here is what i see as our phases of testing
alpha: Code is not complete, bugs everywhere. You cant sequence a complete song. Alpha testers should be highly technical to help describe what they are seeing. testers augment development to get more fingers on the code. For users, they are learning a new look and feel. This code is buggy and incomplete.
beta: code is complete to teh extent that you can make a complete sequence. There are bugs, some significant. A larger test audience. We bring in the "normal" users who are not as technical. The users get the benefit of starting to learn a brand new sequencer but at the cost of "It worked before, now there are new bugs".
Developers get expansive user base to try functionality and UI usefulness.
production: No crashes with normal use. This version can be used for xmas 2015. you , the user, could freeze on this release and you would have a show.
There should be no major bug. This would be bugs blocking you creating a show.
Wide spread user base, stability very high.
for us
alpha: was jan 2015
beta: was mar 2015
prod: estimated june/july 2015. If it is not stable, we will hold on to beta testing maybe an additional month. I do believe we will be in production before expo (July 16th)