XT Software

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:46 pm

Hello,

this has got to be a joke, no?
Seriously, I couldn't even be bothered to register on the support page (that's why I'm venting off here).
It seems as if absolutely *no* musician has been involved in the development and testing of the iOS version. It's simply not useable for *anything*. And I really mean it!
First and most of all: The latency you get when using the internal keyboard and/or drum pads is absolutely inacceptable. I'm already getting seasick by trying to play something as stupid as plain quarter notes at 80 BPM in realtime. There's no settings menu, either - where one could probably chose a lower latency setting (even if that meant some more CPU useage). In addition, there seems to be a HUGE serious problem with record offsets - in other words, the recorded sounds aren't placed either at the position when you actually tapped the key/pad nor at the position when the sound actually made it to your ears (after felt 8 seconds of latency...). This is true for audio, too.
Audio recording without monitoring? Are you goddamn serious? I mean, in the manual the use of headphones is recommended to avoid feedback and unwanted "re-recordings" of the playback. Fine. But how in the world do I listen to my guitar when wearing a pair of closed HD 25s? Right, I just don't. Great.
File exchange and SF import with your PC only via dropbox? Are you like completely crazy? What about roaming expenses once I'm in a foreign country? iTunes has a drag'n'drop option for supported filetypes since several versions - why can't you use that? Or at least a local WiFi im-/export, such as others do?
Not even remotely something like an easy mixer. Err, right, how convenient.
Then there's countless other issues, such as recorded takes (that I already deleted from the arrange page) magically appearing once I record something onto another track.

Bottomline: YUCK, 5,49 € completely wasted. In fact not all that much money, but I'd rather buy me a sixpack of beer for that money instead of even trying to open the iOS version ever again (unless there's gonna be a more than serious update). Apparently the developers and testers had more than just one sixpack during development, too...
Cheers to them.

- Sascha

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:22 am

And fwiw, from the 1.1 update info:

Choose photo's as thumbnail for your projects.

Seriously, these dudes *urgently* need to get a clue! I mean, really, yes, oooooh yes, it's certainly WAY MORE IMPORTANT to use photos as a thumbnail for your projects than having a sequencer that would even work at all.

But oh well, most people here know about the drama that EXT has been almost ever since version 2 was announced - no wonder they're doing no better with the iOS version.

- Sascha

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:27 am

Ask for a refund. Send an email to Apple. You are almost guaranteed to get the refund and it'll put the crappy developers in place.

Cheers!
bManic

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 10:53 am

bmanic wrote:Ask for a refund. Send an email to Apple. You are almost guaranteed to get the refund and it'll put the crappy developers in place.

I may think about that. Not because of the money but because to "put the developers in place" as you say.
In addition I will ask some other developers to steal the chord track feature from EXT iOS - the only nice thing it has at all (it's really quite great - unfortunately not a single other thing is).

- Sascha

jorgen · Post by **jorgen** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 11:45 am

May I aks what device and IOS version you have? The latency doesnt sound right and we have tested with low latency on several devices.

I dont see how iTunes can be easier to sync with wifi, rather than just dragging files into dropbox and open presets over wifi directly?

You can vore for features and report problems over here http://energyxt.uservoice.com/forums/11 ... xt-for-ios

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:59 pm

jorgen wrote:May I aks what device and IOS version you have? The latency doesnt sound right and we have tested with low latency on several devices.

iOS 5 on an iPhone 3GS.

I dont see how iTunes can be easier to sync with wifi, rather than just dragging files into dropbox and open presets over wifi directly?

With Dropbox I need:
- A WiFi connection that both devices are on. Easy at home, once you're *somewhere* on the road, it gets nasty.
- The Dropbox servers to actually work (they sometimes don't, plus there's a bandwidth limit).

With iTunes I need:
- Either the data cable connected (quite common, huh?).
- Or a WiFi network that could even be the local one from my Macbook. No ISPs or net servers are harmed doing this.

So, it's just all too obvious which one of the two solutions is *way* more convenient.

You can vore for features and report problems over here http://energyxt.uservoice.com/forums/11 ... xt-for-ios

I probably won't do that. No, I certainly won't.
I already have Music Studio and NanoStudio installed and they are just playing in a completely different league. A league Energy XT iOS will never play in. And both of them are only €12 each. Quite a no brainer. Fwiw, both are coming from one man companies, too.
If you purchase Energy XT iOS you waste your money. Sorry, but that's the way it is. And I'm not somebody to queue along with your other Energy XT users, waiting for features and bugfixes since ages already.

- Sascha

djsubject · Post by **djsubject** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 3:41 am

latency is also bad on my iPhone 3Gs also iOS4.3.5 & iOS5

Subz

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 7:52 am

djsubject wrote:latency is also bad on my iPhone 3Gs also iOS4.3.5 & iOS5

As said, it's completely inacceptable. And there's no settings for it, either.

Really, have a look at Music Studio. It's only 12 €. It offers several latency settings ("ultra low" being the lowest I have found in any sort of sequencer, amp sim and what not for smartphones), support is almost non-plus-ultra, plus it does *TONS* more than any of the other apps.
In case you're not into audio recording, give NanoStudio a try - once you've read the (most excellent) documentation, you'll be able to use it almost intuitively. Super CPU efficient, too (I still can't exactly believe it). And if you don't need full audio tracks, you can still sample things and put them onto drum-alike pads (something EXT iOS doesn't allow for, either). Haven't had that much fun with my iPhone ever before.

*IF* Energy XT wants to see any love and/or success on the App market, these two set the (rather high) marks and any other sequencer *must* be compared with them. EXT being cheaper isn't that much of a plus, either. I mean, it's just one pizza more that you have to pay for the others.
As is, what you get from EXT is something I'd almost expect from a freebie.

- Sascha

P.S.: There's a completely free version of NanoStudio for both Windows and OSX. It's 100% identical with the iPhone version and only made so you can see whether it floats your boat or not (of course you can't use multi touch gestures, so keep that in mind when you try it out). A most brilliant marketing idea, btw.

jorgen · Post by **jorgen** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:24 am

Thanks for feedback.

Will add audio setup and look into iTunes import.

BMoore · Post by **BMoore** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 12:21 am

It's your 3GS thats the joke.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:13 am

Insaniac wrote:It's your 3GS thats the joke.

And this post is what?
Trying your best be clueless?

Well, you could possibly explain to me why sequencers such as NanoStudio or Music Studio are running flawlessly on this "joke" machine. Very decent track counts at relatively low latencies, etc. Perhaps they're jokes, too...

- Sascha

farlukar · Post by **farlukar** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 9:41 pm

Sascha Franck wrote:And this post is what?
Trying your best be clueless?

obvious troll is obvious

philliptwenty · Post by **philliptwenty** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 9:59 pm

I'd tell you to f**k off if I was a dev. You need to talk to people like an adult. Your ranting is childish and you're deserving of a bitch slap.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:11 pm

No. In this particular developers case Sascha can talk in any tone or manner he wants.

You know the development history of EnergyXT?

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 2:40 pm

philliptwenty wrote:I'd tell you to f**k off if I was a dev. You need to talk to people like an adult. Your ranting is childish and you're deserving of a bitch slap.

First off: Jorgen could gladly tell me to f**k off. Absolutely no problems with that.
Second: Yes, perhaps I'm a dumbass, having spent around another €5 for something that hasn't even remotely met my experiences in the past (I already have a license for EXT/Win/Mac).
Third: My "ranting" might not meet your expectations in terms of "communication behaviour", yet, it isn't childish at all. The most obvious flaws I was mentioning are just that: Most obvious. And I tried to at least explain some of them.

- Sascha