This is just a heads-up for those having playback issues with some old scores. Check and make sure that StaffPad didn't switch out your libraries. I have been fighting with the Berlin Piccolo since the update. It got a noticeable boost and lost some of its musicality--OR SO I THOUGHT. I had a B-Flat 5 (sounding B-flat 6) that was really poking out no matter what I did. I finally decided to try a different piccolo only to discover that StaffPad had switched out the Berlin library for the stock library. So look carefully at your instrument list before making too many changes.
its written in the release notes on the App Store itself... kinda where you would expect... at least it was for me on iPad.
haven't really noticed any difference but I didn't have any major issues with this update anyway. gotta say though...I am enjoying the muse sounds. I have used them in MuseScore but they do seem to sound nicer in staffpad and there's more choices for mallets and stuff. the choir sounds reall
midi capture didn't work for me because my keyboard was plugged into my interface. even though it showed up in the settings as connected, it didn't work that way. I plugged directly into my Surface and works as expected and very well.
I’m done with my previous projects and ready to start a new one. I haven’t updated from iOS 1.5.7 yet. Is it time or should I still hold off?
I don’t need the video or transcribe features, but having the muse as another palette is of interest. Also, if there is overall improvement in hand recognition and smoother playback, that would be the second reason for me to update.
I would definitely recommend upgrading if you are interested in the Muse Sounds and don't have looming deadlines. The upgrade is all in all really ambitious and comprehensive as it touches upon quite a few aspects. I found Muse Strings so good that I am in the middle of re-exporting an older score with the new sounds and up-to-date playback!
BUT...
you will very probably encounter weird nuisances and unresolved bugs and the like. I get the impression Staffpad is keen on getting all those bugs and weird behaviours fixed. It has not reached a level where you could say it is a public beta, but prepare to stumble over stuff.
Or maybe you are lucky, I don't know any longer...lol.
EDIT: while I'm at it, this is the kind of stuff, I mean. Muse Strings Cello have the sound I want for that piece. However, I find Muse Strings portato totally messy. The timing and the sound is off. I suspect some sections or ranges weren't sampled and Staffpad tries to get it right, or the sampling itself was off. If you want to test it take Muse Strings and Spitfire Chamber Strings and do one bar of quarter note portatoes with not too wild jumps and compare.
Anyhow... I thought I'd maybe try to replace one spot in the score with Spitfire Celli as those have a nice portato. Unfortunately, there is a clear audible *snap* noise in the Spitfire Celli samples on that note! Is it carried over from shitty sampling sessions in Spitfires studios? Is it messed up on Staffpad's side? I don't know! (EDIT: It is baked in, I remembered, see below) I don't really care either. It is not useable. In order to test, if my other string library in Staffpad can help me out, I need to do a weird crossfade, so as to get the portato from one and a noise-free sample playback from the other like this
But behold! Steep automation on the volume curve makes Staffpad introduce crackling, too.
It is not very enjoyable, quite contrary to 90% of the rest of the time I spend in Staffpad.
Even so, the new version is definitely worth checking out, imo.
EDIT: I am not quite sure anymore about the following and need to do more testing. Maybe something else is the problem. Leaving it in until I know more.
One definite caveat is that I am pretty sure that Staffpad somehow corrupts imported audio, however. I have a score with an immaculate piano recording with quite a bit of headroom. And whether it is the dynamic mastering or some other fx in the staff itself, after a while Staffpad introduces crackles and pops which disappear when reimporting and which definitely are not part of the original audio. Have not found the actual culprit, yet.
It is not the CPU and the system. While I know that it can handle much more than playing back two staffs in Staffpad, I can also tell that the snap is baked in. It is always exactly at the same spot. It exports. The crackles in the automation curve happens when using different instruments and are not due to the actual loudness or dropouts.
This particular noise in this sample has been there for at least three years. I know because the score is that old and I reported this sample as well as a crackle in the basses back then. The problem in the basses was resolved by a fix.
