Is Tracktion now an orphan?

[traction3]

[quote="jonnyG"][quote="warbug"]

P.S. Defragging your HDD every day may shorten the life or your hard drive.[/quote]

It's certainly not gonna make it last any longer. Anyway, defragging daily in the days of Fat32 may have been something we all tried out of despair, but today - with NTFS and better data transfer rates - it's overkill. Weekly should be more than enough unless there's something very wrong with buffering settings. Keeping all audio (including a temp audio folder) on a separate drive or partition should help too.[/quote]

I use a program called Perfect Disc 8 by Raxco. I never heard before this post that defragging will harm a hard disc. Can anyone verify?

With all the changes and writing and files for music I do daily, my largest hard disc, a 750 gig WD gets pretty fragged after one day. At the week stage, it takes over three hours to defrag while a daily defrag takes about 10-20 minutes.

Is is worth it to defrag daily or do one long one weekly. I don't use Microsoft defragger because, everything is all well and good if you wait a day or three months.

[traction3]

[quote="Axl"][quote="djsubject"][quote="Axl"][quote="oxbee"][quote]For those that keep using it, I really do wish all of you the best of luck.[/quote]

Considering I'm on PC and we are probably a vast majority there's no luck to hope. It just works perfectly here. Sorry to tell, again.[/quote]

Yeah, perfectly. Try to copy and paste some collection clips and then come back and talk about perfect.

:roll:[/quote]

how are you copying?

Ctrl drag is fine here,

by collection clips you do mean the ones that are on the folder track?

Subz[/quote]

I mean the cutting and copying of grouped clips by cutting and copying the "meta" clip at the top of the folder track aka collection clip. I and everybody else who's tried it get totally chaotic results with clips missing or being added on new tracks. Although I'm on a Mac I would be surprised if this would be any different on the PC version.

Axl[/quote]

This is another problem you have brought to mind that I just consider normal while using Tracktion 3. I'm not talking about the complexities of what you are doing, just the fact that T3 loses file location.

If I wait a while to work on a project, Tracktion 3 never seems to be able to put Humpty Dumpty (sp), back together again. It takes a long time to help it find the "orphan clips" though no changes have been made as to the location of the clips. All info is on a separate hard drive.

You reminded me of another problem I dislike with T3 and makes it all the wiser to go upgrade to Acid Pro 7, $134. I vented today on this earlier.

I have Acid 5, good, Acid 6, should have never been released, and have been using the registered demo of AP7 for just a few days.

Sonically, ease of use, features, rugged and dependable, and a huge step from the ill fated AP6, you have just given me another reason not to wait any longer than the 27 days left on the AP7 demo.

Thank you.

[traction3]

[quote="oxbee"][quote]The PC version isnt perfect. In fact - its unusable with big projects. Im working on 60-70-100 tracks of audio, some midi. 3 different PCs with WinXP with updates and without. 3 different persons. Big projects means - opening in a matter of MINUTES!, GUI sluggishness, "thinking" for about 1-2 minutes when trying to hit PLAY (and im making some storys then to my clients ...), plugin GUI messed up after some time working on an open edit (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 1 hour), loosing projects (WHOLE!), loosing edits, messed edits, archive totally messed up with big projects, problems with 2 and 4 core utilization and a LOT of minor bugs that makes your work HARD and sometimes impossible. With big projects, massive tracks routing and stuff.
After a few years im looking for a new host...[/quote]

Ah well... 60+ tracks of audio! Do you really think it's a normal use of that kind of host, or any host?

You can't point out the weaknesses of Tracktion with such a use of it. It's just not reasonable. You might use a host like you would use it in real world with real devices. Just think of what it would take in hardware world to have 60+ tracks of audio with effect on each of them and such...

Believe me, it won't be easier with any other host if you don't change your methods or requirements.

It's almost like saying "Tracktion really sucks ! He can't fly me to the Moon !"
;)[/quote]
I'm sorry about this but I keep running into posts like this today. 60 to a 100 tracks? I am in no way bringing up your credibility, the problems are there, I have them every day.

