Hey All, Introduction and a Wishlist Item/Question

Ideas and Suggestions
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Hey All,

I’m Steve. I’ve been using LaserShowGen to tinker at home for years, but it STILL doesn’t support timecode. Ugh. As can probably be surmised by my presence here, I’ve given up requesting that feature and have decided it’s time to move on.

So with the caveat that I’ve been using Liberation for all of about 30 minutes, I have a couple of items that I probably just don’t know how to do:

First thing that is unintuitive for me with timeline editing is that clips don’t seem to lock their state when inserted into the timeline.

My intuitive expectation would be that when I have a clip configured, e.g. clip, zones, effects, etc. selected, and I insert that clip into the timeline, that that timeline clip instance would have saved that state. So for example, let’s say I’m working on the intro of a song, and I have a slow wave going on lasers 1 and 4. I drag that clip into the timeline, and then there’s a drum hit for which I want to flash the same clip on lasers 2 and 3 as a separate clip in the timeline. When doing this, selecting different lasers/zones for the clip in the clip deck also affects the clip I’ve already inserted into the timeline.

The only thing I’ve figured out currently is to duplicate the clip in the clip deck, but that seems a little clunky to me.

Second thing: Liberation crashes pretty frequently with Windows 10 when using SMPTE and a Focusrite 2nd Gen 2i4 (ASIO). It will either suddenly stop receiving SMPTE, or throw an error and exit the program. I’ve had both happen a few times. Just to be sure, I have updated to the most recent manufacturer drivers for the 2i4.

Final thing: I’m using Ableton Live as a clock source via Timecode Expert and loopMIDI for MIDI loopback. This allows me to output MTC to Obsidian Onyx, but I can’t get Liberation to receive MTC (even when using it’s own loopback channel). It will display the orange square indicating there’s a clock source present, but never goes green.

Since I can’t get that working, I’m looping back SMPTE, which is working, but this comes with another problem. I cannot preview effect motion when working on the timeline when the tempo is set to timeline, and the timeline is following SMPTE, if I’m not actively playing back audio from live. On the other hand, if I, say, set the tempo to Ableton Link, it picks up the tempo, but I lose SMPTE control of the timeline. The option to use one source for tempo, and another source for the timeline/transport would be great. Or even if it just remembered and kept previewing clips at the current playhead tempo.

In the interim, I’ve just exported my Ableton session from 1:1:1 and imported that audio into Liberation for programming, but this is less than ideal, because both my Ableton and Liberation timelines may change.

Thanks for letting us provide input!
-Cheers

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Hey Steve, welcome - and thanks so much for the thoughtful post. It’s really appreciated!

You’re already diving into some deeper parts of the system, which is great to see - and it’s super helpful to hear how it’s behaving from your perspective.

Timeline + Clip State

Yeah, so Liberation is designed with a pretty close connection between live busking and timeline building - the idea is that the timeline is kind of “playing” the live set, rather than holding its own copy of the clips. That’s why changing a clip updates it everywhere. It’s intentional, but I totally understand how that could feel unintuitive if you’re coming from more traditional timeline workflows.

That said, I have been thinking about an option to “lock in” clip state when you add it to the timeline. It adds some complexity (and possibly more confusion), but I can definitely see how it would help in cases like yours - so it’s something that might change in the future.

In the meantime, there’s a tool that might make things a bit easier: in the Timeline List Panel (click the three-line button at the top left), you’ll find an option called Organise Clips by Timeline. That duplicates all the clips used in that timeline and moves them to the end of the clip deck, so you can safely tweak them independently. When importing a timeline, you can also choose to bring in just the clips it uses, and either append or replace the current deck.

Timecode Crashes

Yeah… ASIO and Windows sound drivers in general have been an ongoing challenge. Some drivers crash just from being detected, which is maddening - and I’ve spent weeks trying to make the system more resilient. Unfortunately, when a driver goes down, it takes Liberation with it, and despite my best efforts, there’s often not much I can do to recover from that.

Liberation currently picks the first compatible sample rate it finds, which I know has caused issues for some setups - and that’s definitely something I’ll be improving. If you have a non-ASIO driver you can test with, it’s worth trying that as a sanity check.

MTC vs MIDI Clock

You’re absolutely right - MTC isn’t working simply because it isn’t supported yet :sweat_smile:. It’s on the roadmap, just not implemented yet. MIDI Clock is supported, and Ableton Link works too, so that might be the easiest route for now. (You can run a timeline with the Ableton Link MIDI Clock time source - and MIDI clock also receives MMC for song position and play state).

As you probably know, tempo sources like Link and MIDI Clock provide beats and bars, whereas timecode sources like SMPTE and MTC give you absolute time. So timecode only really makes sense when using a timeline with its own tempo/tempo map.

That said, I totally get what you’re saying about separating tempo and transport - being able to preview effects with the current playhead tempo even when not actively playing is a really interesting idea. I’ll definitely give it some thought.

I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this up - feel free to keep the feedback coming, and I hope you enjoy getting into Liberation!

Seb

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Yes, you could make it optional. Either globally or on a per-clip basis. I’d have to put some thought into that, as I’m sure you will as well, because it’s more complicated than it may seem at first glance.

For me personally; I’m not into busking. Not my thing. I like doing meticulously choreographed shows. I’ll likely never plug in a control surface, and I have to assume that some non-trivial percentage of the market is the same. From my perspective, that being an optional global setting would be perfectly fine; however, I’m sure there are people who are like 75% time-coded, 25% busking where a per-clip setting makes more sense. :thinking:

In the meantime, your suggestion of enabling Organize Clips by Timeline will likely be sufficient.

I can imagine what a nightmare that likely is. I routinely face similar, difficult to nail down issues in my day job as a software engineer. The only reason I’m using Windows and not Mac for my primary programming PC is due to the fact that I really like Obsidian Onyx for DMX purposes. It does currently lack a few key features, but to me as a hobbyist, it is by far the most intuitive UI/programming experience of all the options in my price range. Since I don’t do busking, the NXK hardware controller/wing is perfect; great price, comes with 4-universe license. Just really fits my needs and workflow, but alas, it’s windows-only.

That said, I have an older Macbook Pro that I’m not using for anything. I could try running Liberation on that and just sending it SMPTE.

Which brings me to a thought. I think it might be a good idea to consider “seats/computers” as part of your licensing/pricing scheme. I would assume that most users, myself included, use at least two computers; a desktop for programming and a laptop for live use. I can imagine like a matrix on the subscription page; so first I select the number of computers I need to use, then I see the options and pricing for each of the current subscription levels, based on that number of machines. I feel like this would be preferable to maintaining two or more separate subscriptions. Just a thought.

That would certainly explain my experience. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Thanks Steve - I really appreciate the thoughtful follow-up.

I’m glad that “Organise Clips by Timeline” will help for now. Definitely agree it’s a tricky one to solve cleanly, but your notes are helpful.

Re: licenses - just to clarify, the Pro 8 tier includes 2 computers, and Unlimited includes 3. It’s intended to cover one main machine and one backup, since licenses are for individual use only. I’m not planning to offer extra seats as an add-on, as it gets messy fast, and I need to keep a handle on my admin overhead. Maybe in the future though!

Appreciate all the input - and hope Liberation ends up being a good fit for your workflow!

Seb

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Oh. Derp. Must’ve missed that!

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