V6 great ... here are a few things you might consider for V7

[henrylaw]

Wonderful program: my music collection has a new lease of life. 

I'd compiled this list of feature requests before V6 arrived.  I don't think any of them are in there but if they are I apologise in advance.

• Allow track break information obtained online to be added to existing track breaks. Quite often the separate CDs of a multi-volume album are available separately from a DB and - unless I'm mistaken - the only thing we can do at present is to use, say, volume 1 and type in volume 2 manually.
• Come to that, it would be convenient if one could use just part of a track listing: quite often the recording one is transferring is on a recording that is in a DB, but along with other stuff which one doesn't want.
• Could track break information be pasted in from the clipboard (tab-separated, for example)?  That would allow one to type in track information externally - in a favourite editor or spreadsheet - and then bung it into VS at one go.  Import from an external file (again tab-separated) would also be useful.
• Currently if you move a track break only the lengths two adjacent recordings are changed.  I think it would be easier if all subsequent tracks were pulled forward or pushed back by the same amount.  Some track listings are wrong in one or two tracks but otherwise accurate, and leaving all the others as they are would help.  I can see an argument for the current behaviour in some cases, though: maybe it should be a selectable option for a particular recordiing.
• I've already found it hard to keep track of where I am in transferring a batch of albums.  It would be very helpful if VS could report on the status of recordings - "recorded", "split", "tracks named", "cleaned", "saved", "burned".  Currently I've got a spreadsheet running in parallel to do it.
• Better support for archiving tracks that have been finished with - as we discussed in a thread last week

Please don't see this as a list of gripes.  It's only when you get to grips (pun!) with a good program that you understand how it fits with your way of working, and then the things that would make it even better start to come to mind.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi Henry,

No that's fine, we want to know.  These are good ideas, I will mull them over although (as ever) we have a long list of things to do so it might not happen for a while.  Meanwhile, a few comments:

Point 1 might be addressed in the short term by recording a multi-volume set as separate albums, don't know how much of a hassle that would be for you.  But you're right, you can only replace any existing track listing, not add to it.

Point 2 is already implemented if I understand you correctly - you can delete tracks and / or drag them up and down before you click OK in the Lookup Album window.  Or after, for that matter (in which case you can also use Undo).

Point 4 has been requested by others and I can see the value of it.  We could use alt-drag to do it perhaps, something like that.

Point 5 could perhaps be addressed by allowing a user to 'flag' albums with their current status.  VinylStudio doesn't really know (or care) what the user has and hasn't done.

[henrylaw]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm happy to wait - the program as it is is excellent!

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

My pleasure.  Keep the ideas coming!

[Beeeno]

I agree with Henrylaw. Great program, but for next edition:
The ability to move a batch of track break markers together would be very useful. Perhaps using similar process as for selecting/grouping files, click on track break markers you wish to move whilst holding shift or cntrl, and they can all be dragged together, keeping their relative spacing. Click again to release. When obtaining track listings, one is often given the track timings. Unfortunately due to late starts, or over long recording on side 1, the track breaks created by the downloaded info will be all out of sync, sometimes by miles for side 2 onwards, meaning all the track break markers have to be individually shuffled along, last one first. This rather makes the initial track break timing info a waste of time, as depending on how far out the markers are, it might be easier and quicker just to put all the markers in manually to start with, or do a search.
If anyone has a easy work around, or I am missing something, please advise me.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Yes, I can see this is a popular request and I can see it would be helpful.  We'll put it on our to do list.  VinylStudio *attempts* to figure out where side 2 starts on the album but it doesn't always get it right.

There's still value in looking up the track times though, if you can.  Having the trackbreak markers in the general vicinity of the trackbreaks themselves often makes them a good deal easier to find in my experience, especially for tracks with quiet passages in.

Thanks for posting and keep the ideas coming.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Update: VinylStudio V6.10 allows you to move your trackbreak markers as a group.  Just hold down the Alt key while dragging.