Discuss: external audio
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Marc Baillargeon from Montreal, Quebec, Canada
I concur with Robert Johnson as well
Daz
Robert Johnson
Okay, I did come to this party late… Like two days late! I have now been through the thread and, like quite a few others agree with daisy’s very sensible comment. I think prioritising the usability aspects of the app ought to be the priority, including notifications, but also the upload process which can still be a bit buggy if something doesn’t upload the first time. I would love to be able to upload externally recorded sound, mainly as an insurance policy against in app recording issues, but I don’t think this should come at the cost of simplicity and usability. Once you start making zones/categories/tags more granular it is difficult to know where to stop. For instance, with field recordings, you don’t just have field recordings and talking about field recordings, but you have narrated field recordings, natural field recordings, field recordings with external conversation which is not from the user, etc. The line will need to be drawn somewhere, and it is impossible to make everybody happy - so keeping it simple with an AI toggle, and a stream for in-app recorded content, to avoid cluttering the flow of conversation, feels like a reasonable first step - though again, only once the tools are there to manage notifications and allow effective sorting/filtering. As a final thought, I really commend Josh for offering up this discussion. Of course, as soon as you do that, you create a level of expectation, but it is great to have some ability to inform your thinking on the future of the app. I just hope the overall response is helpful and not too overwhelming!
Robert Johnson
Stephanie
Melissa Dawn
I agree with Daisy.
Myles moore Alexander
Sara
Mara Kelland
This sounds like a sollution.
Precious
Agree, Daisy.
Raymond Foret
Ditto Daisy
Daisy
I feel like it's worth remembering that Josh is just one person maintaining this entire app, and it's grown pretty rapidly so now there are a ton of users with different things they want to see from it and it's impossible to satisfy everyone all the time. I can't imagine how stressed I would be in this position, which is why I don't do this kind of thing. That and my complete inability to code lol. I agree with Gordon's comment about notifications and I do think that's an important thing to fix, arguably more important than the external audio discussion, and there's something to be said for choosing the least complicated approach and if people aren't happy with how it works, maybe that's just a thing everyone has to live with. There are always features of apps that we don't love, and we either find a way to use the app anyway or we don't. I commend Josh for the attempt to find a solution that works for everyone, but with this many people who have differing opinions, that's probably an exercise in futility unfortunately.
Hmc
I think most of us want external uploads. Whether users decide to use them or not is their choice. That's all from me. :)
Lauren
Why the urgency
Gordon
I think for the moment people would like to get the notifications working a little differently. I had suggested receiving all notifications for ramble that you post yourself. But then being able to turn notifications on specifically for Rembles that you participate in that you didn't post yourself. Then if they became overwhelming you could actually turn notifications off for that specific ramble.
Josh S
I've only come to this idea from the chat on this thread. Its also not set in stone; someone might have a better idea. If everyone on here had said no external audio, that would have been it.
Lauren
This post hasn’t even been up a full 24 hours yet and it seems like you’ve already made your decision, so I’m bit confused on what this discussion was ultimately about
Mendi
I like your idea, Josh. I think that if you keep it simple for those who want it that way, that makes them happy, and for those of us who are uploading content from an external source, I can completely understand why you would want us to explain what it is a little further. I am on board with the plan. And to be clear, if I am using the external upload feature, I only wanted to make better recordings. I know there are others who want to do crazy things with their AI, but that is not even half of the reason that I want the external content.
Lauren
Daisy J
Oh, gotcha. No worries, yeah, then, you're right, that is the easiest way.
Daz
Josh S
The only issue with the zones, is that uploads could be a part of any of the zones; in which case, you would have to double every zone to have one for uploads and one for in-app. Its not just AI that's the issue. Some people have mentioned they only want to hear audio that is created in-app, like it is now. This is where I'm trying to make everyone happy. If you upload something in-app with my system described above, you won't have to do anything different. I might make it so you can see the options, but you would hardly ever have to do anything with them. They would only require setting if your uploading external audio.
Raymond Foret
GR8
Gordon
That way you can keep people from having to choose separate zones to hear various categories. If they choose all rambles in all uploaded rambles then they would hear it all.
