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Custom Playback Rules in Staffpad - The mini "crashed" course.

servandus

servandus

Member
Hi everybody. Some users kindly pointed out that the techniques discussed in the now defunct thread "Custom Playback Rules in Staffpad" could be seen as a case of reverse engineering by the developers, so I got in touch with DWH at Staffpad, and he confirmed that customizing the playback definition xml files actually violates Staffpad's EULA.

I reported this, and asked the mods to delete the thread, which they promptly did. The purpose of this new thread is just to give some details, so that anyone who could have been following the old thread knows what happened and why.

In his answer, DWH wrote this about creating custom xml files:

"These files are undocumented (and code-signed, at least on iOS) for a reason: you risk losing work or corrupting scores, interfering with the update mechanism and potentially isolating yourself from some of the upcoming features that are in development."
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About the philosophy behind their decisions, he pointed out this:

"StaffPad isn't sold or advertised as having a modifiable, user-customisable playback system. In fact, StaffPad intentionally operates within a controlled and integrated environment - one which enables composers from non-technical backgrounds to achieve incredible results at a fraction of the cost and complexity of other systems"
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And about the development of the playback engine, he wrote this:

"Can things improve, overall? Yes, always. But, it is our responsibility to do this and then release those improvements for all users. It is by far the harder path, and perhaps the more frustrating for highly technical power users. But, this approach allows us to do things differently, bring new experiences and break free from legacy concepts and level-up everyone in ways that otherwise wouldn't be possible"
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So, that's it. Even if I am perplexed and disappointed, I am also grateful that I didn't waste more time on this, so thanks a lot to the people who pointed out this could indeed be a problem.

Now that everything is clear, it's time for me to think about other options. Dorico 4 is finally here, and almost fully armed in the playback department to a point where it might make more sense to spend time building custom expression maps which will continue to work in the long run.

I will nevertheless continue to use Staffpad for less demanding scores. I wish and hope it can reach the point where customization is no longer needed. But right now, neither wishes nor hopes triggers "spiccato exposed" when I need it, so...
Click to read more...
 
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servandus said:
Hi everybody. Some users kindly pointed out that the techniques discussed in the now defunct thread "Custom Playback Rules in Staffpad" could be seen as a case of reverse engineering by the developers, so I got in touch with DWH at Staffpad, and he confirmed that customizing the playback definition xml files actually violates Staffpad's EULA.

I reported this, and asked the mods to delete the thread, which they promptly did. The purpose of this new thread is just to give some details, so that anyone who could have been following the old thread knows what happened and why.

In his answer, DWH wrote this about creating custom xml files:



About the philosophy behind their decisions, he pointed out this:



And about the development of the playback engine, he wrote this:



So, that's it. Even if I am perplexed and disappointed, I am also grateful that I didn't waste more time on this, so thanks a lot to the people who pointed out this could indeed be a problem.

Now that everything is clear, it's time for me to think about other options. Dorico 4 is finally here, and almost fully armed in the playback department to a point where it might make more sense to spend time building custom expression maps which will continue to work in the long run.

I will nevertheless continue to use Staffpad for less demanding scores. I wish and hope it can reach the point where customization is no longer needed. But right now, neither wishes nor hopes triggers "spiccato exposed" when I need it, so...
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear this🙁. Thanks for your effort
 
This is extremely disheartening and disappointing. That said I'm not completely surprised.

servandus said:
DWH: "Can things improve, overall? Yes, always. But, it is our responsibility to do this and then release those improvements for all users. It is by far the harder path, and perhaps the more frustrating for highly technical power users.
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I take issue with this particular response you received. The issues & playback bugs your methods fixed are not frustrating for "highly technical power users" - they are frustrating for all users who care about consistent volume across articulations, articulations that actually playback the way they should without adding extraneous markings to the score, etc.

If StaffPad had shown any progress towards fixing playback and library bugs - that would be one thing, but as we know, reporting these kinds of bugs has gotten us nowhere.

I deleted additional paragraphs I was planning on posting in my response, for fear this thread would get moved to the Drama Zone... :/

Thank you for all your efforts @servandus
 
Understand their response as they don't want to get caught in a suppprt twilight zone with everybody doing their own thing.

However, it needs to be said that their instrument documentation is really, truly lacking. At the end of the day people just want to play and compose and what was happening here was an attempt to productively and positively work through challenges and make things work.

I love Staffpad output but the input engine is quirky and not really that enjoyable to work with. I will probably focus more on Dorico as time goes on as I've seen that the Dorico developers are incredible (personnally engaging on the forums here and the level of developer support at the Steinberg site has been fantastic).

The Dorico sound set is not currently equivalent to Staffpad but messing around with vsts and the expression map engine can give some nice results.
 
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What a damn shame… We can only hope that @servandus excellent and brilliant work will some day find its way into Staffpad’s playback engine. Though I fear that may take a while (if ever).

