A few wishlist thoughts for a future version

[dlivezey]

Great product. I'm relatively new to it, but have a few thoughts that may make it even easier to use:

- Finer-grained control when splitting tracks. In some cases, the original recording makes an abrupt transition from one track to the next with no space in between, and the transition doesn't always line up on a 0.1 second boundary. I'd like the ability to fine-tune the track marker in these cases.

- When splitting tracks, would be nice to be able to separate the end and begin (red/green) track markers without going to the keyboard. I find I keep the left hand on the mouse (yes, left-handed) and the right hand is on the spacebar, and I usually have to look at the keyboard to find the Shift key. Actually, if it was possible to use Alt instead of Shift, that would be easier, given its proximity to the spacebar.

- When splitting tracks, allow the two markers to be split either direction (drag the green right, or drag the red left). I usually drag the pair to the visible division between tracks, closer to the start of the subsequent track, then separate them, then drag the red end marker back to where the silence starts. Separating them by moving the green begin marker takes my attention off the current track onto the subsequent track momentarily. It seems like it would flow better if I could just separate off the red marker by dragging to the left instead of to the right (which would still drag the green marker).

Thanks!
Don

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Thanks for the suggestions.  We will put them on the list.

For tracks with an abrupt transition, you might like to investigate the fade in / fade out feature.

For item #3, why not focus exclusively on the first track, then drag the second green start-of-track marker to the right when you turn your attention to the next one.  Just a thought.

[dlivezey]

I looked at fade in / fade out, but preferred to keep the original audio intact as much as possible. When the tracks are played adjacent to one another, the transition works fine (and it doesn't really matter if the split wasn't in the exact right location). However, if they're not played together, then that's where more exact placement of the split would matter. Not a big deal, but a "nice to have."

I think the reason I ended up with the suggestion to be able to split the track split marker by dragging the red/end marker is that I generally try to "guess" the right spot visually, and as far to the right as possible, because that allows the track to play interrupted until the fade out is complete. I know I could just hit the spacebar again to resume playing (after it stops at the original guessed end) and find where the fade out finishes, and then reposition the track split, but it just "feels" more intuitive to guess a little long first and then drag back the end marker once I find silence. Of course, I'm pretty new to the application, and with a little more experience and experimentation, may end up liking the current approach just fine. In any case, it's not a problem, just an area where it seemed a little refinement would better suit the way I have ended up working with the app.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

OK, thanks.  Increasing the precision of the track markers is not hard to do so we will do it as soon as we can.  Changing the way they are dragged around is more problematic as I don't want to impact existing users.  Maybe alt-drag could drag the red marker (backwards), leaving the green marker where it is.  I'll give it some thought.