Adding one sample makes AU GUI and IAA icon disappear plus other issues!
This was the first thing I have tried with my new BM3 so you can imagine how disappointed I was to find that apparently it's not "user error" but rather a bug.
BM v3.0.6, iOS 9.3.3
Steps to reproduce with an IAA instrument:
Select one pad
Go to [PLUGIN] tab and load an IAA synth
Tap on the large IAA icon
The keyboard will show up with the IAA icon above it so I can switch to and edit the IAA synth
Go back to [SAMPLER] and load one sample
Go to [PLUGIN] to find BM3 has unloaded the IAA synth!
Load the IAA synth again
Open keyboard by tapping the IAA's icon and play - As expected, you will hear both the sample and the IAA synth's sounds
BUT no more icon above the keyboard, only macro controls instead.
Steps to reproduce with an AU instrument:
Select a new pad
Go to [PLUGIN] tab and load an AU synth
Tap on the large AU icon
The keyboard will show up with the AU's GUI above it so I can directly edit the AU synth
Go back to [SAMPLER] and load one sample
Go to [PLUGIN] to find BM3 has unloaded the AU!
Load the AU synth again
Open keyboard by tapping on the AU icon and play - As expected, you will hear both the sample and the IAA synth's sounds
BUT the AU interface is not shown, instead, only 8 macro controls and no way to see the AU GUI again.
Also, some graphical glitches (white dashed horizontal lines on the left hand side between keyboard and macro controls), and no, it's not my iPad for sure.
I guess intua have not invited me for beta testing because I tend to find too many bugs :-P
Comments
This is not really a show stopper of a bug, so i'm not sure why you would be so disappointed ?
If you want to link a sampler and synth it works fine by using pad linking.
If you want to load a plugin on to a pad that already has a sampler, until this issue is fixed you just delete the sample first and the plugin will load fine on to that pad.
So your title is a little wrong, the sample doesn't make the AU GUI disappear, it unloads the plugin (Expected behaviour) reloading the plugin doesn't remove the sample (Unexpected behaviour)
No idea about the dashed white lines, it is not happening here.
As for not being invited to beta testing because you tend to find too many bugs, that is somewhat of an oxymoron isn't it ?
The majority of beta testing is to find bugs, are you suggesting that Intua do not want to find bugs ?
They are close to, if not the fastest audio developers who remove bugs quicker than anybody else on IOS right now.
There is no other audio package this complex getting big monthly updates, they drop the ball now and then, and if you don't expect that, then stay on an older release until others have fully bomb tested a release.
Do more beta testers make for more bugs/issues caught, no they certainly do not unless it is a public beta, which i don't think is possible on IOS with the way testflight works, more private beta testers means more emails reporting the very same thing (Public beta is one report and confirms) and in my experience, the amount of time it takes to read thirty emails, is about the same amount of time it takes Intua to fix some of these bugs.
Does more beta testers make for better features, no it does not, some beta tester somewhere was listened to on the white dotted lines vs arrows issue, and it has ended up a complete mess for a lot of users, beta testers can be a massive pain in the backside when they think they know best all of the time (That is in no way pointed at you at all, I am talking from past experience)
Does more beta testers mean the community is more involved, not at all, it tends to mean that some mouth some where is discussing features from a beta version and when they don't get released in the next version, the community now feels like they have been let down by Intua, because some homebooooooooooy wanted extra views on his YouTube channel.
Having said all that, you have only just bought BM3 and you are already upset that you are not beta testing, aren't you being a bit premature here, you don't even know how to use the software fully yet ?
Have you even contacted Intua about testing ?
OK, first of all sorry if my post came over that negative.
I'm not complaining neither upset about not being invited as a beta tester, in the end it's my own valuable time I'm sometimes willing to spend for the fun of it.
I just did the "obvious" first steps in BM3 and already hit, well, let's call it an inconcistency in the workflow. Other guys have stumbled across the same issue, so I think it's appropriate to describe it as a bug, an issue or whatever might be the most appropriate name for it.
I am doing a lot of beta testing for other music production related iOS apps and I believe to have a little bit of an insight to what kind of hard work it means to develop great audio apps and how an intuitive workflow should look like and what it shouldn't.
I have great respect of what BM3 is today, but in the iOS world, as we know today, a complex app like BM3 lives from regular improvements and refinements.
Sure, workflow is often a matter of taste and being used to whatever one has worked with in the past, but for sure there's something like a "common sense" that can easily be found during the first stages of alpha or beta testing.
I have contacted Intua twice for beta testing btw - first in 2014, later again when the word had been spread about BM3, but given that my intua account did not work anymore today tells me that apparently it's not only my e-mails that got lost in the meantime.
Anyway, thank you for responding so quickly and giving me hints on how to get around these issues!
They started a new forum, and some user accounts did get lost as far as i am aware, but there have been very few complaints about this, we also had a huge spate of spambots invading the forum and some accounts got removed because of matching IP ranges with said spambots, so that may have been a cause too, you would need to speak to Intua direct about that though.
As for the"Common Sense" that can easily be found, again i have to take a tiny issue with this, there is some thing in the air right now with people and software testing, first it seems to be trendy to be a beta tester, second it seems to be the beta testers fault when a bug or issue is perceived to have been missed, and thirdly it is the developers fault for relying on those beta testers who are obviously terrible at beta testing hahaha (Note me guilty as charged on all of this too by the way)
Here are a couple of realities (Not for you personally, but others may be reading this as regards testing, and testers)
Testing is a thankless boring task, but you get to see new features, seriously, who gives a ****, you are gonna see them in a couple of weeks anyway when they release them, and they probably work properly because of the beta testers that are not (Supposedly) testing properly.
If a bug still exists after testers have tested, who is to say it wasn't reported but another bigger bug that was such a show stopper, wasn't fixed instead ?
For the record, your bug here, has been reported, not sure if it is in the forum, but it has been reported personally by me, it is not a show stopper and it doesn't stop any feature from working as it should, so may, that is MAY, have been pushed down in priority, it 'MAY' simply have been forgotten, unfortunately Intua are still made up of humans, with all their crappy side effects.
But why not halt release until they fix this small bug ?
Go read the bug report forum, do you want no releases at all until they are all fixed ?
Then it becomes a little boys own beta testers club and beta testers are using software for months or even years before anybody else gets to use it, trust me, i have recently removed myself from beta testing for Native Instruments after ten years, why, because this is exactly what was happening, and all it does is harm end users and testers.
(Quick IOS example, testers proclaiming Nanostudio 2 as the be all and end all when it arrives this year, its the start of December and now the "Why isn't it out" starts)
If Intua haven't replied to you about beta testing, they probably simply have not had time yet.
I have regular correspondence with @mathieugarcia, most replies can take three days or so, i would like to say we chat on a personal level, but in the months i have been chatting to him, that has happened once on the single day off he has taken in that time hahaha.
They are pretty busy with developing and support right now (That is just the nature of any fairly new product)