Nevertheless: Thanks a million for showing us all (incl. StaffPad devs.) what this playback engine and current libraries are actually capable of, with a few and relatively simple tweaks :thumbsup:
 
I am so so sorry to say that I knew this would happen. I have communicated with DWH enough to know that he is not open to anyone else's ideas. I, too, am moving on to Dorico. It is heartbreaking to see the potential that @servandus demonstrated and be unable to harness it. When a company is unwilling to embrace new ideas that obviously make their product a whole lot better, it has no future. I'll continue to use StaffPad as a sketch tool, but I won't invest anymore money in it.
 
I get the feeling that Staffpad seems to be a waste of time in the long run. That's not because playback isn't good enough or that it won't get better over time. It might. It's more that an answer like that which does not even show the slightest interest in the actual improvements and progress made, here... This answer does not bode well for interaction between users and developers.

Pointing out a breach of the EULA is one thing. But I am baffled beyond words that there is not the slightest sign of excitement over the possibilities outlined by the work of @servandus, not the faintest consideration of including (instead of actively excluding) users and their visions of what the product could be, no vision of what Staffpad might become, apart from a sleek app.

This means we're just consumers.
You know. Like back in the 80s.
 
Staffpad is now owned by the Muse Group. Not saying that is good or bad but have been watching them since the Audacity dust up and the stuff they pulled with analytics and trying to take ownership of open source code (they essentially were asking open source authors to sign away any rights to their code for no compensation).

Having Staffpad claim EULA for the contents of industry standard text based xml files has a farm fresh smell to it.
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words. Truth is I would have loved it if the tutorial had served as a starting point for Staffpad users to discuss playback tips and tricks, share xml files, etc. Compared with Dorico's expression maps, Staffpad's playback rules have a lot of advantages: the syntax is very easy to learn, the scripting powerful enough to handle a lot of playback scenarios, the configuration much faster to set up... I honestly thought that, once the tutorial was finished and the basics laid out, the thread could have easily escalated into a powerful resource for Staffpad users.

But it's ok. I'm rather practical with this kind of matters, and it's always best to move on and look for alternatives as quickly as possible. The way I see it, apart from the legality of it, there's absolutely no point in trying to customize files which could stop working at any time in the near future. I sent them a lengthy email explaining my suggestions as best as I could. David's reply was equally detailed, and I really appreciate he took the time to talk in a friendly tone about things he needed not mention. It's just that, even if I understand Staffpad is his baby, and everyone has his own way to raise his kids, he seems to be an overprotective father. I'm of another kind. For me, it all boils down to this:

But, it is our responsibility to do this and then release those improvements for all users
Click to expand...

That sums pretty much all for me, and I am glad he put it so clearly, because I now have no doubts about the future of the app, and how much time and effort I should put into mastering it... which is basically none, of course. We can rest assured that they will take care of everything, so there's really no point.

The only thing I miserably failed to convey in my message to David is that, with such a small team, by the time they are done fixing the countless playback issues Staffpad exhibits everywhere I'll be probably asking Saint Peter whether Bach made it there or he is downstairs playing tritones vs. tridents.
 
servandus said:
Thanks everyone for the kind words. Truth is I would have loved it if the tutorial had served as a starting point for Staffpad users to discuss playback tips and tricks, share xml files, etc. Compared with Dorico's expression maps, Staffpad's playback rules have a lot of advantages: the syntax is very easy to learn, the scripting powerful enough to handle a lot of playback scenarios, the configuration much faster to set up... I honestly thought that, once the tutorial was finished and the basics laid out, the thread could have easily escalated into a powerful resource for Staffpad users.

But it's ok. I'm rather practical with this kind of matters, and it's always best to move on and look for alternatives as quickly as possible. The way I see it, apart from the legality of it, there's absolutely no point in trying to customize files which could stop working at any time in the near future. I sent them a lengthy email explaining my suggestions as best as I could. David's reply was equally detailed, and I really appreciate he took the time to talk in a friendly tone about things he needed not mention. It's just that, even if I understand Staffpad is his baby, and everyone has his own way to raise his kids, he seems to be an overprotective father. I'm of another kind. For me, it all boils down to this:



That sums pretty much all for me, and I am glad he put it so clearly, because I now have no doubts about the future of the app, and how much time and effort I should put into mastering it... which is basically none, of course. We can rest assured that they will take care of everything, so there's really no point.

The only thing I miserably failed to convey in my message to David is that, with such a small team, by the time they are done fixing the countless playback issues Staffpad exhibits everywhere I'll be probably asking Saint Peter whether Bach made it there or he is downstairs playing tritones vs. tridents.
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Thank you for your wonderful efforts. If you make headway with Dorico expression maps, please do share your experience and resources here. I am grappling with them right now, and though it is getting easier, it is still a bit of a minefield. I hope to get a template going soon.
 
servandus said:
We can rest assured that they will take care of everything, so there's really no point.
Click to expand...
I sure hope so but when? Like, the thing with the dynamics of the staccato vs. legato in your video? This would be such a simple thing to fix and doesn't seem like a big deal at first but it is. It's so incredibly frustrating, balancing the dynamics of the staccato and the legato in your compositions and the problem has been there forever it seems.

