Tracktion Software

rich_h · Post by **rich_h** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:04 am

Lunch Money wrote:Negative experience with "Personal Massager Pro"?

A.K.A. "The Wife"!

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:06 am

Cosmic Bandito wrote:
jtxx000 wrote:
Lastly, while this program is inexpensive, one can actually pick up a 'light' version of Cubase for about £90, and truth told while harder to use, its infinetly more powerful.

care to explain? what can a light version of cubase do that T2 can't?

Play the first note in the first measure

Exactly. I think that probably IS a dealbreaker for me. I explained before how even beginner students of mine discover this T1 bug all by themselves and then typically say "does Cubase have this problem?"

It's not just a credibility issue (although it IS that)... it's also bloody annoying.

I think that Tracktion has absolutely the best and clearest workflow of any music software I have ever seen... but that counts for little if it has such annoying bugs (the Rewire bug is also a dealbreaker bearing in mind that I use Reason loads as a Rewire client).

I think that the T2 improvements are fantastic, that the new features fully justify the price and the 2.0 name. But for serious bugs from T1 to have NOT been fixed is a serious mistake imvho.

aldi · Post by **aldi** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:06 am

i have a proffesional hair dryer that gets so hot, i burned my hands more that 10 times till now, maby because i'm not a hair stylist ?!

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:08 am

Aim the dryer at your hair rather than your hands, and you'll be sorted.

Also, hold by the handle, not by the side vents.

Those 2 tips alone could have saved you 10 burns if you had known up front!

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:09 am

haydxn wrote:it's not a pro requirement to import export mp3. PRO wouldn't even touch mp3 til they'd gotten a master quality mix to put up for online retail. so screw all your stupid arguments for mp3.

ogg is perfectly suitable for exchanging archives if you need compression. noone needs to have it using mp3. just stick a converter on your computer and use that to convert your final WAV to mp3. there is no point in putting mp3 support into T, because mp3 is for losers

Whether mp3 is a "pro" format or not, I'll bet loads of my students would love to swap their files online.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:10 am

braj wrote:I'd actually like to save part of a tree and not get a box as well. This is part of what I liked about the original Tracktion - that the distribution channel didn't rely on 'hard' goods that were a waste of resources. I already have far to much crap to recycle.

Crumbs - that really is green of you

Go for it!

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:15 am

Lunch Money wrote:True enough. I'm surprised that the dropped first note is still here. It never really bothered me in T1, and it doesn't bother me now, but it still should've been fixed.

Greg

DO you basically use audio LM? I'm just astonished that anyone could NOT have been bothered about this bug...

...but perhaps it's because I do a lot of initial sequencing using Sibelius notation, saved as MIDI? The first note bug effects just about every project I try, to the extent that I abandoned Tracktion 1 last year specifically because of it

.

I totally assumed it would be fixed now.

pHz · Post by **pHz** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:19 am

Lunch Money wrote:Aim the dryer at your hair rather than your hands, and you'll be sorted. Also, hold by the handle, not by the side vents.
Those 2 tips alone could have saved you 10 burns if you had known up front!

but theyre both ONLY workarounds ... the burning issue should have been addressed before the hairdryer was shipped ...

slainte

rob

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:20 am

aldi wrote:i have a proffesional hair dryer that gets so hot, i burned my hands more that 10 times till now, maby because i'm not a hair stylist ?!

SO are you saying the T1 bugs still in T2 are down to user error (i.e., real musicians don't have problems with MIDI notes getting dropped)

ceenda · Post by **ceenda** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:24 am

I think issues like note-dropping are serious because one of a sequencers primary duties is to... well, sequence notes. Most songs start somewhere, and many of them will start at 00:00

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:26 am

headquest wrote:DO you basically use audio LM? I'm just astonished that anyone could NOT have been bothered about this bug...

...but perhaps it's because I do a lot of initial sequencing using Sibelius notation, saved as MIDI? The first note bug effects just about every project I try, to the extent that I abandoned Tracktion 1 last year specifically because of it .

Yes, as I've said many many times, I use primarily audio. That doesn't mean I use any MIDI, though. Let's say I patch together a string of sequences to make a piano part. I also work out a drum part using a collection of 50 different premade MIDI drum patterns, or use my own. Then I use a MIDI bass to add depth to my real bass.

