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Saturday, 14 December 2019

055 - Exchanges with Smule Support Team member:

Exchanges with Smule Support Team member:
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Ramrajah1012
Nov 12, 14:02 EET
At this point of time after recording the first part of a duet there is a provision to invite all our followers or none at all. a Smule member may have a few thousand followers and seldom know who these people are and why they are following the singer. In many cases some followers can also be a nuisance making useless noises as they cannot sing for nuts. This can be extremely annoying and distressing. there needs to be another option. Lets for example say 200 members follow me and of these 200, I personally follow say 50 members. Id like an option to send invites only to followers whom I follow. all other followers can find my invites on my profile page. This process can help minimise nuisance followers. what I am requesting is another option of inviting only followers I personally like to sing with and follow. This will allow many ladies a bit more freedom and lesser harassment.
Ram Krisnhaswamy
Sydney Australia

Smule Support Team (Smule)
Nov 14, 17:02 EET

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to us!

After saving a recording, you should have the option to send invites personally via message to other singers or to your existing group chats. Singers you invite personally will receive a chat message from you with a link to the invite. After you’ve saved your collab, it will show up under the “Invites” tab on your profile. From there, you can invite additional singers to join you later by clicking the “Invite Singers” button.

Regards,

On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 12:40 PM Ram Krishnaswamy <ramrajah1012@gmail.com> wrote:
Ramrajah1012
Nov 15, 03:40 EET

Thank you for educating me on what I know already. Right now we have the invite all followers. Many of us do not want to invite all followers totals strangers who follow playing the numbers game. My request was to include a second option which is to "INVITE ALL FOLLOWERS YOU FOLLOW"
Sending messages is tedious and time consuming as you can send only five invites at a time.

Smule experience can be improved in many many ways, except no one is listening. Atleast Smule developers should keep an eye on Sing Salon Discussions to see the problems members are facing.

Did you know that after the last Smule update for iPads we cannot access the search facility in the land scape mode. Was forced to switch to Portrait mode after a member figured this out accidentally. We have had umpteen problems with sending gifts too from iPads. Once the Gift is sent we cannot get out of that screen and have to reboot the iPad. One would assume that Smule updates get fully tested before being sent to general public.

Dumping all book marks into Notifications poses a big head ache as we often miss personal messages and comments from other members. 

Why cannot the Bookmark notifications appear on the Profile page under Say BOOK Mark of BM ?

Cheers
Ram

Ramrajah1012
Nov 15, 03:42 EET

Also none of us want invites clogging up message s section

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Smule Support Team (Smule)
Nov 21, 11:58 EET

Hi,

Thanks for your patience! I'll address your comments one by one since there's quite a bit to cover.

First, I've raised your "INVITE ALL FOLLOWERS YOU FOLLOW" suggestion to the developers in charge of that part of the app. 

Second, I can assure you that we do actually have a team in place that keeps an eye on the different forums that are popular within the Smule family.

Third, we do also have a QA team that constantly tests the app for issues but any help we can get is welcome. May I kindly ask you to create a short video of the Search issue you've mentioned by using a screen-recorder app (your device might have an inbuilt screen-recorder app) and attach it on a reply to this email, so we can see what exactly happens and what causes the issue?

Furthermore, can you please confirm what is the version of the app that you use, the model of your mobile device and the version of the OS?

Once you provide us with the requested video, we will forward it to our relevant team for further investigation.

Thank you for your patience and understanding!
Smule Support Team

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Ramrajah1012
Nov 21, 15:03 EET

Thank you for keeping this thread alive. I am a retired engineer and I have developed several engineering related softwares form design and costing etc and hence my interest in suggesting changes is to make Smule a better and more user friendly product.

1- Provision to Invite Only my followers whom I Follow: 
Say a Smule member has 10K followers of whom she only follows 500 People. She definitely is not interested in inviting all 10K followers at the same time she does not have the time to invite 500 people five at a time due to time constraints.. I floated the idea with 75 singers I follow and they say it is a great idea. As for other followers they can look at the profile to find the invites if they are genuinely following. 90% of people follow and just forget that they are following..

2 - Colour Coding of Followers: 
Right now if I look at my followers list all of them have the blue icon, except the ones I follow which have the grey icon. So I want a facility to only invite the grey icons. The grey looks boring Perhaps Red Colour will highlight it better

3- When I take a look at all members of Smule I am following, they are all grey in colour with a tick. I'd love to see the ones on this list who follow me as a Red icon making it easier to invite and message people who follow you and appreciate your singing and joining.

4- Sing Salon : 
If you are telling me that you have a Team actively monitoring discussions in Sing Salon Forum, I am very pleased as I struggled with my Samsung 7 for 14 months and got no help from Smule Support. Fortunately Sing Salon Moderator has been fantastic in guiding me and I have dumped my Samsung 7 and now use an iPad 6th Generation 2018 Model with a lightning port for charging as well as a Provision to plug the head phone jack in. I use an IK Media iRig Pro I/O so I can use an external Dynamic Microphone. Sounds awesome and there is zero Time lag which was a headache using Samsung 7.

