Serato Software Feature Suggestions

What features would you like to see in Serato software?

Colour coding for loop slots

Marv Incredible 10:09 AM - 30 June, 2017
Can we have colour coding for the loop slots like we have for the cue slots please?

Being able to name the loops is great but very limited in terms of what information it can give you. I use colour codes for my cues for the same reason and the different colours tell me whereabouts in a phrase I should trigger my cues.

For example: Light blue is the start of the last bar (or last four beats) of a phrase. Dark blue is for the last two bars (which usually act as some sort of bridge). Green tells me it's a clean break/instrumental section and always starts on a '1', at the beginning of a new phrase. Pink tells me it's the last beat of the last bar toward the end of a phrase so that I trigger or scratch it in one beat before the new phrase begins. And so on.

I love the fact we can jump-to-loops now and with performance pads too - this is one of those features from SSL that has not only been brought over, but made better in SDJ. It also effectively gives us additional cue points.

However, the lack of colour coding renders this feature use-less. Not useless mind you, but used-less. I would use it much more if I could be confident of knowing where a loop was going to trigger from instead of doing it blind or trying to come up with some new Alphanumerical code in order to make use of the loop names text boxes instead.

I've been experimenting with this but it always comes back to colour codes being the best system and the ideal solution, especially as I've been using it effectively for years. (As a workaround, I've tended to use Hot-Loops more instead). And all it would take is to give us the ability to right-click the Slot on/Off and Reloop buttons to bring up the same colour picker we get for cue points.

For anyone that doesn't want or need it, they don't even have to know it's there. instead of automatically assigning a colour like is done with cues, the loop slots can be left colourless unless and until a user assigns one. Or, to encourage use and awareness, we could just mimic cue colour behaviour.

I'm not sure how loop slots are mapped out on all controllers - I know one thing I don't particularly like about the way stored loops are mapped on my SP1 is the fact I can't trigger them like cue pads and instead have to cycle through the slots using up/down pads to find the intended loop. But, perhaps there are performance pad options out there (now or in future) that allow you to trigger loop slots like cue points and having these lit up in different colours would be awesome.

However, if on the other hand, all the loop pads automaticlaly show up as a certain colour (maybe to help distunguish them from cue points or other functions) then this could be a problem. So maybe the colours wouldn't or shouldn't extend to the pads themselves but confine themselves to the on-screen loop slots? I'd personally still be happy with that, especially if less intrusion and confusion means it stands more chance of getting adopted.

I'd appreciate any input from Serato and any support from my fellow forum folk, but this seems like low-hanging fruit to me. Over to you.
Marv Incredible 10:24 AM - 30 June, 2017
Quote:
And all it would take is to give us the ability to right-click the Slot on/Off and Reloop buttons to bring up the same colour picker we get for cue points.

In hindsight, only the Reloop buttons would get colour.

Also, it just occured to me that being able to press a 'Link' button on the loop slot and then select a cue point would be a cool way of giving everybody a form of stored hot loops. Yes? No?
Mr Wilks 8:53 AM - 8 August, 2017
This is a brilliant idea Marv and one of love to see too.

A link button would be great to link both cues and loops.

+1