be able to add/delete instruments PER MEASURE
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Gilles Mercier
I can already add instruments in order to write a fill (high tom, kick, floor tom...).
BUT then all measures added to the same beat will have all these instruments.
I would like to be able to manage the visible instruments on a per measure basis, so I can keep the rythm measures "simple" and the fill measures "complex" in a same beat.
Derek Lee
Hi Gilles Mercier! Thanks for creating this enhancement. I've been waiting for someone to request this feature, as I've previously thought about it quite a bit.
I understand how, particularly on the iPhone, since there's limited space, it would be ideal to only have the toms on measures that you want the toms so they don't "get in the way" when focusing on grooves (kick, snare hat). On iPad, I suppose this isn't as critical since there's more screen space.
I can foresee some usability and complexity challenges with this kind of feature and I'm not sure how to address them.
For example:
- What instruments are added to a measure when a brand new measure is added (either by tapping the "+" button, or tapping the "..." and choose "insert new measure before/after")?
- Is there a need to have a "default" set of instruments when a new measure is added? Do you choose this setting once globally for all of your beats? Or does each beat have its own set of default instruments?
- You create several measures with kick, snare, hat, and then you get to a measure where you want to add a fill. When you tap "+" to add a new instrument, does it only add the selected instrument to that one measure? Or all measures? Or do you get to choose?
- If there was a way to remove an instrument from a measure by tapping it and then selecting "Remove instrument," does this remove it only for that one measure? Or for all measures?
- If you duplicate a measure, does it also duplicate the instruments that are associated with it? Would it be frustrating if you duplicated a measure that had toms when you didn't want them, or if you duplicated a measure that didn't have toms when you did want them?
From a compositional perspective, I really like the idea of only displaying the instruments that I need for a specific measure. But from a usability perspective, it feels very complicated to me to have this ability without a simple design to make it easy to add/remove instruments as needed.
Let me know your thoughts! Thanks Gilles! Here's a mockup of one way I was thinking instruments could be removed by tapping on the instrument name and showing a menu with an option to remove or hide that instrument.
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Gilles Mercier
Derek Lee: Hi Derek !
Thanks a lot for your answer.
As a quick fix I think that your option of a long press with a "remove instrument" option would do the trick.
On a long term perspective, I suppose this ticket could match with the one where I asked to be able to set some parameters to my liking (kit + voicing) : https://beat-note.canny.io/feature-requests/p/set-some-default-parameters
Imagine that I have set "my Kit" as parameter, then when I ask the app for a new measure I could have a choice of which type of measure I want :
- default measure : the "standard" for rythm (HH/snare/kick)
- my kit measure : the one embarking all the intruments I have set as "my kit" in my parameters... ideal for fills or more complex/tribal rythms
What do think of this ?
Derek Lee
Gilles Mercier: Thanks for your response!
The only "quick fix" I can offer right now is the option to completely remove the instrument from the beat (from all measures). I don't think this is what you want, and I don't think it's what other users want, either.
I can see how a "my kit" feature could be used to provide a default set of instruments. Though I wonder if this would be configured once for you as a user, or if it would be better to configure it for each beat.
When adding a new measure, I think it would become quite cumbersome to have to choose which type of measure you want each time you create a new measure.
I think some additional brainstorming and ideation will be needed to find a good solution for this. Many of my questions above still remain unanswered, and another user just asked about how to remove an instrument. This is quite complicated so I will need to do more research and confirm what kind of functionality the majority of users would want and what their expectations would be when using this kind of feature. Particularly since this is a destructive feature (removing an instrument, and potentially deleting notes), I have to proceed with caution.
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Gilles Mercier
Derek Lee: You are right, to remove an instrument from ALL measures of a beat would NOT be good.
About the "my kit" feature I would imagine it at user level, and not at each beat level.
This plus the possiblity to add/remove an instrument on a per mesure basis would cover almost all situations, I think.
And about the choice of a "measure type" ( simple/complex or beat/fill) we could also imagine a "default type" (simple ?) that would always come + the ability to change its type afterwards.
But then of course, it would require a confirmation process to inform the user that coming back from a complex one to a simple one could lead to note loss. The users should still have a bit of responsability...
Derek Lee
Gilles Mercier: Thanks for your feedback! I agree that this aspect of the app could be further improved. You make a good point about the users having responsibility, too. Unfortunately, I think if the design of the feature is poor, it becomes easier to blame the tool rather than for people to take responsibility for their action.
Due to the destructive nature of the process, I think it's important to gather more feedback from what people expect, to experiment with different options, and to ensure the destructive nature of this kind of feature is accounted for.
For example...
- If an "undo" button existed when editing measures, if a user accidentally deleted notes or an instrument they didn't intend to delete, a simple tap of the "undo" button could resolve this. The app doesn't currently have an undo button because a) it's complicated to build 😅 and b) the iPhone screen is really small and it's difficult to find the appropriate place for this. Implementing "undo" before implementing this might be a good first step.
- I considered an implementation of "hide instrument" (per the screenshot I shared), where the user could "hide" an instrument and the notes wouldn't be deleted. This way, if the user re-added the same instrument, the original notes could remain. However, this still applies to the entire beat and not just a single measure, which is not aligned with your request.
- It's possible improvements to other aspects of the UX could help with this. For example, right now the process of adding an instrument is one at a time (tap "+", choose your new instrument, and repeat). What if you could add more than just one instrument at a time?
There are also technical considerations of managing instruments on a per-measure basis as the list of instruments goes from being defined one time at the beat level to potentially being defined at every measure. For a beat with only 4 measures this is not a marked increase, but for users who are creating lengthy compositions, this may cause some performance impacts both in networking and loading/saving the data.
Another user also kindly brought this to my attention just yesterday. Please feel free to read his request and follow along there as well: https://roadmap.beat-note.app/ask-a-question/p/how-can-i-remove-mid-tom-after-addition
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Gilles Mercier
Derek Lee: Thanks for your answer !
I am afraid that a "hide" button could be quite difficult to manage : if an instrument is just hidden and the related notes are not deleted, what happens when I want the app to play the beat ?
Will it play the hidden notes or not ? it would be strange to hear notes that you don't see... and I guess it would be complicated to add a "status" to each note (visible 0/1) to tell the app if a note must be played or not.
And even in that case, you should then add a visual indicator to the beat/mesure which contains hidden elements... if not you will probably not remember each element you have hidden for each measure ! (at least I wouldn't)
Derek Lee
Gilles Mercier: To answer your questions:
> "if an instrument is just hidden and the related notes are not deleted, what happens when I want the app to play the beat ?"
The notes are not played, because the instrument has been hidden. Notes are not shown in the grid or the music notation and have effectively been removed.
Of course it would be strange to hear notes you couldn't see! That would not be very useful lol!
I think it would be quite confusing if "hidden" elements were added visually.
I considered this implementation as a way to allow the user to re-add the instrument back to the beat, thus recovering the notes if that was the desired effect. As you've illustrated here, I think it just adds additional confusion, and an "undo" button (for whatever action the user wants to undo) would be more appropriate. Now that we've talked through it, I don't think it's a very good solution. Thanks for your help and insight!