Likes
#57

Many thanks for the tip.

I’ve started to poke at it via libusb and there is a fair amount of embedded smarts depending on which usb interface one acquires. The latency does seem to be much lower when it is operating as a straight midi controller (still far cry from a soundplane or continuum).

This video was also instructive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3mmMIvvghQ

It mentions API mode vs normal mode (and all the SYSEX).

#58

Pretty interesting talk, thanks for the link!

#59

Yes, it was an interesting talk.

I found the comments on Forth and Lisp amusing.

I’m not sure it actually makes me want to own a Block though… possibly the opposite!

#60

I managed to pick up a nearly new Roli Block for the kind of price I was expecting to pay when I saw them. If there is any major fault with Roli Blocks, its that it is beyond the price at which you can accept its limitations.

it seems to me that with the Apple store deal, they had to hit a release date in November, which may have led to the mixed messages over launch. Likely Noise app needed a few more weeks before launch but they had to hit early November, to get it into stores/gift guides, and I can understand that. it remains to be seen if they can tighten up the latency in the app through updates.

I also wonder if we will see an updated hardware coming in 2017 once they improve the design. This does feel like it was released for the Christmas gift market, to appease their venture capital backers, as opposed to whether Roli themselves felt it was 100% ready for launch.

#61

i got a block a few days ago.
i was only interested in using it with Max and the blocks package. It’s great. On plain Max.
It just doesn’t work at all in M4L, which makes it quite useless to me.