5- iPad Problems: I am using an iPad which is 6th Generation - Software version 13.1.2. Unfortunately the Smule screen does not allow me to see the version of Smule I am using. So I have to go to the phone settings which says I am using Smule Version 7.9.7.....Unable to use the search facility in Smule App in Landscape or Mode. So I had to physically turn the phone around to Portrait Mode. The iPad was working perfectly before the software upgrade a few months ago. There is at least one other lady in Perth Australia who is having similar issues. In Landscape mode if I enter the search screen I cannot come out of it and have to turn the iPad off and restart.. I had a go at the search facility in portrait mode just now found what I wanted but could not exit the screen. This is quite annoying. Before sending out Software upgrades they need to be tested thoroughly and who better than People who sing on Smule who can test the software upgrade for you for FREE . You will get thousands of volunteers from Smule VIP members or you can ask the 35000 Sing Salon Members to proactively do testing for Smule

I am using my Mac Pro Catalina to send this email and my iPad for smule singing and my samsung 7 as a phone and for Whatsapp. I am not very familiar with the iPad except singing on Smule

6- In Smule Notifications page the latest invite appears at the top. 

Members have to scroll down many hundred songs to get to the invites that are about to expire. I did request a book mark feature that prompts which invites are going to expire within 24 hours. I felt elated when this was implemented. Unfortunately these expiry reminders land under Activity creating a huge problem as we often miss comments from followers or friends we join and sing, leading to misunderstandings. One lady got angry that I had not acknowledged her joins and deleted all for Joins. All it needs is a separate TAB lets call it "BOOK Marks: This feature will be soooooo Useful.

7- As for invites a simple button that reverses the list showing the ones that will expire first will make life easy.
Like in Yahoo or Gmail folders you can sort newest first or Oldest first.


Cheers

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Smule Support Team (Smule)
Nov 22, 17:20 EET

Hello,

Thanks again for your patience!

I will be addressing these one by one as with the previous response, let's go!

Option to invite only followers that you also follow - As mentioned in the previous response, this has already been escalated to the developers. I cannot provide any guarantees but I do personally agree with your explanation on why this would be a good feature.

Color-coding followers - I've escalated this to the product design team along with your explanations on why it would be a helpful feature.

Higher priority for Bookmark related notifications and an option to sort invites by Oldest/Newest - Both of these are now escalated to the dev team. 

Testing the app before release - We have an in-house team of employees who do Quality checks on the app versions before release and we also have a team of beta testers for our apps. The beta tester scheme is currently full but these are indeed Smule members who volunteer to help us test new versions of the app. 

As for the iPad issue, we're still doing tests to see if we can replicate it here but if you can provide a video of this happening that would also help us immensely.

Thanks,
Smule Support Team

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Ramrajah1012
Nov 23, 04:56 EET

Wow I am truly impressed with this response. 

Very different from the Stone walling most of us experience with Smule Support. Thank you very very much. Much appreciated. 

I have no idea as to how many VIP members Smule has World wide. If an independent Smule support Forum has 35000 members I presume Smule has at least a million VIP Membership Subscribers.

I am a retiree and this is my second innings and I am enjoying doing all the things I loved but could not find the time before retirement. Gardening on waking up before it gets hot, Reading, Writing, Publishing and Blogging during the day I am a bloggaholic with over 70 Blogs) Cooking dinner and enjoying a drink or two. Then I wait for all family members to go to sleep before I turn to my latest Passion Singing on SMULE .

I did not know what Smule was until Sept 2017 when my nephew told me about it. Now I sing every night from 10.00pm to 2.00am and besides singing I have made some very good friends on Smule and we are all having a Blast. Thanks to Smule

By Profession I am an Industrial Noise Control and Building acoustic Engineer and as such love music. I'd love to listen to my SMULE Favourites on my Surround Sound System and I have also requested SONOS to create a facility for Playing my Smule Recordings on Sonos Speakers. They have also forwarded my request to their developers.

Cheers
Ram
Sydney Australia
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Smule Support Team (Smule)
Nov 27, 14:12 EET

Hello,

I'm really glad to hear that you've found out about us from a family member. Sharing the love is what we're all about!

We actually average at just over 50 million active users monthly so you can imagine it's no easy feat to offer a personal service to everyone but we do our best! 

Please feel free to reach out to us in the future if you need anything!

Smule Support Team
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Ramrajah1012
Nov 27, 16:04 EET

Thank you again for this response, I can understand the volume of work involved if you have 50Million Users recording on Smule Each month. Mind Boggling. 

Would be nice if the support team Members name is included with responses like most customer support of other Companies do. Adds a Personal Touch.

1- Hope the Smule database never crashes. It would be nice if Smule allows VIP members to Save their recordings on a Portable Hard disk as a Stand by.

2- Most Smule members use WiFi at Home to record and listen to songs. Id love to play them all when I go on long drives interstate but is not possible now and in areas that are remote with weak internet connectivity you cannot play your Smule recordings. If we are travelling then it Costs a Tonne as the internet is in the Roaming Mode.

