My thoughts on the current system
I know this is a bit of a controversial topic and it might even be a bad idea,
I'm writing this mostly to make it a topic of discussion and hear your thoughts on it.
I wanna start by saying the current 30 second limit is a good deterrent to prevent most people from easily uploading whole songs to audiotool.
Uploading entire works created elsewhere is not what audiotool is for, even if you look past the glaring copyright issues.
**However; **
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When it comes to using instruments and capturing sound, 30 seconds can prove a challenge.
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Having to cut samples up into parts is time consuming and the cuts can be audible if not done carefully.
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Long samples cut into parts can introduce a lot of clutter and mess to the sample browser if not named and tagged correctly.
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The limit is only a deterrent to prevent non-AT productions and potential copyrighted work being uploaded, it will not prevent those who are hell bent on breaking the rules.
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In essence, I think being able to create longer assets will only benefit the community and audiotool as a whole, if it's done in a way that won't just create more manual labor for the (I assume) already overworked team.
I work with instruments a lot and the 30 second limit for samples has started to become quite the hindrance when I e.g. record multiple eight bar samples in 130bpm and they all end up at around 32 seconds. I also want to make an ambient soundscapes sample pack with recordings from nature, transit and city streets later this year and I don't like the thought of having to disassemble everything to be able to upload it.
I want to hear your thoughts on whether this is a good/bad idea
I still want the limit to stay in place, but I also want there to be a way to qualify for a sort of "verified uploader" program. I do not know the details of what the best implementation of something like this would be, but I'd be welcome to hear any thoughts or ideas regarding this.
Comments (11)
Eye uhg re
Do you have any particular thoughts on it?
I'd also be happy if you favorite this topic
My apologies, usually I'm more vocal about these things but it's late where I am and I'm not at my computer. I will be more detailed tomorrow (remind me) all I can say right now is that this is a feature I've been advocating for, myself, for what seems like forever. It's great to see someone else on the same page
No worries mate, happy to hear you're on the same page.
I'll remind you tomorrow if I remember it myself haha
Yes.
Feature to upload long samples could be given to reputable users that don't have a bad sample upload history.
I really like this idea, as a fair few users, yourself included, use AT's upload for legitimate reasons and dont abuse it. The only hiccups I can see atm with this, until other mods step in and give their thoughts, is that AT has hundreds of thousands of users, and no doubt a huge portion of these users will see it as another means to abuse the system. We would get hundreds, if not thousands of requests a day of people asking to be a verified uploader, which, at the current size of the team, is a monumental workload on top of what we have already, let alone having to manually sift through these requests and single out the 'safe' users that wont abuse the system. Like i said though, i really like this idea, but it'd need a lot of refinement and polish to ensure its a pragmatic and efficient system.
I have the same concerns, a set of strict guidelines would have to be made.
Possibly with the creation of a new moderator role, "community managers" could take on the task of processing applications and follow the users for a short probationary period.
If say a community manager/moderator grants an application, that mod would have full access to view all uploads/assets made by that user to catch any potential misuse.
this would obviously be an unpaid position, some things that may be required for you to qualify could be things like having to be an already well established artist and being able to write concisely why you need this feature and why you should have it
I think the 32 second limit is a good thing. With all of the users on audiotool it just makes sense to limit things. The sample database would become exponentially massive with longer samples. I don't think it reduces creativity, on my hardware there are usually sample limitations. 64 bars, certain sample size, etc. Also it makes for a much more predictable user experience to know what samples can be and test and program around that. This is just speculation, but I feel the whole ethos of Audiotool for the devs isn't for it to just be a samplebox. Even so, there's still a lot of room for creativity with the 32 seconds, even with longer samples.
Sample Ban back in the day actually made a huge improvement for me personally. I started tweaking synths and now I barely use any samples, so I agree about "samplebox"
It's great to hear counter arguments too, thanks. I do agree that the limit is necessary, it's just those special cases where it really gets in the way of productivity I want a solution to.
Maybe there should be a system in place where you have to actively request the extra upload time. That way, whoever is monitoring the sample library can make sure the user is legit, and if they do something stupid they will be banned from using the extra upload time. However, that would probably mean lots of extra work from the dev team, so I'm going to assume that this isn't an option, at least not currently.