Poweramp you are falling behind. Hz Change feature

[Bitcoin Codm]

 How many years has it been since its been requested to allow a simple hz change feature to be added. Now you have these generic apps that only provide that one feature (or more) with a download rate total of over 20 million and growing (oppotunity cost). Of course, there is difference between download rate and use rate but the same argument could be used against you. You want customers to listen to the artists music as faithful as possible? Who do you serve then? The artists that make music or the people that pay for your app to listen to music. Only one of the two put food on your table. 

Just add the ability to allow customers to be able to change frequencies (415, 420, 432, 440, 452) of the music they listen to already. Its been 7ish years since the first request for ___ sakes. 

sincerely, paid user for 5 years. 

[MotleyG]

13 hours ago, Bitcoin Codm said:

 How many years has it been since its been requested to allow a simple hz change feature to be added. Now you have these generic apps that only provide that one feature (or more) with a download rate total of over 20 million and growing (oppotunity cost). Of course, there is difference between download rate and use rate but the same argument could be used against you. You want customers to listen to the artists music as faithful as possible? Who do you serve then? The artists that make music or the people that pay for your app to listen to music. Only one of the two put food on your table. 

Just add the ability to allow customers to be able to change frequencies (415, 420, 432, 440, 452) of the music they listen to already. Its been 7ish years since the first request for ___ sakes. 

sincerely, paid user for 5 years. 

What the heck are you talking about?

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, MotleyG said:

What the heck are you talking about?

I suspect this refers to that slightly psycho-babble audiophile 432Hz Music Tuning theory.

Personally, I trust the artist, professional recording engineer, and mastering studio to get the pitch right in the first place.

Andre

[Bitcoin Codm]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

I suspect this refers to that slightly psycho-babble audiophile 432Hz Music Tuning theory.

Personally, I trust the artist, professional recording engineer, and mastering studio to get the pitch right in the first place.

Andre

Its more about the choice because "personally" all frequencies sound wonderful then seeing these other apps take exponential flight just by offering that choice is just bland for Poweramp. Either way, the request has been made. Thank you for reading. 

And to your "432 hz psycho babble", cite scientific papers instead of news articles next time. Its 2021 mate.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7213780/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31031095/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31879635/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8023109/

[andrewilley]

So yes, apparently this question is indeed about 432Hz tuning, which does have some sway in modern thinking about using music as a therapy/relaxation tool.

As you say, this feature request has been made. So far, Max has not implemented any sort of re-tuning options at all, preferring to concentrate on accurate high-fidelity reproduction of what the artist intended when they created the music. However if he does decide at some point in the future to implement Pitch-only control as part of his recent extensions to the EQ system (in addition to the current Tempo option, which changes the speed and also tweaks the pitch to compensate) I can't see why specific frequency-only shifting - such as A4=432Hz instead of a recording's native tuning of 440Hz - would be technically difficult to implement. 

Andre

[MotleyG]

7 hours ago, Bitcoin Codm said:

Its more about the choice because "personally" all frequencies sound wonderful then seeing these other apps take exponential flight just by offering that choice is just bland for Poweramp. Either way, the request has been made. Thank you for reading. 

And to your "432 hz psycho babble", cite scientific papers instead of news articles next time. Its 2021 mate.

So the “science” replaces the artist’s intentions? Not exactly a music fan’s direction.

But since there are already several manipulations available in the settings, perhaps the dev will entertain this eventually. I’ll just leave it off.

[Bitcoin Codm]

9 hours ago, andrewilley said:

So yes, apparently this question is indeed about 432Hz tuning, which does have some sway in modern thinking about using music as a therapy/relaxation tool.

As you say, this feature request has been made. So far, Max has not implemented any sort of re-tuning options at all, preferring to concentrate on accurate high-fidelity reproduction of what the artist intended when they created the music. However if he does decide at some point in the future to implement Pitch-only control as part of his recent extensions to the EQ system (in addition to the current Tempo option, which changes the speed and also tweaks the pitch to compensate) I can't see why specific frequency-only shifting - such as A4=432Hz instead of a recording's native tuning of 440Hz - would be technically difficult to implement. 

Andre

 

3 hours ago, MotleyG said:

So the “science” replaces the artist’s intentions? Not exactly a music fan’s direction.

But since there are already several manipulations available in the settings, perhaps the dev will entertain this eventually. I’ll just leave it off.