3-Remember a Screen shot of my iPad was requested to see what the problem was. For many days I could not understand why I was unable to take a screen shot of my iPad. I then realised when the iRigPro I/O Power supply is Plugged to the Lightening Port of the iPad it disables screen shot.

4- The Problem with the Search Facility on Smule using an iPad still exists. Once you have done the search I can sing the song as a duet or a Solo. But I Do not want to sing and just want to quit the screen, the quit screen button X or back Arrow is missing from the screen. I can see them in my Samsung 7 but not on my iPad 6th Gen 2018 Model.

5-Say I search and find the song I want to sing. I get the following Options. Join, Duet Solo. What If I want to book mark my search and sing later. If I can book mark the song I can find it under my Book Marked Invites and I can sing later.

6- I'd Like to Record a Solo and share with my friends who follow me. Right now this is not possible as even the Solo gets delivered as an Invite and many people make the mistake of joining a Solo which was never the intent.

7- Keeping my fingers crossed that one day soon Smule will provide the Invite Followers I follow and a facility to reverses the invites so we can see oldest invite first or latest invite first.

May the Smule Tribe Increase.
Cheers
Ram, Sydney
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Smule Support Team (Smule)
Nov 30, 18:41 EET

Hello,

Unfortunately, due to copyright and licensing restrictions, we are unable to offer the option to directly save recordings to your device or as files, like mp3s for example, at this time.

Thanks for the detailed explanation of the search issue, it'll help us in locking it down and figuring out a fix. 
Regards,
Smule Support Team

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Ramrajah1012
Dec 1, 14:43 EET

Interesting about Copy Right Issue. We have live Kareoke bars in Sydney mostly Korean and Japanese and you Can Choose any song you want to sing from their lists and plug in a USB and copy your recording. 

There has to be a way without Smule endorsing it. Afterall who else is interested in my 7000 recordings beside me ?

Please send a Fix for the IPad search facility soon.
Cheers
Ram
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Ramrajah1012
Dec 5, 08:55 EET

Serious Problems using iPad 6th Gen 2018 Model with lightning port for Smule. Need urgent rectification Please.
1- Search facility: Once we get into this screen we cannot get out of this screen in both Landscape and Portrait Position. We have to turn iPad off and restart.

2- now we have an additional problem: Song uploads do not show the name of the uploader. With thousands of members uploading we have our favourites knowing the upload will be Top quality. Uploaders name is a Must.

3- I am unable to find the version of Smule update in Settings I am using in my iPad currently


I am not alone. there is another Smule Member from Perth who is having similar problems and she has written to Smule support too. the Name is Anna Matilda

Is it possible that the problem is limited to Australia ? As No one in USA or India has complained besides us two skippies from Down Under.

I use my iPad just for recording. I use my Samsung mob for reading notifications and messages. All Smule functions are working fine on Samsung

Please Please Please. HELP fix this annoying problem we are facing on a daily basis.

Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney Australia
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Smule Support Team (Smule)
Dec 7, 18:39 EET

Hello,

Thank you for your patience!

I'm afraid I can't comment further regarding the copyright issue. All I can do is to reiterate that due to copyright and licensing restrictions, we are unable to offer the option to directly save recordings to your device.

Thank you for raising the issues you're having. Please appreciate that I cannot provide any guarantees when it comes to fixes but I assure you that they're being looked at.

Regards,
Smule Support Team

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Ramrajah1012
Dec 8, 11:31 EET

Thank you for your prompt response. 

Keeping fingers and toes crossed waiting for search facility on iPads to get a fix soon.
Coming back to Copy rights I have come across many Smule recordings uploaded to you tube. Is that Legal and OK ?
Ram
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Smule Support Team (Smule)
Dec 14, 10:30 EET

Hi,

Thanks again for your patience!

We do indeed have a partnership with youtube and have a sharing option with that website. 

If you have the youtube app installed on your device and click on the share button while watching a Smule recording then you'll be given the option to share to youtube.

Thanks again for all your feedback. I am going to go ahead and close this ticket since there's no further support I can offer regarding the initial issue raised. If you ever need additional help from us, please raise a new ticket through 

here: https://smule.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Thanks,
Smule Support Team
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Ram Krishnaswamy
15th Dec 2019

12:00 AM (0 minutes ago)

to Smule


Before you Go I want to let you know that the Glitche on IPad using Search facility in Smule has now been fixed and working fine. I can now see the Search Lens on the left hand side and the Cancel option to get out of the Search Page. Thank you for your assistance.

Introducing the Gift was a Great Idea. But do we need notifications on a daily basis saying xyz have sent you a Gift. Say Thank you to them

The Activitiy section under Notification has become unmanageable With reminders to Thank Joiners and Reminders to thank people who have sent gifts. Can all these Thanks Givings be posted under a Separate Thanks Giving Link under notifications and a separate Book Mark link too and leave Activity for singers to comment on songs they have recorded with others.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Ram,
Sydney Australia