StiX : MultiSynthesis Drum Machine (v1.6 Released + Flash sales)

[braj]

I'll simply not buy your product and not recommend it either. That's it.

[Lotuzia]

..... I would recommend hiring a company to do a usability test on StiX and then follow their recommendations. Make sure they do a quantitative task based test (not a subjective test). There are many companies around the world that will do this. It can be done remotely as well to target users worldwide. It might cost $10k-15k USD. This is cost of doing good UX. Or, hire a UX practitioner that works with plugins to help. But nothing beats a formal science based usability test.

Musicians have good ideas too. I trust users more than anybody else for these kind of matters. They use the instrument, they put their hands in the engine.

Sometimes, it leads to controversies more/less difficult to handle, like with Braj, but in the end, it's always valuable information on real people in the real world expressing their problems/frustrations/kudos -yes, sometimes - and ideas. Sometimes not so good ideas, and sometimes better ones.

[wagtunes]

All I know is my first drum machine was a Roland CR 800 back in the late 70s. Go on and look it up.

Boy are we spoiled today.

[Lotuzia]

I'll simply not buy your product and not recommend it either. That's it.

your absolute right.

StiX is not for everybody. Some people see all its beauty and unique features, found nowhere else, and some people will give up because it lacks -atm- the precise feature they can't live without. I had a similar discussion about Korg's last flagship on another forum. What, it has only one LFO ? Yes, but it's quite unique in many other things ? I will never buy a synth with a single lfo. End of discussion

Then, if one day d'n'd is implemented, your voice will have counted, and others may eventually benefit of this discussion.

[Lotuzia]

All I know is my first drum machine was a Roland CR 800 back in the late 70s. Go on and look it up.

Boy are we spoiled today.

An interesting machine, wich I have studied more closely lately, and that I might try to emulate (just speaking of the sounds here) as close as possible, using synthesis only, in StiX in the future.

Indeed, the circuits in these machines were much more complex and various than what I would have thought some years ago. The guys who created them were indeed incredibly skillfull, and very creative. Hats down, thumbs up

Hopefully more infos on the synthesis front as soon as I can.

[toonertik]

I'll simply not buy your product and not recommend it either. That's it.

Good>> then we will not have to put up with your grumpy slaggings off of the devs,winging and saying things are buggy>> when the have been implemented that way>> that is not a bug....
I have no problem using the CM version... it syncs with my changes... but then, maybe I have learnt to program this wonderful thing

[toonertik]

All I know is my first drum machine was a Roland CR 800 back in the late 70s. Go on and look it up.

Boy are we spoiled today.

Oh yes.. aren't we just!

[plexuss]

..... I would recommend hiring a company to do a usability test on StiX and then follow their recommendations. Make sure they do a quantitative task based test (not a subjective test). There are many companies around the world that will do this. It can be done remotely as well to target users worldwide. It might cost $10k-15k USD. This is cost of doing good UX. Or, hire a UX practitioner that works with plugins to help. But nothing beats a formal science based usability test.

Musicians have good ideas too. I trust users more than anybody else for these kind of matters. [snip...]

If a proper usability test is done, then the participants would be the users of the product - musicians. I guess you dont understand what a usability test is. that's ok you shouldn't - you are a coder not a UX expert. Which I would suggest to every plugin dev that they do a proper usability test.

Hmmm. I should sell a service doing this perhaps. Music is my non-paid gig. UX is what I do for a living (for the last 25 years).

Would a dev pay a person like me to conduct a usability test on their product? The result would be a list of recommendations based on the how the product did with users (users = customers).

[Lotuzia]

Eh eh Brett, you forgot one thing : I'm ALSO a musician, and ALSO an user (and probably the one who spent the highest numbers of hours on StiX, and have also spent thousands more in using and studying dozens of drum machines) .

If I had not been a musician and the *first user*, and had not created all these unique functions that you btw seem to appreciate, at least for certain ones, StiX would simply not exist.

Doesnt mean that I'm right on everything, and can't be blind on a few ones either. No instrument is perfect, even less instrument is 'perfect for everybody', and none will ever be. I'm engaging a round to gather things that people think can be bettered, added, or changed, and even things they think they can't live without ( even if sometimes they already exist, but with another workflow). This said, I also have some -hopefully bright- ideas for the future of StiX. But this will come later, and after internal discussions too. But now, it's the turn of users to speak.

[vurt]

..... I would recommend hiring a company to do a usability test on StiX and then follow their recommendations. Make sure they do a quantitative task based test (not a subjective test). There are many companies around the world that will do this. It can be done remotely as well to target users worldwide. It might cost $10k-15k USD. This is cost of doing good UX. Or, hire a UX practitioner that works with plugins to help. But nothing beats a formal science based usability test.

Musicians have good ideas too. I trust users more than anybody else for these kind of matters. [snip...]

If a proper usability test is done, then the participants would be the users of the product - musicians. I guess you dont understand what a usability test is. that's ok you shouldn't - you are a coder not a UX expert. Which I would suggest to every plugin dev that they do a proper usability test.

Hmmm. I should sell a service doing this perhaps. Music is my non-paid gig. UX is what I do for a living (for the last 25 years).