Gordon
I've got another idea that even simplifies this further. Create a zone that is for all uploaded audio and everything would go into that zone. Then give people the opportunity to hear all rambles which would be just rambles recorded from the app or all rambles and all uploaded audio which would mix it all up and put it all together. that way those people who wanted to hear app recorded rambles along with anything anyone uploaded would all be able to do that in one place. But if someone just wants to hear app recorded rambles they could do that.
Daisy J
Hi! I still think that just making an AI zone or a few AI zones like for AI music and other AI content, would be the easiest and wouldn't have other people doing extra steps that would be a little bit more complicated. that way, people who still want to listen, can still do it, and the zone would be there but the content wouldn't show in the main feed.
Raymond Foret
Precious
That makes sense to me.
Josh S
My idea is basicly to allow users to filter what ever they want. if you only want spoken audio, then you can do that. the current issue with the zone system, is that you can select music and talk about music, or you could use it to upload music; there is no way to pick what you want and don't want to see from those zones. I did mention in my last comment that steps 3-4 won't be needed for in-app rambles, so yes, you won't need to select it, because it'd default to talking, unless you use the soundscape catagory, in which case you could pick that your talking about soundscapes, or it is a soundscape. So if you posted a Ramble like you do now, it won't make a difference.
Precious
Daisy
If this is going to be the new flow, I like Question's suggestion of only requiring it for external audio for the reason he already said. I would worry that adding too many steps would put people off of posting if it was for every kind of post. It doesn't sound that difficult to do, but people tend to like what's easiest.
Daz
Something else you could do, take away the auto subject of rambles, leave the edit field blank. if people try to post, it will disallow it. they have to put a subject heading in. same thing with the zone selector. they have to choose that as well.
Daz
QuestionAtl
I think it would be convenient if you only had to use those toggles for external audio, that would encourage people to still record by default here in the app as it would be the easiest option for uploading
QuestionAtl
That sounds great Josh
Gordon
Much more complicated than it needs to be
Josh S
The flow I've come up with; 1. external audio selected. 2. select zone. 3. Content type depending on zone selected (talking, song, gameplay, etc) 4. AI toggle. Steps 3 and 4 (content type and AI toggle) will only show if you are uploading audio from an external source; otherwise it'll be set to talking internally, unless its a soundscape, in which case I may ask if its talking about soundscapes or an actual ambiance. What do people think?
Brice Belcher
Stephanie
Michelle pears
Gordon
Jack FM got really bad right there towards the end with people just maliciously posting stuff because they could. And that's where you're gonna have to step in and find a way to remedy that part of it. so it might be a good idea to get your plan of action in place and decide how you wanna handle these things before releasing that so the game plan will already be ready to go.
Gordon
Just make sure to have plenty of storage on hand because the moment the share option comes out this app is going to change and never be the same again. I've seen this animal unfold so many times. and it's definitely going to put you in a position that I think you have hoped to avoid. That would be the position of being the moderator having to make decisions and take things down and maybe even ban people. so just keep that in the back of your mind as you prepare to release that functionality.
Tom Grant
I wouldn't even use the feature end suno I don't use
Matt Cooper
Matt Cooper
Marc Baillargeon from Montreal, Quebec, Canada
I like the idea of the breakdown in a various AI types into different categories, so there is a clear understanding of where people can look or post these things on the other hand. I would like the ability to post links such as YouTube links of interest that people might find interesting, but it has to be made clear that before they just post a link that they describe what the link is all about so that people know what it is
Josh S
So I think the consensus is that a good enough number of you would like the ability to upload external audio. Now from everyones feedback, I've come to the following possible points; 1. Have a single zone for AI content and hide this from the main feed. 2. No AI zone, but an AI toggle on new Rambles, with the ability to hide AI Rambles from settings; would allow AI in different zones (music for suno, eleven labs could go in others, etc). 3. Multiple AI zones (AI music, AI speech, AI other); filtered from the main feed. 4. Some kind of tag system, that allows you to spesify content (AI, spoken audio, produced, etc). However. I don't want to over complicate things, because I like the simplisity of the app at the current stage, so what would everyone agree on? I understand people talk about links, and I think that is a different feature entirely IMO and will most likely be implemented.
Daz
Daz
Marc Baillargeon from Montreal, Quebec, Canada
I agree, 100% with Terrence’s opinion on this