Improvement suggestions

Hello!

I've been using Anytune for some months now. I transitioned from Capo, since I really hate paying subscriptions for an app that, in my opinion, isn't providing a service, but is just a tool that makes it a little bit more practical to transcribe with it, than a DAW.

My experience has been mostly positive, but I've found some obstacles that result in frustration and end up slowing me down. I think that with a few changes, the app could go from being a good app, to a GREAT app. 

Even though I think that some of the functions the app provides are ingenious, their implementation isn't always easy to understand. I will make a list of all of the obstacles I've encountered so far. I will also mention those things that I find intuitive and well thought out.

My biggest issue is that the functions of the buttons in the bottom region are really confusing. I have spent around 30 hours transcribing in Anytune since buying it, and I still can't remember what each button does (I'm not talking about the play button, of course). I'm always having to hoover my mouse over the buttons, and the 2 seconds it takes the pop-up to appear really add up shorten this time a little bit). Please place labels under each button, or at least place separators between each section and name it appropriately.

The loop function:

Having three buttons that look like a loop function is extremely confusing. I'm always guessing which of those three buttons does what I really want (simply looping a region of the audio).

The loop, loop trainer and auto-loop should have more distinguishable icons.

1. The only one with a loop should be the one that turns looping on and off!

2. Change the loop trainer icon to something like a weight and put it somewhere else, or tuck it in with the loop button using a rollover list, or by right clicking it.

3. Loop marks work in a confusing way. I find Capo's approach to this function more intuitive, they call it "regions". I believe that the existence of the auto loop button in Anytune could be omitted, but I'll come back to this point.

Markers:

There are two icons with a flag and a plus button on them. I always end up clicking the other one... And, thinking about it, the "Add or delete loop mark" button, also has a loop in it, so add that one to the previous list!

Most of the time, I only want to add a visual reference to a point in the song. Too bad I can't benefit from "Position Markers" because they are all the same color (please allow users to change color on a per item basis), and If I rename them, the complete name doesn't show up on the screen because the flag has a two character limit. Eliminate short labels, or make it so that users can decide if they want to display full marker names or not. And make position markers selectable. It is easier to delete them by clicking on them and pressing return, than by right clicking, and when right clicking a the order of items feels unnatural. It should be: Presets, edit, and delete (highlighted in red).

I understand the need of the functionality provided by a "loop mark" , but maybe "loop region is a more precise description. When an apps says something like "Add a loop mark" (singular), I expect a single item to appear, not two separate markers, a "loop mark" is actually comprised of two markers, and since the loop mark doesn't provide any visual feedback of the region that it encapsulates (maybe highlight it?), other than two flags with the same number; and since every single loop mark has the exact same color, things can get pretty messy and difficult to understand.

Providing an ON/OFF switch for every single loop region would eliminate the need for the "AutoLoop" button. If you want to provide users the ability to change the active loop region by dragging the waveform until the playhead is over another loop region, add it as a toggle option in the loop menu. If this is the case, the "Enable/Disable loop button" could change to "Loop Selection", and you could provide users with the ability to make a selection of a region of the waveform by clicking and dragging the mouse. This selection could then be right-clicked and made into a loop region. This also eliminates the need for the A/B markers. I get that you implemented those markers precisely to do that, but since they look very similar to loop marks and having that many lines on the screen is confusing, I don't like using them very much.

Top bar:

Most DAW's place their "Marker List" on the right of the screen, I also suggest making this change.

When users look for a "list" of something (markers), they look for the first icon that looks like a list, but in Anytune, that button opens a list of the songs in the album, which isn't that useful because I don't usually find myself in the need of quickly referencing other songs in an album while transcribing. The eight note icon serves that purpose just right, by showing my complete music library if I want to work on another song, it even remembers the last selected album, so... maybe just get rid of that function and use the list icon for the markers. The book mark icon always reminds me of books, using it in a music app can be confusing.

I don't really mind that much for messages provided by the development team. Being introduced to new features is welcome, but I don't find it so important that I need a button to reread them while transcribing a Miles Davis' solo. Put it somewhere else.

