Is Tracktion now an orphan?

[warbug]

situations like will most likely cause SW to fall low on the pole. I work for a company where similar things have happened ( bad chips and poor mech design have caused recalls)

[Mau65]

For warbug:

In every case, don't miss FL Studio 8, is miles far above Tracktion 3 and Image Line i believe is the most serious company in the market...

[warbug]

For warbug:

In every case, don't miss FL Studio 8, is miles far above Tracktion 3 and Image Line i believe is the most serious company in the market...

Thanks for the advice. The only that is holding me from jumping on the FL8 train is I am the the middle of an album. It would not be the smartest move switching hosts in the middle and learning the differences between T3 and FL8. I am going to finish what I started and rethink my music making tools in a year or so..

plus I would really miss rack filters.

[Spitfire31]

Discontinue the MAC version? Yeah maybe. Its a tough decision, however, if that allowed for continued development of T3 then I think its worth it. […] Maybe a cut back in number of platforms developed/supported might be a good thing.

Even as a dyed-in-the-wool Mac person, I agree with UncleAge. Especially since Tracktion has never fully conformed to the Mac environment - no AU support, of all the major Mac DAWs (if I may call Tracktion major in the Mac world, that is).

A couple of months ago, I switched to L8 E for sketching and composing, and, as always, use DP for serious recording and mixing. I like Logic just fine, even though I may miss the immediacy of Tracktion, having jumped on the Train just when Jules released version 1. I still use T2 on my PPC/Tiger every now and then, for old times sake, I suppose.

And even if Mackie is busy now with hardware problems, I've a hard time imagining that that is what's stopping Beno from appearing here or on the Mackie board from time to time with a few soothing words.

/Joey

[Winstontaneous]

I spoke with a sound dealer yesterday, who shared that Loud Technologies / Mackie has a number of internal distractions right now. Apparently there is a chip flaw in all of their "Digital-X-Bus" based product line, that is requiring Mackie to replace chips and PC boards in most of these products. Additionally, Mackie tried to move production of the ESW speaker line after they purchased them from the US to China. This apparently did not meet quality and productivity goals, and production is being moved back to the US.

While neither of these issues directly impacts the software group, it is possible that there is enough interal distraction within Mackie that T and other software products are low priority within the organization.

Sounds like the LOUD corporate stooges have their hands full with global outsourcing issues.

Loud has experienced hiccups with the Ampeg bass amp brand since buying it in '06. First they moved production from USA to China, then Vietnam. I have heard quite a few product quality/service complaints since then, plus customers are pissed that the cheap labor has not translated into lower street prices.

At this point it seems like T3 is lost in the shuffle and is mostly used as a marketing tool for Mackie/Tapco hardware widgets.

It's really a bummer because I loved T2 (but have since moved on)...

[skipkent]

I still turn people on to T2, though. For $29 it simply can't be beat!

[SuperFly76]

Not necessarily. They could be using their own customised fork of Juce, the same way Cycling74 do.

Jules is still developing it, and each new ver gets handed on to the T-team from what I've heard,
so there's no good reason to fork it, unless you want to make your code incompatible with future versions.
Either way, with or without extensions the GUI base code is Jule's turf.
m@

That's not true anymore. It was true with T2 but once that was out Jules handed it completely over to mackie. He has had nothing to do with the development of T3 as of yet.

[rockstar_not]

I still turn people on to T2, though. For $29 it simply can't be beat!

Where can one buy it for $29?

[mcnelson]

Don't know about $$$'s but Digital Village have it for £29.99:


http://www.dv247.com/invt/27495/product ... _a_7c27495

[headquest]

Considering that T3 has been out for 18 months or so, it's hugely worrying that stores are STILL trying to clear their shelves of unsold T2 boxes...

The messages seems to be pretty clear that - at least since it was turned into a boxed product - Tracktion has not been a very successful product. With unsold T2 boxes I doubt many retailers would be stocking up on T3, and it is in any case cheaper still to buy T2 boxed and then upgrade.

So it's hardly suprising if Mackie don't continue to place Tracktion high on their priorities - it does seem to be one of their products that has basically bombed.