Would a dev pay a person like me to conduct a usability test on their product? The result would be a list of recommendations based on the how the product did with users (users = customers).

most devs aren't making the 10,000-15,000 you quoted for such a test earlier, not on top of wages and overheads, per product.

they've done well enough using forums till now.
maybe ni could afford it. but i seriously doubt it would be worth it for the majority.

[braj]

A little understanding of usability testing would help a lot though. Honestly when I worked in QA, this kind of issue would be hopefully addressed when writing the requirements for the app before any coding even happened.

[plexuss]

Eh eh Brett, you forgot one thing : I'm ALSO a musician, and ALSO an user (and probably the one who spent the highest numbers of hours on StiX, and have also spent thousands more in using and studying dozens of drum machines) .

If I had not been a musician and the *first user*, and had not created all these unique functions that you btw seem to appreciate, at least for certain ones, StiX would simply not exist.

Doesnt mean that I'm right on everything, and can't be blind on a few ones either. No instrument is perfect, even less instrument is 'perfect for everybody', and none will ever be. I'm engaging a round to gather things that people think can be bettered, added, or changed, and even things they think they can't live without ( even if sometimes they already exist, but with another workflow). This said, I also have some -hopefully bright- ideas for the future of StiX. But this will come later, and after internal discussions too. But now, it's the turn of users to speak.

Even though it may be unaffordable to do a usability test, I would urge you to google "usability testing" - just because you are a potential customer of your products, it doesn't mean anything. I've never done usability testing for plugins, but I have done many usability tests for website and apps. Every time I test, it surprises everyone how the users/customers do, even though I am a "web designer" and the clients use the web and apps. This is part of the value of doing real usability tests. Human psychology is highly unreliable - even though one may think a feature or function decision is a good one and is well implemented, often a usability test will show its ill thought out and poorly implemented. Also soliciting feedback from users in forums is not usability testing - it's market research at the very most. This PDF is a decent summary: http://www.endava.com/-/media/EndavaDig ... sting.ashx

Anyway, enough about usability testing! Let's get back to making music.

[toonertik]

A little understanding of usability testing would help a lot though. Honestly when I worked in QA, this kind of issue would be hopefully addressed when writing the requirements for the app before any coding even happened.

He explained it was a design decision made on technological reasons...
you don't like it... so don't use it..
I like it, it works for me...
As to usability testing... many years ago I was a COBOL systems guy... for us usability meant how the flow of data and interactive interfaces would work with staff not into computers... banktellers etc... not how the interface and functioning would work for the Braj
btw most of the patches in the CM version were made by him.. so I guess he might JUST have understood that!!!
If you think I am being too hard on you, it is because I read this thread and did not much take to YOUR tone bro

[braj]

If you think I am being too hard on you, it is because I read this thread and did not much take to YOUR tone bro

LOL, ok, I'll admit I could have behaved a bit better, but when you realize someone is bullshitting you, well, what do you do? He was saying his way is somehow superior, which just is not the case Thus I got miffed about that.

BTW, I tried recording the midi output of StiX CM, but there doesn't appear to be any coming from the plugin, so that doesn't appear to be a workaround that works. Maybe it does in the full version, I dunno. Would it also write all of the other info that is contained in a pattern to midi (mod data)? I dunno. So the only option for me is to trigger it in the previous bar, which doesn't work for me. Again, I don't know how anyone using Live could realistically use this. I can work around it in Reaper, but it isn't fun, doesn't jive with my pretty darn standard workflow. I would have made it a requirement that it had the option to trigger immediately or in the next bar. This is a premium priced product, and its competitors can do it, as well as drag and drop midi. I don't buy the technical limitations bit. I'm sure it is harder to add those now, and would have been best if dealt with in planning stages

[toonertik]

BTW, I tried recording the midi output of StiX CM, but there doesn't appear to be any coming from the plugin, so that doesn't appear to be a workaround that works. Maybe it does in the full version, I dunno. Would it also write all of the other info that is contained in a pattern to midi (mod data)? I dunno. So the only option for me is to trigger it in the previous bar, which doesn't work for me. Again, I don't know how anyone using Live could realistically use this. I can work around it in Reaper, but it isn't fun, doesn't jive with my pretty darn standard workflow. I would have made it a requirement that it had the option to trigger immediately or in the next bar. This is a premium priced product, and its competitors can do it, as well as drag and drop midi. I don't buy the technical limitations bit. I'm sure it is harder to add those now, and would have been best if dealt with in planning stages

OK about first bit... now removed
I do understand your frustration... I had to get my head around that "trigger at end of previous bar bit"
BUT we don't know how the whole plugin is implemented. It is easy to sit this side of the tool and go... hey, make it immediate trigger happy>> then immediate_Happy_Braj.
Not sure he was bullshitting... I think the programmer Xavier Oudin is the guy who worked on the early Arturia emulations back in early 2000s... the other Xils synths are cool as well... so the programmer has years of DSP and VST experience...He must have had good reason to choose this method. We don't know what is going on behind the GUI... Yes, it is a premium priced product and I feel very fortunate that they made a CM version for us... I love it, though it took me a while to get into it. The CM version does not allow MIDI recording... open the VSTi_Options_"Why upgrade"and read the limitations compared to full version. It is up in the right hand top or press "easy" synth engine option.
Oh and maybe RTFM... OR RE_RTFM...