That gives me hope. Thank you MotleyG and Andrewilly. Will continue to support the cause. And forgive my insolent approach to this request. Have a good weekend. 

[andrewilley]

I'm still not sure whether Max has any plans to implement this - but given that the current Tempo control adjusts both the speed and the pitch to compensate, I would have thought that adding a Pitch-only (and also Speed-only, come to that) control wouldn't seem technically very difficult. It's still up to Max as to whether he feels that it's worthwhile though, but from a coding point of view I would have thought it was one of those low-hanging-fruit requests.

Andre

[Bitcoin Codm]

I tried to do an isolated evaluation of the apps that provide the frequency change feature only or at least 2 more other features which cut my 20 million download estimate by half to 10.578 million + ads and 5000 downloads of the total are pro users ($9.99 USD) on android only platform. With tidal wave music, 432 player/pro, and music equalizer  hertz frequency applications taking the lead. Valuating the companies that run these applications was pointless because they make other apps and most are private.

Now Poweramp adds this "low hanging fruit" feature which wouldnt be "technically difficult" with a conservative estimate of the half of the above downloads (5 million new users) and half (5k) new added pro users (2.5k x $4.99 = $12,475 revenue) to Poweramp. Not sure if you have ads running on the free version for the newly added 5 million users (added revenue)  as I bought the pro version before even checking the free version. 

Of course, this is merely rough estimates and in essence can be comparing apples to oranges with many other factors not accounted for.

But all that for a not so technically difficult added feature. The effort to growth/profit ratio does not look bad at all.  

[andrewilley]

Please don't attribute personal opinions as proven fact. I said "I would have thought", which is far from being a statement of development time or goals.

I do wonder where all of these 5 million new users, who are apparently desperate for this one new feature, are though? Certainly not on these forums, where the question has come up perhaps a little over half-a-dozen times over the past ten years - often with mixed opinions as to how useful it would be, e.g. https://forum.powerampapp.com/topic/6828-432hz-so-important/.

And if Pitch control does ever get added, there's no assurance of whether it would be for an accurately specified 440Hz-->432Hz tuning, or merely an adjustable pitch up/down knob like the current Tempo control. Which might be just as well, as tunings of 404Hz, 410Hz, 435Hz or 442Hz have also been used for A4 over the years. Basically, pitching music 'a bit deeper' tends to sound warmer and richer to the human ear/brain.

Andre

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

Basically, pitching music 'a bit deeper' tends to sound warmer and richer to the human ear/brain.

Which would likely be what the artist intended in the first place. If they wanted to de-tune to sound “warmer” or any other way, I’m sure they would have done that in the studio. I don’t know why there is this effort to change what was recorded in the first place.

[MotleyG]

On 9/10/2021 at 11:26 AM, Bitcoin Codm said:

And to your "432 hz psycho babble", cite scientific papers instead of news articles next time. Its 2021 mate.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7213780/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31031095/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31879635/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8023109/

Study sizes of just 12-40 people in four different tests and with very limited music choices hardly yield conclusive results.

I’m far more inclined to believe this comes down to personal choice. No different than various headphones/speakers and source combinations do the same.

So this is up to the dev to decide if it is worth the effort to implement regardless of the number of requests. But I’m sure there are many other higher priority items on the list currently given the support on this forum, so don’t expect this to happen too soon if at all.

[Bitcoin Codm]

Motely, I can send other pubmed studies with larger sample sizes etc used however that will just be another deep spiraling discussion.

Nevertheless, fair points from both of you lads. It was worth a crack and then some.

But it is fruitful to know even from a technical perspective that as it was mentioned not to be fact but personal opinion, that it could be implemented in the various ways that was explained. 

This was an eye opening exchange and I am grateful for your time spent answering this "low hanging fruit" request. 

Like all mature firms, It will be interesting to see the major projects Poweramp takes on to fend off its declining growth.

Best,

Elon 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Bitcoin Codm

[andrewilley]

I'm sure a Pitch control will happen at some point. Indeed, Max mentioned about 18 months ago that he would probably look into implementing it sometime after the much-requested stand-alone Equalizer app was released, which has now happened.

I doubt he sees it quite as you do as any kind of urgent and vital revenue generating tool though, but more as a nicety to complement the existing Tempo knob in the EQ module. Maybe this thread will jog his memory anyway?

