Our friends at Absolute Music in Poole, UK are hosting a novation/ableton evening to show off the launchpad.

So we’ve made live a beta ver1.0 release…

1) New upload tool – most of the feedback we had, was that the upload process, well.. lets be honest, was a bit over complicated. We’ve added some more help text and it’ll now ask for the information on only two screens with auto-complete where possible (if you add remixer names but not any information on the remix name, it’ll name it for you).

2) we’ve changed the site background, just because I wanted to really and a few other bits, the design side is still in progress.

3) Edit screen – you can now edit track information after you’ve uploaded.

4) RSS feed of new files – this’ll update as new tracks are added.

To come (very soon) – a bulk uploader! Say what? Download the exe file, point it to a folder with warp files in, it’ll take what info it can from the ID3 tags, prompt you to fill in the rest then upload to the site. It’s working, we’re just doing a few more tests then we’ll make it available.

To come (soon-ish) – an API – yep, query our database via XML something clever and we’ll pass back info.

Love to know your thoughts on our beta!

If you signed up as an alpha tester and have used the site or provided us with help in other ways, we’ll be sending you voucher codes to invite your mates – email coming this week.

As promised some pics from the alpha launch party at Bar Fruit:

PS Sorry we left this post in draft for so long, forgot to click publish!

So early today we bounced our server for 2 main reasons:
1) There was some important security patch – ask Tom if you really want to know…
2) We updated a few things on the site, hopefully making it easier and simpler to use – we now have an admin console and once we’ve tested it a bit more, we’ll be adding this to all accounts so you can update/correct any details for files you uploaded.

Also… and frankly, much more exciting…

We’ve finished phase 1 of our bulk upload tool

At the moment, it operates via CSV + warp files in a zip… phase 2 will be one you can use yourselves (that will be a while).

If you have a large collection of warp files you’d be willing to share, we’ll credit your account as normal AND in the near-ish future, if your account has surplus credits to your needs – we’ll pay you! WIN

For more details on the bulk upload please hit me up.

Luke

PS added another batch of files (latest beatport top 10) and will be doing 100s more this week

Comments as ever welcome:

UPDATE: Our priority one bug, is that in some circumstances, it is wrongly labelling files as ableton 8 not 6/7 – we’re working on it

Wow. Thank you! We’ve had loads of RT’s on twitter and some really encouraging feedback so far.

Thought I’d write a quick post to respond to some of the questions we’ve had:

1) I’m on the alpha list but I can’t login with the email address

If you’re on the alpha list you will need to register your full details to use warpsauce – make sure you use the email address you signed up with.

2) Can I register as an alpha tester please?

No, sorry. Anyone who registers now, who is not already on the alpha list will not be able to use the site until we move into public beta.

3) Why a closed alpha?

We wanted to get the site to a certain level of stability / usability / content before we unleashed it on the general public – we’re also now finishing off the admin side of it, so we can cope with more users once it’s live.

4) (along the lines of…) what no mp3’s?

NO – this is purely for the .asd files – which are user created content and as such, not covered by copyright (for more details, please see our T+C+P on the main site)

5) “the .asd file doesn’t maintain the warping; in some circumstances it is overwritten. For this to *really* work, you should ask for the .alc (clip) file, which records the warping information (and lots of other goodies) reliably.”

Now this is an interesting one and I’d love more feedback on this – we’ve focussed the site on .asd files for whole tunes for a couple of reasons, my understanding – and I will be double checking in case I’m wrong, which does happen – is that the clip file contains audio as well (and so is copyrighted), and also would be unique to the loop size you chose?

Rather than be a site hosting lots of (illegal) clips, we choose to focus on full tracks.

If I’ve got this wrong, please do tell me!

6) There’s not that many files on here yet?

We’ve provided a tool for YOU to swap warp files, we will be importing all of my personal warp files (400+) really soon, but for now we’re focussed on bugs + admin panel.

All feedback gratefully received, I really do hope that together we can create a great re-sauce

Luke