Select all clips in each of those categories (one category at a time), merge MIDI. Now I have 3 big MIDI parts. I would do this anyways, regardless of the bug, just to have a nice, neat-looking clip instead of an assemblage of various bits and bobs. I then go to the beginning, and if there's a note at beat one, I can add a bit of 'blank' MIDI and I'm sorted.

To top it off, you can just add a full measure of 'nothing' to the beginning of each project if you want. As far as I remember, that sorts it out, but maybe not... I don't recall clearly enough.

Just because I consider myself primarily audio doesn't mean I never use MIDI. It's in about 50% of my tracks, as either drums or piano.

The workarounds (and I agree, there shouldn't HAVE to be a workaround) are so childishly simple that *I'M* amazed people get so worked up about it.

Greg

rich_h · Post by **rich_h** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:27 am

headquest wrote:(i.e., real musicians don't have problems with MIDI notes getting dropped)

Of course - it determines how well you play, and if you're not up to the mark, it will drop notes to let you know you need lessons

Seriously, though, I do a lot of MIDI work and haven't suffered this due to the fact that I always start at bar 5 for historical reasons (that was about how long it took for my primitive synchronizer to lock to tape solidly) so I'm kind of working around the bug by default, so I never see it.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:28 am

chrismuktar wrote: Lastly, while this program is inexpensive, one can actually pick up a 'light' version of Cubase for about £90, and truth told while harder to use, its infinetly more powerful.

Perhaps even more significant is the announcement of Sonar LE, which will ship FREE with most Edirol PCR keyboards and UA audio interfaces.

news item wrote:SONAR LE is the feature-rich recording software for musicians getting started with PC-based recording. Based on Cakewalk's SONAR audio and MIDI technology, SONAR LE provides amateur musicians and those getting started with PC-based recording, with a host of potent features that include: 64 audio and 256 MIDI tracks; 24-bit / 192 kHz recording support; 14 studio quality real-time effects and 6 MIDI effects; audio loop construction tools; dynamic console view; multi-port graphical drum grid editor; multitrack piano roll view; staff notation; ReWire 2.0 support; DirectX/DXi and VST/VSTi support; MIDI clock and MTC slave; Cyclone DXi groove sampler; Audio Simulations Dreamstation soft synth DXi; and more.

Registered owners of SONAR LE will be able to upgrade to the full version of SONAR Studio Edition for a special price.

SONAR LE includes English, French, and German versions all on the same CD, and will be bundled with over 15 different Edirol UA and UM series of audio and MIDI interfaces, SD sound modules, and the popular PCR series of keyboards

Not to mention of course that Live 4 LE is now bundled with loads of stuff too, and Reason adapted is bundled with most M-Audio stuff.

If Tracktion is aimed at dishillusioned mainstream sequencer users like Jules himself, then that's no problem.

But I think that Tracktion is surely ideal for newcomers to computer music production, too, and that IS a problem. Because why should they fork out $200 for a program that has LESS features than the free bundled stuff and/or that has debilitating bugs in it? (and bear in mind that lots of beginners will start out with loops, and spot the timestretch issue straight away, too)

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:33 am

Lunch Money wrote: Select all clips in each of those categories (one category at a time), merge MIDI. Now I have 3 big MIDI parts. I would do this anyways, regardless of the bug, just to have a nice, neat-looking clip instead of an assemblage of various bits and bobs. I then go to the beginning, and if there's a note at beat one, I can add a bit of 'blank' MIDI and I'm sorted.

I always merge clips as a matter of course too, but they are sometimes not consecutive in my stuff, so then your workaround si less effective.

To top it off, you can just add a full measure of 'nothing' to the beginning of each project if you want. As far as I remember, that sorts it out, but maybe not... I don't recall clearly enough.

No, that doesn't fic the MIDI note dropping... it is a workaround for the Rewire bug though (which is related by different/worse).

As you say, it partly depends on working methods, but its an annoying bug(s) that shouldn't be in a $200 application from a top pro company.

Breakpete · Post by **Breakpete** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 9:37 am

I fully agree with headquest on the dropped note issue. This bug got a lot of attention in T1 and really should be worked out now. While most apps will have some bugs, this one has been around for a long time. You'd think they could fix it for v2, especially at the new price which sort of puts it in a new league.

Tracktion Software

KVR Audio

my feelings