Andre

[andrewilley]

@maxmp Just a quick thought to add to this, but when adding a Pitch control does come up to the top of the EQ to-do list, could I suggest rather than having three knobs (for Tempo, Speed, and Pitch) you implement just two knobs, for Speed and Pitch, and add an extra switch to enable synchronising of the two controls. So if that switch is active, turning down the Speed control would increase the Pitch appropriately to compensate, and vice versa - just like the current Tempo knob does. It just seems easier than having three conflicting rotary knobs to worry about.

Andre

[MotleyG]

On 9/13/2021 at 10:08 AM, andrewilley said:

@maxmp Just a quick thought to add to this, but when adding a Pitch control does come up to the top of the EQ to-do list, could I suggest rather than having three knobs (for Tempo, Speed, and Pitch) you implement just two knobs, for Speed and Pitch, and add an extra switch to enable synchronising of the two controls. So if that switch is active, turning down the Speed control would increase the Pitch appropriately to compensate, and vice versa - just like the current Tempo knob does. It just seems easier than having three conflicting rotary knobs to worry about.

Andre

@maxmp It may also be worth considering having specific "stops" on the adjustment range to show when the requested frequencies of 404Hz, 410Hz, 432Hz, 435Hz, and 442Hz that are of interest to many of the requestors are active. The 432Hz range is of particular interest here.

Edited May 31, 2022 by MotleyG

[Mountain Man]

I would dearly hope a truly useful feature like allowing Poweramp to follow the frequency of the source files would be considered long before a novelty feature like allowing your music to be played back at the incorrect pitch. 🤷‍♂️

[andrewilley]

@Mountain Man I agree that pitch changing in general is a novelty gimmick, but pitch-tuning (e.g. 432Hz tuning) is a somewhat specialised audiophile feature - well, for those that feel the need for it anyway. It could work very cleanly on all Android devices though, as it would be built into the equalizer code alongside the tempo control which already shifts pitch as part of its functionality.
 

However - and as you are fully aware - output-follows-source-frequency (or "No Resample") has already been considered several times as a possible feature, but for the time-being Max has rejected it as impossible to implement in PA in a standardised manner that would work across all (or even most) Android devices and output methods, and it could also conflict with other features. So while I agree it would be a great feature (at the very least for marketing purposes) it's not likely to happen any time soon.

Andre

[maxmp]

This is now a planned feature. New higher quality tempo + pitch control is planned for the next betas after the LRC one. Thanks!

[James007]

@maxmp you mean the next beta would contain the much awaited .lrc update? 😲

[andrewilley]

6 hours ago, James007 said:

@maxmp you mean the next beta would contain the much awaited .lrc update? 😲

There may be bug fixes or small changes in the meantime, but LRC support will be part of the next feature-based beta release I believe.

Andre

[James007]

@andrewilleyi really hope this is implemented this time. Would be the biggest feature release since Poweramp v3 I guess. 🙂 

[MotleyG]

15 minutes ago, James007 said:

Would be the biggest feature release since Poweramp v3 I guess.

I would argue the functional feature for splitting multiple artists and genres was far more usable for far more people.

[andrewilley]

56 minutes ago, James007 said:

Would be the biggest feature release since Poweramp v3 I guess.

For a MUSIC PLAYER? Which for 99% of users spends much of its active time with the screen off, possibly even in their pocket, just doing its job of sending music to their ears? As I keep pointing out, PA was never intended to be a karaoke player, so it's not really a very significant feature (especially as embedded lyrics have had basic support for ages).

Anyway, whether it's actually useful to most users or not, it will be here soon so it is now a moot point. And also going very off-topic for this thread which is about pitch-adjustment - which is an actual audio feature request.

Andre

[Mountain Man]

On 6/2/2022 at 8:35 AM, andrewilley said:

@Mountain Man ... output-follows-source-frequency (or "No Resample") has already been considered several times as a possible feature, but for the time-being Max has rejected it as impossible to implement in PA in a standardised manner that would work across all (or even most) Android devices and output methods, and it could also conflict with other features.

Yes, I'm aware of the excuses, and yet at least half-a-dozen other Android audio players have implemented such a feature without the difficulties described.  You might say, "Well then, why don't you use one of those other apps instead?" and I am -- Neutron, at the moment -- but it also can't be denied that Poweramp has the best interface on the market, and I would love to see its functionality expanded to include a highly requested feature that should almost be considered standard for an "audiophile" music app.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Mountain Man