Getting to know Lockdown Composer

By jcheek, Thu, 12/08/2022 - 14:27

Hello all, thanks for such a great product! I am starting to learn about it and get to know it. As I do, I'd like to give a bit of feedback here and there so you can follow my successes and help me overcome my issues. Here I have a few questions and comments:

1. Your announcements show that you just released V7. Congratulations! How can I tell if I am on V7 or an older version? I see no way to tell.
2. I pulled up composer and maximized the window but was disappointed that only a part of the screen is being used. Is there a way to used the full browser width and height? The tracks are left- and top-justified. The background image only covers half of the background. Is there a way to make those fully-justified?
3. The font and color style used look very modern and it is a good choice for conveying an EDM look-and-feel, but not so easy to read. The Ms look like a waveform, the Gs look like Qs, and there is not enough contrast between the light-grey text and the medium-grey, steel grey, and pink- and powder-grey backgrounds. Is there a way to choose a different theme in the preferences? I couldn't fine one. The font does look cool but is hard to read.
4. How do I create a new project? All I could find is a way to load a pre-built template.
5. Everything I click on results in a popup window, obscuring the track layout, meaning I cannot see what how what I am doing affects a track or even keep a reference of my position in the track layout if I want to edit something. Is it possible to move those somewhere else, and in particular, to keep them in a fixed position? Is it possible to keep a dialog open while using the main track editor? Almost every edit requires a popup, which results in a jarring context switch. It's hard for me to follow. I like how Logic does it, where I have my track layout on top and my detailed edit screen below, with option panels on the left and right. I always know where they will be and I know how to hide and show them. In composer, I don't know that because it seems like they pop up in different places from time to time, and I have to close a dialog to go do something else. I can't keep any open.
6. In Chrome on a Mac, right-clicking brings up the Chrome context menu instead of a context menu that's relevant to whatever I'm clicking on. Can you add a context menu, please?
7. It took me a long time, but I finally figured out how to edit a few things. No context menu and double-clicking also did nothing, but there is an icon for editing. This is counter-intuitive, having to click on a pencil and paper in order to edit a project. The entire purpose of this app is to edit music. Editing should be its default state.
8. To the left of the edit button there is an icon that looks like it will make the editor window expand to fill the screen, at least left-to-right, but it doesn't. It shows or hides the mixer. I did not expect a button with such prominent placement in the ribbon to do nothing but toggle the visibility of faders and the pan knob.
9. Is there a way to give precise measurements to the fader and pan knob? I fiddled with one and couldn't get it back to its original setting. In other DAWs when I double-click, I am presented with a dialog box where I can enter a precise value. Could that be added, please?
10. Undo and Redo buttons are sorely missing. The lack of those makes me nervous to experiment because I don't know how to get my project back to a known good state. Being able to save and load is useful, but it's not the same as undo/redo.
11. Is there a way to name a project, outside of giving the file a name when I save it? Can the name be shown prominently on the screen? Otherwise I have no idea what I was working on if I leave the window and then return to it later.
12. I saved the default project to a file, downloaded it, and was amazed at the size. 64M! Compression only took it down to 16M. Holy huge file Batman!
13. The intro video, Create Tech House from Scratch, is great to show the power of Composer but it is also hard to follow. I had hoped it would take me on a tour of the program as the producer built the track from scratch, but 30 seconds into editing I was already lost. There is a little explanation of what the producer is doing, but not enough for me to understand. It also appears that the project is not being built from scratch -- before even starting the first edit, the window shows 12 tracks plus master, already laid out, complete with samples.
14. Being an American, I had some difficulty understanding the producer's speech in the video. Google seemed to have the same issue, as turning on the automatic closed-captioning also make many mistakes when attempting to understand what was spoken. I know it's a time-consuming process, but could subtitles or an accurate transcript be provided?

