Resonic vs. Loopcloud

[dadarkman]

These programs meet each other in some areas but also differ in others. However, they are aimed at almost the same group of users: The producers, DJ's, Sound Designers and anybody with lots of library of sounds.

The reason I even bring this topic on is that the features I'm mostly waiting on from Resonic end up in Loopcloud from the gate! In a way that's a blessing and a curse A blessing cause yea somebody got to make these features available but then I once again have to use two separate programs. I hate that uneven side of the software world, what I wish for can never come in that one package, LOL.

So, what are the features that Loopcloud has and Resonic (will maybe someday have?):
Tags & Favorites: I mean Tags galore!!! Every column is made up of tags instead of Metadata text which makes this software perfect in zeroing to the exact sounds. Ex: I can look for a Techno loop in the key of A with Conga Instruments, and so on...

Standalone and Plugin: Loops can be auditioned in sync with the project being worked on.

Now, Loopcloud probably will never catch up with Resonic in terms of features as Resonic has way more. However, when I compared them, I had to ask myself this: what am I looking for in a sample library manager? And the answer was easy for me, I'm looking for a way to find sample FAST; Syncing with my DAW is icing on the cake.
I brought Loopcloud to light not because I think Resonic is not good enough or will not have such features going forward but more like to show the developers that someone else/another group found a way and hopefully you guys WILL too!

[syxta]

Well yes i think that the major thing resonic is missing is a tagging system and database to find sample fast , i must say that i don't get the point how to use a sample library browser without such a feature. I have 1 To of samples already well organised in folders , what i need is something to find something fast and the only way for this is to be able to tag each samples , i look every month if you release such a feature , as soon as resonic can handle that i'll buy for sure but without that i'm sorry but it's pretty useless to manage a library and it's "just" a player .

And yes i second that , to be able to sync with a daw it's a killer feature too .

Hope you'll work on that very soon !

Keep on the good work .

[dadarkman]

Agreed!

Search capabilities and tags are and should be top features in a Sample Library software. If you look at AudioFinder, Basehead, Soundminer, they all are search-centric applications. Unfortunately, Resonic dev(s) focuses on some other features for the moment. IMO, the current search function of Resonic is still fairly basic and inadequate (I should not have to keep scanning subfolders for every search). Hopefully, at some point, we'll see some development in the search and tag area for the app.

I'm all for tags, tags, tags

[Tom]

Just a quick intermediate reply before I take the time to go into detail:
we're currently heavily focused on metadata work, i.e. extracting as much information from all the important formats (especially wav/aiff) to build the actual searchable database. We're trying to go a step further when it comes to what is being read from the files and how it is interpreted. Bear with us for a little longer, it'll be worth it!

[syxta]

I think that extract meta from the file is not the point , what we need is to able to associate tag to file and then to search using the tags .
For sure you can make this process easyer with some kind of keyword extraction from the file name to associate some tag , it's a nice to have , but the basic concept of just tagging and searching is the most important thing when we speak about library manager .
But i'm sure you are aware of that . I'll bear with you as your product is already very good one .

[Tom]

I think that extract meta from the file is not the point , what we need is to able to associate tag to file and then to search using the tags .
For sure you can make this process easyer with some kind of keyword extraction from the file name to associate some tag , it's a nice to have , but the basic concept of just tagging and searching is the most important thing when we speak about library manager .
But i'm sure you are aware of that . I'll bear with you as your product is already very good one .

Metadata (and data mining) is everything these days. No complete meta, no useful tags and keywords. What good is information in a file when it is not seen/recognized and searchable. In Resonic's case the auto-tag system will produce tags from both existing metadata, filename, and path, combining several hundred thousand patterns using a dictionary we've been researching for a year, in order to guess matching keywords even where there are none available. I believe this to be worth the wait and a game-changer.

https://resonic.at/pro#metadata

[syxta]

Explained like this , sure thing , really looking forward to this .

Keep it up

[Tom]

About Loopcloud: I like the general look, but it's rather laggy and heavily limited in many regards. I can go into detail if there is interest. It serves one single purpose, the presentation of Loopmasters content, which is both prepared and partially proprietary. And this works well, for what it is. Resonic is generic, file-based, and needs to cover a lot more though.

When it comes to metadata I am not impressed with Loopcloud: it merely reads the basics and is limited to the prepared Loopmasters content which (from what I have seen) doesn't make consistent (or even proper) use of standard meta fields. Some information does not even come from the actual files (afaik some keywords, content types, genres.)

Important basics like the acid bpm field in 95% of the .wavs included in sample package as well as most of my Loopmasters sample CDs is unused and set to 120 (default, not set) and there is no other tempo hint as they prefer to put the bpm in the filename - which is useless to a machine, as it needs to rely on detection patterns that are error-prone ("128bpm_001_loop" is easy, "001_095_loop" or "054_loop_2" not so much, "025_001" vs "001_025" even less.)

[the3ug3reeder]

This feature is SO USEFUL!
I wish Resonic would have something like that.

[Tom]

This feature is SO USEFUL!
I wish Resonic would have something like that.

While Resonic has a randomize button (same icon) it randomizes the actual playback order, leaving the current sort mode and file order untouched. You can also press ALT-SPACE to play a random file anytime (see https://resonic.at/docs/shortcuts).

May I ask what the advantage of randomizing the displayed file list instead of just the playback order would be? Either way it's doable.

Cheers, Tom

[the3ug3reeder]

ALT-SPACE is very good! (for some reason I overlooked that)
and you're right... I think leaving the current sort mode and file order untouched is actually better.

For some reason though, ALT-SPACE does not seem to respect the File List Filter... It just plays any random file.

For example, if the file list filter is currently filtering '95bpm' and I hit ALT-SPACE all sorts of random files come up that are NOT 95bpm.
is that a bug?

the way it works now it's ALMOST useful.

[Tom]

ALT-SPACE is very good! (for some reason I overlooked that)
the way it works now it's ALMOST useful.

Agree that it's almost useful in combination with the filter, which it was not intended for originally.
Now to figure out a solution to make it work with it properly.

The other thread: https://forums.resonic.at/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=455