T4 Way Too Soon

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I love my T3. I was as excited as everyone else when T4 became more than a dream. I have had my credit card ready twice now to get this new update. But maybe I am missing something here because I am not seeing ANY positive reports on this upgrade. Instead, it seems as if so many things are wrong or broken- why go to this new version with all the issues? Perhaps in a year the software might be stable? Reading all these problems has really been sad. I can only hope that things change soon.

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True. What would be good to know is if the current upgrade price (~29USD) will increase with time or not (is it just an intro or the final). I would prefer to buy the upgrade when T4 become more stable...

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The only way for things to change is for the development team to keep working and for the early adopters to keep filing bug reports. Jules is working on code that has been out of his hands for many years. This process is extremely complex and takes time.

I will again link to Joel Spolsky's famous article: Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it.

And keep in mind that the software he is talking about in that article is generally simpler than an audio program like Tracktion, and had much bigger development teams than Tracktion.

Also keep in mind that people tend to complain about tools when they have problems. When the tools do what they want they just use them quietly.

I will also say again: I am not a fan boy at all. I just think that expecting software to be perfect right away, especially in these circumstances, is unrealistic.

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Never trust bearded hippy geeks who sell their baby and buy it back withered, used and out of date! ;)

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leggie wrote:Never trust bearded hippy geeks who sell their baby and buy it back withered, used and out of date! ;)
:?:

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Sarina wrote:I love my T3. I was as excited as everyone else when T4 became more than a dream. I have had my credit card ready twice now to get this new update. But maybe I am missing something here because I am not seeing ANY positive reports on this upgrade. Instead, it seems as if so many things are wrong or broken- why go to this new version with all the issues? Perhaps in a year the software might be stable? Reading all these problems has really been sad. I can only hope that things change soon.
What would be the point of reporting the positive stuff? We're reporting the issues. The non-issues get a pass. :shrug: I've only had one problem (with a VSTi I never use) so far.

I do think that a bigger beta program would have helped the developers, but I also think that wasn't an option for them for business reasons. That is to say, I think they were required to have T4 available by NAMM and I also think they weren't allowed to talk about it beforehand. Kinda makes a big beta program unworkable.
the old free version may not work boots successfully on new generations of computers, instruments, and hardware

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They had two months to quickly update the old code. That's certainly not enough time to overhaul it completely. They had to release it when they did for other reasons, though I'm not sure this is the right forum to talk about business obligations.
The only way TSC are going to know if there are bugs is if people report them. Even if they could have spent the next 12 months on T4, it still would have needed to be tested 'in the wild' and there'd still be bugs to fix. Even T1, T2 and T3 had bugs. None of those releases were perfect.
The more we go on and on about it and agonise over it and complain like grumpy old men, the more likely it is that TSC will just say 'you know what, this is too hard, no one appreciates this'.
What we need is positivity. That was always a hallmark of Tracktion.

So many of us wanted it back and it's happened. We're thankful for that. I think those people who are completely new to Tracktion have a different, but no less valid, perspective, but it's just one perspective :)
Mixcraft 8 Recording Studio : Reason 10

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Ah! the elephant in the room.

I love the Tracktion workflow and have hung on to T2 for years.
It wasn't broken, and it did what I wanted.

I was not going to upgrade to T3 as it was unsupported and gave me not much benefit apart from folders, (not interested in loops etc.)

The harsh reality is that T4 is a huge step backwards from T3, at least on windows. Stability is less, rewire doesn't work, plugins don' scan, crashes are a frequent occurrence.

This isn't an open source hobby! People are paying real money albeit a small amount, to purchase real software to fulfil their need, and so far this is rubbish, from registration bugs to pure non-functioning features.

There's a lot of love for Tracktion from a lot of people including me, but this launch has been a fiasco. I know it's hard to get paid these days for music or software. Simplicity can be a huge selling point but IT NEEDS TO WORK!

Looking forward to the next release, but four patches in the first week isn't responsive - it's untested garbage. Take your time.
I genuinely wish T4 well (or maybe T5).
I regard my upgrade licence as a charitable donation for now.