I am still learning, but I can tell that this is a powerful piece of software, and I look forward to figuring out how to use it.

lockdown

1 year 11 months ago

WOW!!! Hey jcheek ... thank you for this amazing level of detail. This means a lot to us. We are new, we are trying to do things slightly differently, but we will hopefully answer your queries below:

  1. If you ever see a product release announcement from us, save(download) your project and refresh your composer browser tab and then drag and drop your project file back onto your composer tab. On a reasonable spec machine, the whole process should take around 5 seconds. You should always be on the latest version. If you keep your preferences set to receive notifications from us, we will inform you of the latest releases and hopefully also mention that all you need to do to get the latest version is refresh your browser tab. Going forward, we will include this information on the settings panel (cog icon)
  2. The Composer should be rendered in glorious widescreen format, as you may have seen in various screenshots, and you also have horizontal and vertical zoom handles on the top left. If you have a screenshot of what you are experiencing that would be most appreciated. We are not sure if something has gone wrong, or if your screen is just very large... any info on your screen resolution, etc., would really help us.
  3. Thank you. We have noted the font and colour/contrast issues... we'll think about different themes in future releases.
  4. There is a clear button (eraser) on the top left corner of your song structure, which provides different options, including the ability to create a fresh new project. Given it's a web-based application and also template and pattern-based, we wanted to always have something there to get started. Also, once you've saved any project, simply drag and drop it back onto the composer to adapt it to your preferred structure.
  5. You have docking buttons on the top right-hand corner of all core units, including the drummer, player, pad-lock, fx-panels, etc. You can dock upto 4 units along the bottom and also dock another unit on the right hand side, which can include the helper panel. Once you've docked something, the composer will remember this and also preserve this info in any project saves.
  6. Context menus would be great. We designed for web and the application is also responsive and touch-enabled. So, some compromises, but hopefully has benefits too.
  7. Noted and agree, but we still agonise over whether to have design mode on by default. The Composer understands song structures and the idea is that you create a structure and drag and drop patterns from the slicer, drummer and the player onto the song structure. This does not require you to be in design mode. Also, if you do try and drag anything on the structure, it will prompt you to enter design mode. We'll activate this on double-click also for the time being, given that's what you tried to do. Again, this is sort of related to the application being responsive for mobile devices.
  8. Yes, noted, this is really useful for small devices to give you that extra bit of space for the sequencer. We have plans to make this appear conditionally, but the zoom handles are separate.
  9. Agreed. On our list :)
  10. Agreed. Also, on the list. Changes to patterns on the slicer, drummer and player will only take effect if you consciously commit changes to a pattern using the capture (camera) icon. The transient (numbered) slices on the slicer take immediate effect, but these are derived from the locked slices, which you can reset to their original positions, using the locator icon on each locked slice... gives you the ability to try different fragments on the song structure by simply moving to different parts of your audio. With respect to changes and undos on the sequencer, we've made it easy to save copies with a one-click download... (but we note your point re: filesize ... see our comment against point 12).
  11. When in design mode, simply click on the project name on the top right hand corner.
  12. Yes, but it includes everything, including your audio encoded as text, so you can move the single file around. The main contributor to the file size are your samples on the slicer. We think you'll find that's not dissimilar in size to many desktop DAWS. We actually do not store anything online. All your project materials remain on your machine. To get your project loaded back, simply drop it onto the browser tab.
  13. Agreed. The video is not a step-by-step tutorial of the composer, but ratther the process of creating the track. We have videos in the pipeline, so please keep posted... and if you create anything you want to share with us, please get it across. The video does have a quick clip on how to start a new project. It's time-coded at 06:00.
  14. The producer is a brit and unfortunately there's nothing we can do to change that :) :) :) ... but we will certainly look into the captions/subtitles. Also, we are open to receiving tutorial videos in other languages and accents :)

jcheek, we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide so much information. This is invaluable to our team and helps us to keep improving the composer for your enjoyment. If you need us we are always here to help.

Support Team - Dappledark Studios

Finally, if you are short of light bedtime reading material, you can locate a pdf copy of the docs at https://www.dappledark.com/docs

jcheek

1 year 11 months ago

thank you so much for your reply! this helps me quite a bit. I will work on it some more and provide more feedback, now that I know a little more about how to use it.

lockdown

1 year 11 months ago

<3

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