[GermanFafian]

Don't know about $$$'s but Digital Village have it for £29.99:


http://www.dv247.com/invt/27495/product ... _a_7c27495

Damn!
At Half of what I paid for my download T2!
Oh well. I guess I was right all this time and Mackie was the kiss of death for T
Funny thing is I was using T2 for a rock project that never quite took off and had no more use for it

[UncleAge]

So it's hardly suprising if Mackie don't continue to place Tracktion high on their priorities - it does seem to be one of their products that has basically bombed.

And that's the part that leaves me scratching my head. As I continue to try different DAWs I find myself comparing all of them to Tracktion and wishing they had "Tracktion like" features.

(beware: ramblings follow)

I tried Sonar, PT, Live, eXT, Podium, Reaper, FLS and Samplitude. All of them had something to offer and I really liked the feature set of Live. But none of them had the charm and ease of use like Tracktion (Live came the closest). I think that if this app was orphaned (and I hope its not) it might be due to the fact that in addition to it not being marketed effectively, it just never found its audience or a large following. I mean Cubase, Sonar, PT and Samplitude appealed to the hardware crowd by showing enough similarity that it made for an easy transition. FLS and Project 5 directly targeted the primarily VST only crowd that creates in the app(Live falls into this category a bit as well). Live went straight for the performing electronic artists that also likes to create in the app. Reaper and Podium are looking to chip away at the Sonar-Cubase crowd by decreasing the cost of entry and still providing a really decent tool set for audio and to a lesser extent midi. And eXT, well, its like a Swiss Army knife type of app (V1 not V2).

So where does that leave Tracktion?

Well its kind of a little bit of each of those apps, and I acknowledge that it may have showcased some key functionality before it was found in some of these others. The problem may be that it never found its niche. I spend some time in the Reaper forums and users there like to talk about the routing in Reaper. And its nice. But I haven't found much I can do there that I can't do in T3. And I much prefer the racks in T3 to the FX window in Reaper or the handling of VST chains in other apps. FLS, in previous versions, didn't offer the multi-tracking that I was looking for. Sonar, Cubase, PT and Samplitude had a lot of extra stuff that I didn't have use for and didn't want to pay for. And even though Reaper and Podium are coming along just fine I still move around in T3 much faster. I compose outside of my computer 80%+ of the time. So the easy workflow in T3 really appeals to me. However I can see what others see in those other apps.

All of this leaves me wondering how an app like this could be orphaned. I hope it's not, but if it is...

[rpc9943]

whether or not that's the fact, it wont stop me from using it for a long time to come

RonC

[warbug]

UncleAge:

I agree with you. I have tried other hosts and I compare them all to tracktion. I also agree the Live comes the close but I am still keeping FL8 on the radar becuase A Lot of my friends use it and that would make it easier to remix and trade ideas...


rpc9943:

Way to be positive . I will stick with T3 for atleast another year depending on what happens in the next few months with T3... Hopefully if it does get orphaned Mackie will Fix all the bugs and leave us with something very stable.


Or if Mackie just cuts thier losses and sweeps us all under the rug then shame on them and I will never buy another Mackie product.

[virtualsamana]

I took the liberty of emailing Tech Support and asking what the future plans for Tracktion were:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi and thanks for contacting us
I don't know where you would get that kind of idea. Tracktion 3.0.4.8
was just released a couple of months ago and before that, there were
months separating other releases like 3.0.4.6 and 3.0.1.x. Who told you
that it was discontinued? Btw 3.0.4.8 has been very stable so I assume
that there will have to be new features rather than bug fix releases
next.

Tony Cochran
Digital Tech Support Rep - Level 1
Tony.Cochran@loudtechinc.com

LOUD Technologies Inc.
16220 Wood-Red Rd. NE | Woodinville, WA 98072
800.258.6883 ext.1176 | fax: 425.892.6594

Always include full email history in reply

Please include System /OS Version numbers

The Forum http://forums.mackie.com/scripts/forum/ultimatebb.cgi

Check it out!


-----Original Message-----
From: feelmydread@yahoo.com [mailto:feelmydread@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 9:02 AM
To: feelmydread@yahoo.com; Technical Support
Subject: info: Tracktion

Please answer the following question:

Is Tracktion's future development discontinued (will Tracktion continue
to be updated?)

Thank you,

Drew