*sold*

[crimsonwarlock]

Peter, how much did you pay for the Tascam?

I paid about 900 Euro for it (that is brand new from the shop). I've seen it online available for as low as 799 USD, but here in Holland/Belgium the prices are always a bit higher and when I add shipping I get to about the same price. Nevertheless, for 900 Euro I now have a kick-ass controler that works directly with SONAR. And get this, it's SONAR LE that came as a bonus with my PCR-M80 keyboard, it hs the full options to use control surfaces

[BONES]

You can have multiple instrument GUI's open - just "top-right x" out of the channel setting's window whilst the GUI's showing. When you select another instrument from the step sequencer, the original one now remains.

Including generators, or just VSTi?

And at least you can see an instrument's GUI in FL whilst editing its piano roll unlike some other hosts!

Again, there are things that you need to be able to work on at the same time and there are things you do not. My PR is always maximised so it would be of no consequence whether I could see the GUI or not.

Ok, BONES, Shane, Krim et all, as BONES asked, here's some screenshots and explanations of the Logic mixer.

Without going through point by point, the only useful thing I see there is that it is possible to select a mixer channel. In ORION the mixer is just there. The essential difference is that ORION's workflow is mixer-centric, just like an actual studio, so it wouldn't make sense to restrict yourself to a tiny mixer window where you could only see one or two channels.
What is completley off-putting in your screenshots is that I cannot see EQ anywhere. EQ is about fitting pieces of a jigsaw together to create a coherent picture and you can't do that efficiently if you canot see all the pieces. All teh big sequencers seem to treat EQ as an afterthought but it is one of the most important aspects of getting a great mix. I really could not work with an application like that and be confident of getting good results.
And its all so damned ugly!

Cubase is the closet thing to a hardware studio you going to get.

Ha! Just look at the stupid mixer. You'd never find such a useless pile o' krap in a studio.

If you go to a hardware studio you are going to see a rack of synths.

Not any studio I've ever been to. I always had to bring my own.

Say I start out with some sort of nice high synth, using ... lets say Vanguard. Much later, I decide to add something arpeggiator-ish, to fill some space. Now, I don't like an arp in such relatively lower registers, so I'll turn down the octaves a bit. Now, it turns out that I find Vanguard is not that good at synths in the lower registers, so I'll rightclick->Replace->NEOkILLER.

Nice try but I'm gonna give you a serve anyway. What if you find after 10 minutes of previewing and tweaking presets that you don't have anything that you're happy with? Wouldn't it be much smarter to add the new instrument, copy the patterns across and then do some A/B comparisons so that you can be confident you are gettign a better sound? Then you'll know that you have improved the song before you get rid of the old instrument. I couldn't imagine just swapping thm out like that.

[Sascha Franck]

What is completley off-putting in your screenshots is that I cannot see EQ anywhere. EQ is about fitting pieces of a jigsaw together to create a coherent picture and you can't do that efficiently if you canot see all the pieces. All teh big sequencers seem to treat EQ as an afterthought but it is one of the most important aspects of getting a great mix. I really could not work with an application like that and be confident of getting good results.

I never use it anyways as it's placed first in the signal chain, which makes using compressors kinda pointless.
I would imagine it's the same in Orion (the EQ placement), so I wouldn't use them either.

[spaceman]

Logic 7 to the rescue

[Kriminal]

I never use it anyways as it's placed first in the signal chain, which makes using compressors kinda pointless.
I would imagine it's the same in Orion (the EQ placement), so I wouldn't use them either.

you can set EQ to come into the chain after the Inserts, and the Sends/Busses all have EQ too in the Master Mixer.

[Sascha Franck]

you can set EQ to come into the chain after the Inserts,

Now, that is really nice. I wish other hosts would do it like that.

and the Sends/Busses all have EQ too in the Master Mixer.

Yeah well, that's the same in both Cubase and Logic.

[BONES]

And you haven't even heard how good it is. Mixer EQ in ORION is a dream, what I used to pay $1000 a day for in a studio.

[superddman]

Sascha knows what he's talking about. I don't know how anyone could not like Logic's workflow. IT'S SO FAST!!! No redundant clicking. Like its name, everything is logical about this host.
Just use Hyper Edit and you got yourself a perfect Pattern Based Sequencer.

I tried Orion and it doesn't even come close to Logic's workflow. The song arrange window is a complete joke. Now, for a simple arrangement it is fine, but when you get to complex transitions, changes, progressions, automation, etc, etc, orion comes short. Ofcourse you can do it all, but you better have some medication handy.