On the top/right are 3 essential parts of the app, and 1 that isn't as important (maybe this is just my case and everybody else finds it really useful to reference .txt in Anytune). Please notice that the "Lyrics button" looks extremely similar to the list one, change this one to "Aa" or something more distinguishable.

The most important view, by far, is the waveform, which can't be zoomed in... and it should be the default. The main view shouldn't be accessed by a picker. Double clicking the EQ, Reframe, or Lyrics, should return you to the main view. 

I also work as a mixing engineer, and to me, Reframe works is just a fancy EQ with clever panning, which is why I think they should both be in the same view. Make reframe the default mode, since it is so useful; and add a toggle to decide if you want to view a normal EQ or Reframe's view. This doesn't mean that you either use one or the other, which I assume is the reason you decided it to place them in separate sections. This only decides if you are viewing one or the other. Place ON/OFF switches on top of the EQ and Reframe sections, it is really weird to use an EQ and have its bypass on the lower part of the window. 

The reframe icon is very clear, the EQ icon is not. That is the icon every other app uses to open a mixer window. Just make it say EQ. The EQ bypass icon is even more confusing. I don't get why it has an iPod in it. Having reframe and EQ bypass on the lower right part is actually useful, but just put two toggles with labels that say "EQ on/off, and Reframe on/off", and link them to the bypass on top of the views.

Adding VST or AU compatibility would be amazing. Imagine combining the power of Pro-Q 3 with Anytune, or RX's rebalance capabilities. I get that this is probably a feature that few users would benefit from, so, I would be happy if some simple changes were made to the included EQ. I really appreciate that you included that many filters.

Double clicking the EQ should create a filter, not open a window to choose the type (which should not be a scroll view if it can fit on the screen). The default in the mid region should be a regular bell filter, and the low and high regions should be either shelves of Low/High cut filters. If I want to change the type of filter, I can right click on he filter after creating it.

Dragging the filter locks movement in the other axis, this feels really weird.

The bandwidth not working as a "Q" factor does in other EQ's is also weird. Bandwidth should adapt depending on the frequency. 

Users should be able to delete filters by right clicking on them, or triple-clicking. Remove the + and - icons on the left and center the Frequency, Bandwidth and Gain fields, they could also be more visually attractive. 

Right clicking the background should allow users to reset the EQ. 

Revisiting the bottom bar:

Music pan is more clearly understood if the knob has "L, R" icons, using speaker icons can make users believe the knob has something to do with volume.

Is the volume fader working in a linear or logarithmic way? Getting the music to sound really quiet is difficult.

The same observation made about the EQ icon applies to the ReTune button. A bunch of faders usually represents a mixer.

Play, Replay, Skip and Prev. or Next Track buttons

Transcribe Mode should be a separate button. It is the function I use the most. And the shortcut should not be accessed by using a modifier. "opt + T" is unpractical to press with only one hand, and when playing an instrument, having to use both hands to toggle it is annoying. Right clicking the pay button is ok, but it took me way to long to realize that it could be accessed that way. If the user drags the waveform to place the transcribe marker somewhere else, using the shortcut should change the marker position, not turn it off.

It would be more useful to have Rewind and Fast-forwarding buttons than Prev./Next Track. Again, I don't believe that most users need to change the song they are transcribing that frequently, having the tunes and iTunes Import List is enough.

Implementing a scrub function would be a great addition.

Conclusion

I share this suggestions with the sole purpose of improving a tool that I use on a weekly basis and that has been very useful. I understand that even though I think that these changes would benefit the app, other users may think differently.

The way the speed and transposition tools are implemented is great, the app is very responsive and doesn't seem to need too much processing power, importing tunes directly from the iTunes library is super useful, being able to add MIDI shortcuts and custom shortcuts is great (but please allow users to choose single keys as keystroke) and not having to save changes feels very natural.

Making the app cross platform (single license), at least between MacOS and iOS would be welcome. haven't used the iPad version very much, because honestly, the interface looks ugly. Being able to open songs in my Mac and iPad from iCloud is a function I miss from Capo. 

And please stay away from subscription models, I know that most apps work with subscriptions now a days, but I prefer to pay a much higher one time fee, than subscriptions.

I am happy to provide more feedback in the future if you find this post useful :)

Thank you for developing Anytune.