Why is EarMaster6 so much less responsive than EarMaster 5?

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Raleigh
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Joined: 15 Feb 2014, 20:55

Why is EarMaster6 so much less responsive than EarMaster 5?

Post by Raleigh »

Hello, I am a long time EarMaster Pro user/ professional musician and educator and I have been trying with every single EarMaster Pro 6 update to get the responsiveness of EarMaster Pro 5 - but it is still nowhere near where EMP 5 was. I am wondering why? I've submitted numerous support queries over the years - even recording screen shot comparisons between EMP 5 and EMP 6 to highlight the major deficiencies in the responsiveness of EMP 6, but even with all the updates it still is not even close.

Just to clarify, I use EarMaster Pro almost exclusively for the rhythm exercises. I use my MIDI guitar in lessons on a daily basis with guitar students to practice rhythm reading/playing - but only EMP 5 is usable for me (and it is still by far the best software that I've found for rhythm exercises). Don't get me wrong - I very much like the new look of the interface and the resizability of the notation in EMP 6. I also like the idea of the addition of Melodic Sight Singing - if it was usable, I would be using this every day with students. But sadly - like the rhythm modules, it is not even close.

I've tried every possible configuration I can think of - working under the possibility that perhaps it is the fact that my laptop is too old - it is a 15 inch MacBook Pro from mid-2009 running a 3.06 GHz intel Core Duo with maxed out RAM (8GB). But something tells me it's not my computer (which is running great for every single one of my other apps) - this is partially because EMP 5 runs so great on my computer. Why in the world would EMP 6 be so unresponsive, glitchy, and unusable? It's just seems like such a waste to have such a great concept, with such a great looking interface, just to be basically unusable. The only thing that I am heartened by is that there seems to be many frequent updates to EMP 6.

In this regard, I am hoping this email is taken to heart and a big (I mean huge!!) effort is put toward getting EMP 6 working like EMP 5 - I'd like nothing better than to use and recommend the new version (oh, and I am indeed running the most recent build - downloaded tonight), but until the bugs are worked out, I will have to stick with EMP 5. :(

Please let me know if you would like video captures of just how unresponsive EMP 6 is for me. My main goal in this is trying to get the thing working - I'd be happy to hep in whatever way that I can. If there is something I can try or something that I've overlooked, please let me know.

Thanks.
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Quentin
EarMaster.com
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Re: Why is EarMaster6 so much less responsive than EarMaster

Post by Quentin »

Hi,
Thanks a lot for your feedback. The video of the sight-singing exercises shown on the frontpage of the website were actually recorded with a 2009 MacBook with lower-specs processor and RAM compared to yours, so the unresponsiveness might be caused by something esle. We have also been trying out the rhythm reading activity with a YouRock MIDI guitar and it responded fine with 16th at over 100bpm.

In order for us to find out what we can fix or improve, could you please send us, as you suggest, a video of the unresponsiveness you are describing? Perhaps it will give us a hint as to what might be causing the issue you are experiencing. You can send a link to your video at support@earmaster.com.

Cheers,
Quentin
- Because in Music, We're All Ears... -
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