After you showed us how fast and easy this could be fixed, I couldn't help but wonder about the Staffpad team's priorities. They've released small fixes before. Why can't they fix these few simple things (the dynamics, the spiccato problem with Spitfire Chamber Strings, the timing of some samples, etc.) in a small update? It would make a BIG difference.
 
MadLad said:
I sure hope so but when? Like, the thing with the dynamics of the staccato vs. legato in your video? This would be such a simple thing to fix and doesn't seem like a big deal at first but it is. It's so incredibly frustrating, balancing the dynamics of the staccato and the legato in your compositions and the problem has been there forever it seems.

After you showed us how fast and easy this could be fixed, I couldn't help but wonder about the Staffpad team's priorities. They've released small fixes before. Why can't they fix these few simple things (the dynamics, the spiccato problem with Spitfire Chamber Strings, the timing of some samples, etc.) in a small update? It would make a BIG difference.
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I’m pretty sure he was being sarcastic. But you’re right, it’s beyond ridiculous that these things weren’t fixed long ago after we saw how easy it was.
 
You ever work in a job or been in a relationship that wasn't going anywhere but you stuck with it, just because it was convienent. Kind of feeling that way regarding Staffpad right now. I invested some money in it, can generally make it work the way I want, but the reality is it feels like there is no real future with it.

The changes in the most recent update didn't really matter to me. The new audio capabilities are nice but don't match how I personally want to use Staffpad (note that I said personally, your usage and mileage may differ). I want to use it as a music composition tool, if I want audio I have several daws that will always do it easier and better.

I was hoping that the input system would become simpler somehow (i.e. press down on pen and have an interactive note/rest list pop-up rather then handwriting), that the mixer would be easier to navigate (a master mixer rather than having to go into each instrument and set individually) and so on. Changes focused more on usability and less on "hey, hold my beer and watch this cool trick I learned ...".

What I think will happen is that Muse Group will eventually turn Staffpad into a subscription based income generator (watch it start with the audio file snippets) at which point I will probably move on.
 
ssnowe said:
You ever work in a job or been in a relationship that wasn't going anywhere but you stuck with it, just because it was convienent. Kind of feeling that way regarding Staffpad right now. I invested some money in it, can generally make it work the way I want, but the reality is it feels like there is no real future with it.

The changes in the most recent update didn't really matter to me. The new audio capabilities are nice but don't match how I personally want to use Staffpad (note that I said personally, your usage and mileage may differ). I want to use it as a music composition tool, if I want audio I have several daws that will always do it easier and better.

I was hoping that the input system would become simpler somehow (i.e. press down on pen and have an interactive note/rest list pop-up rather then handwriting), that the mixer would be easier to navigate (a master mixer rather than having to go into each instrument and set individually) and so on. Changes focused more on usability and less on "hey, hold my beer and watch this cool trick I learned ...".

What I think will happen is that Muse Group will eventually turn Staffpad into a subscription based income generator (watch it start with the audio file snippets) at which point I will probably move on.
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Yeah, I think you've about summed it up. I am heavily invested in StaffPad, and I really regret it now. I was blindsided when the company was sold and it was kept on the QT. And then when the Musescore guy came on the forum here and spouted a bunch of crap about the lofty direction it was going and then deleted all of his comments and DMed us and asked us to delete our comments where we had quoted him, I knew we were in deep doo-doo. We just waited a whole year for the "hold my beer and watch this" trick. As Servandus said above, we'll all be dead before they fix any of the problems. It's time to move on because, as you said, this relationshipb is going nowhere.
 
I'd pay a considerable amount of money for Staffpad Pro that allowed modifying. If it implemented further note input methods, other improvements, and opened the app up to third party library developers I'd happily pay yearly update costs.

As far as I'm concerned staffpad are rejecting considerable income by not doing any of the above. Which I struggle to understand.
 
Jett Hitt said:
And then when the Musescore guy came on the forum here and spouted a bunch of crap about the lofty direction it was going and then deleted all of his comments and DMed us and asked us to delete our comments where we had quoted him
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Oh dear, I had already forgotten about that!
 
sundrowned said:
Staffpad Pro
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While I do own software that cost more than Staffpad I absolutely feel that a platform I spent more than 500 Euros on definitely should already be considered "pro".
I feel the same way, though, about the fact I'd happily pay for an upgrade like that. I thought it might be about being able to prioritize due to costs. I thought it might be about too few people on the team. And the solution for all of this and similar things can be an open and inclusive stance towards an active user community.

But there is no solution to the problem of ignorance or possessive thinking or a lack of interest or whatever the heck is actually going on here. I mean, I was like *really Mitchell? really?!*
 
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