.elfan made a staggering comment in his Is Podium the host for me? thread. I say staggering because after all this time I thought the problem he seemed to refer to was long gone… so what did he say that was such a surprise?
“After having spent more than an hour without getting any sound”
As anyone can see in the thread he was actually very pleased with Podium overall but that statement truly amazed me. How could it have taken that long? Especially after so much work was done to eliminate the problem in response to user feedback. I decided to try and see why that problem could occur after all the changes made to avoid it…
The Problem:
I don’t think it is the Project Start page. That is as slick, indeed slicker that any host I know of. I think it’s the monitor button. I opened up a previous project and Podium of course will not start with the monitor button on, I know why it is this way and it does not necessarily have to change so that is not what this thread is about.
The problem is if a new user demos Podium he may very likely do this…
1. Go through the project start page process (very easy IMO). Especially with the recently added pop ups.
2. Get to the arrangement he has created…
3. Drag in an Instrument mapping to a track or go through the Instrument / Return right click route.
Now point no.4 is where I think many people who demo Podium even now are getting lost, get stuck or totally give up…
4.
a.They do not hit the play button once an instrument is mapped to a track. Which will start Podiums engine.
b.They do not touch the monitor button once after they have added an instrument to a track. This of course also starts Podiums engine.
So what happens when they start playing their keyboards… Podiums midi indicator will flash giving the impression all is well. So far so good. But no sound will be generated. Huh? Problem.
As Podium AFAICT is the only host that works in this way I can see why a user would *not* simply think “oh it’s probably the monitor or play button”. It is a bit unusual to require hitting either of those buttons first to get sound even if I understand why you have set Podium up this way.
To make matters worse a users cursor may not pass over the monitor button to see the message that will pop up until after a very long time. “…an hour” maybe?
I gave up after a similar time frame years ago when I first tried the Podium demo and did not try it again for 12 months. Interestingly Reaper rose to fame in about that same time period from practically nothing.
elfan is IMO one of few people who will take the time to say he could not get any sound after a crazy length of time. Many like me years ago will say nothing and quietly move on. Too busy. “I guess it’s not that easy to use”. It was only a user tutorial and my determination to try again that resulted in me getting any sound and buying Podium soon afterwards.
But I soon realised that only a miniority would be that persistent. Even less would let you know of the “sound issue” on this forum.
Problem solving:
1.When a user first gets into their new arrangement Podium should show the pop up message on the monitor button without a user having to roll over it with a cursor first.
There are many things that seem so obvious and easy to a regular user but a new user is likely coming from a different mindset based on their experiences with their existing host and will likely *not* do what seems obvious to a frequent user of Podium.
So the pop up then disappears once the user have clicked on that button. It cannot even possibly lead to an irritation as they will get no sound if they do not click that button anyway. The play button also starts Podium’s engine but the monitor button pop up message IMO needs to be the one to focus on.
2. Remove the monitor pop up message from the Switch Pop up help on/off list. A user can easily browse around their arrangement get tired of pop ups if they generally do not like them and eliminate the only way they will find out how to get any sound out of Podium (the pop up message on the monitor button). It seems obvious to click the button but clearly it is not. With pop up help switched off they will never see that pop up.
3. The choice of words in the current Monitor button popup is a bit technical. A simple “Click on the Monitor button to enable sound in Podium” is quite adequate it is also straight to the point. The current message is too long and may even confuse IMO.
The issue IMO is a very serious one. There are plenty of other hosts out there. A little adjustment here and there and this likely very costly problem should finally be totally eliminated.
HTH.