Cubase is a better choice then orion imo. However, please, make it so you only have a signel track per VSTi. I don't need VSTi audio-out track and MIDI track to get things done.
Dont get me started on the the hidden automation tracks...
On the other hand, Cubase has some cool tricks for audio but that is not my main concern. MIDI all the way baby hehe

FL Studio is great for quick patterns. But, the whole linking process of patterns, mixer channels, fx, vstis, is a nightmare for bigger projects. You basically get lost in all of this.
Also, Playlist just doesn't cut it. Why did they divide playlist in half??? So you only view patterns at the top and automation/audio tracks at the bottom. Hate it!!!

Tracktion is just a different world to me. Don't know if I will ever get used to it.

Sonar is all about having all features but no proper GUI.

Ableton is very nice. Would be my second choice after Logic only because of being a huge resource hog.

IMO, eXT is also about all features but not much thought was put into the workflow. Just my opinion again so don't hurt me. I basically don't need modularity in a host.

What else..? hmm

I could go on about some other hosts but these are probably more popular right now.

Just had to get it out of my system Waiting for your love hehe

[Kriminal]

Well, its all about how the individual works isnt it....if it works for you, thats good.

[superddman]

Well, its all about how the individual works isnt it....if it works for you, thats good.

ofcourse my brother

[arke]

Say I start out with some sort of nice high synth, using ... lets say Vanguard. Much later, I decide to add something arpeggiator-ish, to fill some space. Now, I don't like an arp in such relatively lower registers, so I'll turn down the octaves a bit. Now, it turns out that I find Vanguard is not that good at synths in the lower registers, so I'll rightclick->Replace->NEOkILLER.

Nice try but I'm gonna give you a serve anyway. What if you find after 10 minutes of previewing and tweaking presets that you don't have anything that you're happy with? Wouldn't it be much smarter to add the new instrument, copy the patterns across and then do some A/B comparisons so that you can be confident you are gettign a better sound? Then you'll know that you have improved the song before you get rid of the old instrument. I couldn't imagine just swapping thm out like that.

I used to put all instruments in a Layer channel, and use the Step Sequencer mute buttons to A/B between stuff. But I've never used it except maybe once or twice, so I figured its not worth the extra effort.

These days I only use a few synths regularly, and I know the capabilities of each pretty well. So I'll have some sound in my head and I'll know what I'm looking for and which is best suited for the job - 3xOsc, Vanguard, NEOkILLER for basses and leads, Kubik, Vectric, Crystal for pads (yes, I am a poofter), and effects.


Regarding the EQ thing ... sometimes I do wish FL had something like an EQ that lined up. But its not too bad, the FL EQ is pretty small and I just line them up for the important things (that means, not drums, I do those separately).

[superddman]

Btw Kriminal: just listened to some of your tunes. You got skills man! Like it very much. You did them all in Orion?

[Kriminal]

Btw Kriminal: just listened to some of your tunes. You got skills man! Like it very much. You did them all in Orion?

Thanks. Yep, all made in Orion Platinum

[Sascha Franck]

Maybe we could start a new thread about hosts. And yes, I'm serious...

Shouldn't be like "Cubase sucks" or so (admittedly I sometimes fail to resist as well), but sort of like a ressource for host developers, covering things such as:

- What's great to have?
- Which host does it fine?
- Which host lacks of it?
- How could you imagine a similar thing being implemented in host XYZ without completely destroying the paradigm?

And well, I'm not exactly talking about features. Of course, every host wants to have the most efficient audio engine, the best freezing, best time stretching, best internal FX, best stability, etc etc - but I'm mainly talking about user accessability, read: ergonomics and other useful things (pretty much like the pre/post routeable EQ in Orion, which is just great).

Of course, in an ideal world, such a thing would result in a "one size fits all" host, but we all know that there's different strokes for different people.
There's some almost "absolute" values though. For instance, the option to make each and every window a floating one IMO is an "absolute" value as it just adds things without compromising others. The same goes for the allready mentioned host-internal track EQ. It just makes sense to have it routeable while not getting in the way of anybody.

But then, probably not many host developers would read such a thing...

FWIW, there's allready some valuable info in this very thread. I do at least know a few requests of mine, should I ever be involved in testing a host.

[Sascha Franck]

Yeah, Krim's got some fine tunes there. And he's defenitely got a clue as well.