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T4 is working 99.9% great for me now. The first release was buggy, bugs got reported, and most have been fixed already. That's pretty amazing and a lot better than my experience with a lot of other software. The key thing is we have a responsive and engaged dev who knows what he's doing instead of Mackie who just wanted to market it to sell their other products but had no real idea about how to develop it as a DAW.

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herodotus wrote:I will again link to Joel Spolsky's famous article: Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it.
Not really true, even when it was written.
The API's, programming languages and programming tools that exist today for writing something like the 1989 version of lotus notes would make it doable in a fraction of that time. I was programming at that point in my life, so I do know this.
Something like the .NET framework enables developers to put something together very quickly with very little of the heavy lifting of back-end code necessary.
Developing those back-end API's however also takes huge amounts of time.

The general progression of software development over the past 20 years has been to ever-higher levels of back-end abstraction. However the best code still gets written close to the metal.

Juce is a fantastic backend and Jules has spent most of his programming time over the past 5 years working on that as far as I understand.

I was brought in pretty late in the production process and although I understand the constraints Jules and James are under, I was a little worried about the beta state of the program. But those are the constraints that they're under, and that's the only way this thing was able to be gotten off of Mackie and underway, from my little understanding of the subject.

If it were me, I might've gotten a very hefty bank loan and done things differently, but quite frankly I can't say shit, because I'm not the one watching the balance sheet.

I understand if anyone feels put off by this early version, though it will improve rapidly. I would suggest simply not to buy it if that is the case, and wait until it works for you - the alternative is to kvetch about it not being right, and I don't think that's going to help anyone.
On the other hand, your feedback is important, because amongst other things, KVR is sort of a microcosm of the music software world, and your feedback is a reflection of what's going to happen outside of here, on a much larger scale.

So, don't bitch about it, or do bitch about it - it's probably all going to be fine :)
m@

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metamorphosis wrote:
herodotus wrote:I will again link to Joel Spolsky's famous article: Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it.
Not really true, even when it was written.
The API's, programming languages and programming tools that exist today for writing something like the 1989 version of lotus notes would make it doable in a fraction of that time. I was programming at that point in my life, so I do know this.
I don't doubt what you are saying. But the colossal impatience of so many people here gets a little tiring. That article is a useful corrective to this.

Plus, Joel Spolsky is an engaging writer who actually develops software, rather than some journalist who just makes stuff up as they go along.

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Some are forgetting that we were getting daily builds that fixed problems. Tomorrow the site is due to reopen and there should be another new build. Given the way Jules gets through things, I expect tomorrow's new build to cope with many of the problems raised and much more besides.

I can't see us having to pay for another version until T4 or T4.5. I think most of us would be happy to pay $30 a year or more to keep Tracktion going and for new features.
[W10-64, T5/6/7/W8/9/10/11/12, 32(to W8)&64 all, Spike],[W7-32, T5/6/7/W8, Gina16] everything underused.

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I had a car that sat in the garage for a few years...

Wouldn't even start at first. I pulled it out and got it started with some trial and error it kicked a little smoke.
Put new fluids and plugs in ... runs perfect now... and has some new balls!

Went from Classic to Current but took some work.

Everyone working together is even better... be a part of the process.. why not?


:) :)

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I am having issues trying to get my VSTs to scan with the demo of T4, but after test driving the other garbage out there, I am willing to take my lumps and be a part of the working focus group to help perfect this great product.

I ONLY left T3 b/c my east west VST's would not work with the limited capacity of T3, after spinning my wheels for a year with other DAWs, I would have crawled over broken glass to have Tracktion updated-and it is, I will work through the pain w/ the rest of you, and we will get it right, tight, fit, and ready.

Let's get at it!

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aMUSEd wrote:T4 is working 99.9% great for me now. The first release was buggy, bugs got reported, and most have been fixed already. That's pretty amazing and a lot better than my experience with a lot of other software. The key thing is we have a responsive and engaged dev who knows what he's doing instead of Mackie who just wanted to market it to sell their other products but had no real idea about how to develop it as a DAW.
What he said! ^^^

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