Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post questions and comments on versions of Pacemaker firmware here
Sox
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Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by Sox » Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:22 pm

I was surprised to find we didn't already had this thread, I know we had one in the old forum. So I thought I start a new one here...

We can't guarantee that any of our suggestions will be implemented for us, but if the developers were about to start work on a new release, we can at least make a our requests & suggestions available to them. I suggest we use a format like mine below so the developer's have an easily readable one sentence summary of the suggestion, and they can read the accompanying details if they wish

More Obvious Low Battery Indicator
There is a battery status indicator (4 states I think) icon which flashes when the PMD is running low on battery. My mate failed to spot this last week, and I've done the same before. This ultimately resulted in the device powering itself off and all music instantly stopped - not good.

My suggestion is that instead of just flashing this icon, you make the low power indicator absolutely unmissable. Personally I would flash any unused border around the display in a red colour. If there is no border of you don't want to go that big, then use the whole lower portion around the beat graph and battery indicator as a flashing red bar.
Never experiment with drugs.... you might waste them

Sox
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Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by Sox » Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:32 pm

Ditch The Vertical Beat Indicators
To left & right of the device screen are vertical columns of "LEDs". I'm not entirely sure what they are and suspect they are beat related. I mix by audio (and a little cheating with the beat graph) and not by colour, and have never used these. In fact I think I blank them out while DJing.

I suggest an additional user option to allow for
- Ditching them in order to provide additional screen estate (and possibly save a bit of battery/processing power)
- Re-using one as a more accurate battery level indicator
- Re-using the other as...... hmmm not decided yet
Never experiment with drugs.... you might waste them

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Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by Sox » Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:38 pm

Better Indication Of Tracks Already Played
I though the device attempted to indicate which tracks I had already played that I was viewing, by the font used. but it now seems to me that it just makes a track already loaded in bold font, which is even less help than I was hoping for.

I there any reason why we can't bring more colour into it? I would suggest an alternate colour for tracks already played, and either another colour (or even underline the font) for a track already loaded. The bold font isn't always that easy to spot.

As choices of colour will not match all tastes, it it were me I would offer a user option with a colour wheel to let them choose their own.
Never experiment with drugs.... you might waste them

SIGMA__7

Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by SIGMA__7 » Sat Jan 05, 2013 7:46 pm

re: coloured vertical bars - but aren't the vertical beat indicators showing the gain level? if you get rid of that, unless you are hooked up to another device, how will you know if you are in danger of clipping or not?

re: track analysis speed in PM editor. the speed has a lot to do with the computer you're using. my computer has like 8gb of RAM, 2.67 dual core i5 - it rips through songs in the editor. I have other comprehensive "virtual dj" type applications on my machine that also create their own library and perform beat analysis and the speed is totally comparable to PM editor.

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Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by Sox » Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:33 pm

SIGMA__7 wrote:re: coloured vertical bars - but aren't the vertical beat indicators showing the gain level? if you get rid of that, unless you are hooked up to another device, how will you know if you are in danger of clipping or not?
Err maybe, but I've still never used it or ever looked at it while DJing. Surely if I am plugged into something else, it's on the other device (eg. mixer) that I need to watch out for clipping? How does the Pacemaker know it's driving it too high for the other device?
Never experiment with drugs.... you might waste them

SIGMA__7

Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by SIGMA__7 » Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:26 pm

that's what I'm saying. on the Pacemaker Application, we can see a static version of the waveform of the mp3, but it doesn't adjust or change based on increases to gain or gain adjustments.

without a meter or waveform that changes based on your adjustments, it is very hard to tell how much headroom you have, how close your tracks are in volume during a mix, or even if it is clipping if you don't have either a meter or a some other notification (on some devices it's just an LED). you can say "just listen and let your ears do the work" but all mixers have channel and master gain meters. unlike the PMA which has a lot of screen real estate, I can understand how you'd want to make some on the PMD. but I'd say if the meter is removed from the PMD, you still might want to have a tiny visual indicator somewhere in the corner or something for each channel for clipping (unless you will always have it hooked up to a device that gives you a meter level for input signals. or at least a toggle button to let you see the meter briefly - you usually only care about the meter in two instances - during actual mix between two channels, and when making any gain/eq adjustments. I'd agree you don't need to see it all the time.

musicinstinct

Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by musicinstinct » Tue Jul 16, 2013 6:50 pm

RE: Vertical meters - I think they're essential to see activity on each of the players so you don't accidentally stop the wrong one.

The only feature I want is for time stretching to be fixed. When I play from AIFF files and there are far too many audio artefacts.

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Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by Sox » Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:24 pm

musicinstinct wrote:RE: Vertical meters - I think they're essential to see activity on each of the players so you don't accidentally stop the wrong one
Doesn't work for me as I have certainly stopped the wrong one a few times despite these meters. Guess I'm too used to ignoring them and no longer see them.


What would REALLY like to see is in relation to mix recording and would not be that hard to do, just change to how it works
- On ending a mix save I do not want it to ask me if I want to discard or save. I have lost a mix due to quick answering without giving due attention when trashed. Just assume I always want it saved and give me an option to delete mixes in the track browser. Even if it had to ask me Discard or Save like it does, follow up with an Are You Sure before deleting
- Even better do not just buffer the mix recording to volatile memory and save to disk only when I end the recording, but stream the mix directly to a disk file. I lost a 5.5hr live set I was recording when the device crashed on me. When I realised the implications I was more gutted about losing the mix than I was at looking a knob when the music stopped (not my fault this time, honest).
Never experiment with drugs.... you might waste them

MyNameHere

Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by MyNameHere » Sun Oct 13, 2013 12:55 am

I would like to suggest,

1)Ability to re organize crates on the device.

2)In play mode. When i hear a track i like, it seems like a lot of steps to crate it. P-UP + Power could bring up a save to crates menu with all the crates then select the crate to drop it in.

3)The ability to toggle scratch mode quickly

4) Longer loops 4, 8 and 16 bar

5) Saved Cue points, I would like to set cue points in tracks that can be remembered and called back to. Once cue points are set they stay set unless changed, 2-4 cue points would be nice.

6) Custom mapping

Bergq

Re: Pacemaker Firmware Suggestions

Post by Bergq » Thu Apr 24, 2014 8:41 pm

Stability is everything to a DJ. Please look beyond new features and work extra on stability and bugs. I'm not saying this is bad now, but this is my suggestion any way. Thank you great work!! Very much appreciate it!

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