Also, while we're at it I dug up the response by DWH as concerns the snap sound from 2020:
The other issue is the little click noise is actually embedded in the audio file of that particular portamento interval sample... this one will take a bit more time to fix, since I have to track down the original audio and remove it via noise reduction on the sample itself; unfortunately that means we have to update the sample cache for the whole Spitfire Chamber Cellos, which is a much larger job. However, it's on the list and when I do find a moment I'll get to it!
That was three years ago!
I know that the bottleneck most often is your own system and I try to make sure that I am not complaining about too loud samples which lead to digital distortion or clipping as well as audio dropout due to too small buffers or the like. It might still happen that I am wrong about the source of problems, but in this case it is a confirmed problem that is three years old. Like I said... there is a backlog of unresolved stuff that needs adressing and I really hope that they can get around to it, now that there's been a massive feature drop
I can get crackles and clicks on a 4 staff string quartet on an M1 iPad Pro. Especially when I use expression or volume automation lanes. Sometimes I can hear it during real time playback but often it's more noticeable when I render to a WAV file. Over 10 DB headroom so no clipping, and all the internal effects and compressors turned off. This has been happening for a long time.
I notice there's been another update fixing stuff, which is great - however the metronome is still doing the count-in, even when off. I had emailed their support to report this but got a message back that made me wonder if this wasn't a deliberate change.
Am I missing something? Is there a reason someone might want the metronome to count in, even when it's off? I use a 2 bar count-in when recording, as it helps me get ready for the section I'm going to play. However having a 2 bar count-in switched on all the time is maddening. To turn it off, I have to long click on the metronome and slide the count-in slider to zero, then click again to come out of that menu, which is a lot of faffing around when just clicking the metronome icon should be enough.
I just don't understand what Staffpad are doing sometimes... but I wondered if there's some reason for this that I'm missing?
I don't usually get a count-in when I reset through the transport bar or by pressing zero on the numpad. I very rarely hear a single click by the metronome when playing from the beginning, gut most of the time I don't. So, if you hear it all the time, I'd say it's a bug triggered by something that isn't present at least on my system
Quote from DWH about piano capture machine learning:
Part of the challenge is, is how you do that in an ethical way and in the right way. We ended up kind of building special systems that they could actually compose their own music — hours and hours and hours of music that made sense.
Such a little remark and yet worlds between this and almost everything else happening with AI and art right now. I was actually quite moved to hear they went to the lengths they did with this just out of a sense of ethical responsibility. That's awesome
So, after another hotfix I could get piano capture (on prerecorded audio) to work on a waltz including accompaniment. Before, the whole app would just crash.
I realized, however, I need to set the key in advance, because Staffpad's analysis misinterpreted the key (I think due to all the weird modulations) and then I had this problem: the first note was a C (sounding), Staffpad thought the piece was in D major and accordingly notated that sound as a B# (which is already way to complicated, but whatever). When I changed the key, the B# was still there. That was inconvenient. It meant I would have to go through everything and reinterpret the notation. I don't know why it did not change the B# to a C.
Staffpad did capture almost all of the performance though with maybe 15-20% mistakes. It's nowhere near perfect. But I could have gotten it to work with a bit of corrections and additions if it hadn't been for this weird omission as concerns the reinterpretation of the notes - that mystified the whole piece.
Hey all. I took a slight break from Staffpad and wanted to get back to some writing. Is it safe to say that after the many bug fixes post September/October update, the sounds are back to where they were? Or at least close enough? I still have yet to update the Berlin Strings solely out of concern for the playback.
Hey all. I took a slight break from Staffpad and wanted to get back to some writing. Is it safe to say that after the many bug fixes post September/October update, the sounds are back to where they were? Or at least close enough? I still have yet to update the Berlin Strings solely out of concern for the playback.
It is, well uh, functional. The sound is different, but acceptable. The app seems to crash periodically. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't update. But if you have updated the app already, do the BS update.
It is, well uh, functional. The sound is different, but acceptable. The app seems to crash periodically. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't update. But if you have updated the app already, do the BS update.
Thanks for the heads up. It's good to know the sounds are at least acceptable, though the occasional crashes sound concerning. I'll proceed cautiously.
, though the occasional crashes sound concerning. I'll proceed cautiously.
