By
Jamon
Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:29 pm
This forum is funny. It's both funny and frustrating to be told multiple times to calm down, stop freaking out, etc. when you're totally relaxed and mostly content. I'm laughing imagining what people must misread in the text.
I was also a bit surprised recently with the entitlement that came out with the 128XL, where people seemed upset that they'd have to buy a new XL if they bought a new LCD.
With bug fixes and feature updates though, in the case of the latest edition, you buy into a system where you know you're getting beta software, and there's the unwritten expectation that you're supporting a process that will continue to have updates until it's fully baked.
Like with the Free OS, no one feels entitled to feature upgrades, because it's fully baked, but they do expect bugs to be fixed. With XL, there's a bit more entitlement to feature updates, just because the actual design of the OS wasn't finished when people paid, so it's like moving into an unfinished house where you don't expect construction workers to leave before everything is cozy.
I've wanted to pay more for JJ OS. I don't think it's fair to have endless development when I only paid once. I'd like to pay annually for access to frequent updates. For the $120 per year, I get access to post on the official website, where they talk to the users, and try to work with us to implement some of our ideas.
It doesn't have to be open sourced. If it were, then I could setup my own shortcuts how I want and wouldn't need to rely on anyone else. But it's good too for everyone to think about it, smoothing out ideas until there's an elegant design, and then have them implemented by the developer.
That's sort of what is done sometimes, but there's no written entitlement anywhere, so when updates suddenly cease, and all the attention is on something else, there's no claim to be made. I asked if anyone felt left behind, not if they were pissed because they deserve to be given free updates for life.
The last XL addition was 3.18 released 4 months ago. There were 2 bug fix releases since then, 3.20 being the newest, released 2 months ago. It is not unreasonable to expect bug-fix releases to happen when there's bugs. You shouldn't expect them instantly, but there's no doubt XL updates have slowed down, and instead of new updates in days or weeks you now wait for a month for bug fixes with no new additions.
XL is mature enough now where one shouldn't expect major new additions, and I think people were mostly just pleasantly surprised when recently there was new stuff being added to it frequently, and appreciated the work going into it. There was a lot of praise and activity here just recently.
Now it's on hold. It's not about entitlement, where we need to protest and cry like babies to get our way. It's just, XL users are left behind right now. I expect more bugs to get fixed, and some other new development to occur in the normal LCD space. But right now, today, all news is about 128XL.
It's that simple. I don't know why people have to read so much more into it, and tell OP to calm down. I'm calm. I don't care much. It's just that I'm used to loading up this site, and YouTube, somewhat routinely, to check up on the latest news that's relevant to a machine I have.
I used to do that, and see stuff. I'd come here in passing, and there'd be a notice of some new update, and I'd read people's remarks. I'd go on YouTube and there'd be a new video sometimes, and I'd watch a new feature I could be using. Now when I came here, there was nothing to read. Now when a new YouTube video popped up, it wasn't for me.
It changed my routine, because I only have a handful of news sites I visit. After weeks of coming here, without seeing much, I realized something was up and went to the other sub-forums. There I saw more activity in a thread about the big LCD. The people were over there, not here.
That's the very definition of being left behind.
With no news, I was hungry for some, so created some by posting that. I thought, if there's no updates for now, and the focus is over there on the big LCD project, then the only thing there is to talk about over here is what's going on over there.
The way it's supposed to work is, people just talk about it. Like, "Does anyone else feel left behind?" -- "Yeah, where is everyone? There used to be lots of talk around here but now it's slow" -- "They're all over there, in the big LCD thread." -- "Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting one of those myself. Heres' why ..." -- "How do you think this will affect JJ OS development?" -- "I think ...".
Instead what happens is, "Does anyone else feel left behind?" -- "JESUS MAN CALM DOWN!" -- "You're not entitled to anything! Be happy you got what you did." -- "JJ can do whatever he wants. He doesn't owe you anything." -- "Chill out and go outside. OS3 will be released someday." -- "There was just a bug fix update a month ago, you expect too much!"
There's been some useful replies, so it worked well enough. It's weird though how defensive so many people are about JJ OS, like the slightest criticism is taken as an attack against their mom. It's great, due to the relatively limited situation, but by any objective standard the actual design of the operation isn't up to par.
If Akai was coming out with the MPC6000, that had firmware identical to JJ OS XL, how do you think people would respond? I would not be surprised at all to see huge threads of people acting like packs of dogs barking and biting at the cornered squirrel they're about to kill. They did it with Beat Thang, they did it with Nukai, and outside the blind love JJ OS really isn't that ideal, so there's plenty to complain about.
Just think about it, if you could design your MPC to act however you want, even within the physical limitations of the old hardware, would you make it exactly like it is today? I wouldn't, and I could write for weeks about how I'd change it.
Just to give you a taste, it's ridiculous that if I create an instrument, and use a sample spread across all keys, that it plays reaaaaalllll slowwwwww at the low end, and rel fst at the high. Especially since, there's timestretch already built in. I don't expect it to do it in realtime, since the hardware probably can't handle that. But if you could design it, wouldn't you make an automated function to be able to convert a sample into a bunch of pitch-shifted samples that maintain their duration?
Or what about for exporting of tracks? You select a folder and push the button, it solos the first unmuted track, plays the entire song or sequence from the start while recording the main outs internally, saves as Track-1.wav to the folder, erases it from RAM, solos the next unmuted track, and repeats until they're all outputed. All it'd have to do is look at the duration of the song or sequence, multiply that to get the space needed, check the free RAM, and if there's not enough it shows how much you need to free to be able to export. If you have the space, it merely automates functions already built in, soloing, playing, recording, copying, erasing, stopping, changing track number, soloing, etc.
I support JJ OS, and appreciate it. But I've never understood this whole Japanese genius thing. It's better than Akai OS, but that's not saying much. There are a lot of great features added, but so many basic obvious things ignored.