I have never been able to get T 1,2,3 to run past 12 tracks, always using the newest machines available, Intel quadcore which it seems, my T3 is the only one that likes it, (whoopee), and the latest version of AMD's processor, always 4 gig of ram, biggest, fastest drive I can get, etc.

That is an a large number of tracks for any DAW, or computer to run.

[Neil G]

The PC version isnt perfect. In fact - its unusable with big projects. Im working on 60-70-100 tracks of audio, some midi. 3 different PCs with WinXP with updates and without. 3 different persons. Big projects means - opening in a matter of MINUTES!, GUI sluggishness, "thinking" for about 1-2 minutes when trying to hit PLAY (and im making some storys then to my clients ...), plugin GUI messed up after some time working on an open edit (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 1 hour), loosing projects (WHOLE!), loosing edits, messed edits, archive totally messed up with big projects, problems with 2 and 4 core utilization and a LOT of minor bugs that makes your work HARD and sometimes impossible. With big projects, massive tracks routing and stuff.
After a few years im looking for a new host...

Ah well... 60+ tracks of audio! Do you really think it's a normal use of that kind of host, or any host?

You can't point out the weaknesses of Tracktion with such a use of it. It's just not reasonable. You might use a host like you would use it in real world with real devices. Just think of what it would take in hardware world to have 60+ tracks of audio with effect on each of them and such...

Believe me, it won't be easier with any other host if you don't change your methods or requirements.

It's almost like saying "Tracktion really sucks ! He can't fly me to the Moon !"

I'm sorry about this but I keep running into posts like this today. 60 to a 100 tracks? I am in no way bringing up your credibility, the problems are there, I have them every day.

I have never been able to get T 1,2,3 to run past 12 tracks, always using the newest machines available, Intel quadcore which it seems, my T3 is the only one that likes it, (whoopee), and the latest version of AMD's processor, always 4 gig of ram, biggest, fastest drive I can get, etc.

That is an a large number of tracks for any DAW, or computer to run.

not really.. i make pretty simple house music and my last track is easily 60 tracks including automation busses etc.. Logic 8 handles it with not a hiccup. no reason why T3 shouldnt be able to.


and just so you know its possible.. i have successfully finished a track in the 60 + track range in T3....but it was on the PC>

[Gabriel_S]

The PC version isnt perfect. In fact - its unusable with big projects. Im working on 60-70-100 tracks of audio, some midi. 3 different PCs with WinXP with updates and without. 3 different persons. Big projects means - opening in a matter of MINUTES!, GUI sluggishness, "thinking" for about 1-2 minutes when trying to hit PLAY (and im making some storys then to my clients ...), plugin GUI messed up after some time working on an open edit (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 1 hour), loosing projects (WHOLE!), loosing edits, messed edits, archive totally messed up with big projects, problems with 2 and 4 core utilization and a LOT of minor bugs that makes your work HARD and sometimes impossible. With big projects, massive tracks routing and stuff.
After a few years im looking for a new host...

Ah well... 60+ tracks of audio! Do you really think it's a normal use of that kind of host, or any host?

You can't point out the weaknesses of Tracktion with such a use of it. It's just not reasonable. You might use a host like you would use it in real world with real devices. Just think of what it would take in hardware world to have 60+ tracks of audio with effect on each of them and such...

Believe me, it won't be easier with any other host if you don't change your methods or requirements.

It's almost like saying "Tracktion really sucks ! He can't fly me to the Moon !"

I'm sorry about this but I keep running into posts like this today. 60 to a 100 tracks? I am in no way bringing up your credibility, the problems are there, I have them every day.

I have never been able to get T 1,2,3 to run past 12 tracks, always using the newest machines available, Intel quadcore which it seems, my T3 is the only one that likes it, (whoopee), and the latest version of AMD's processor, always 4 gig of ram, biggest, fastest drive I can get, etc.

That is an a large number of tracks for any DAW, or computer to run.

not really.. i make pretty simple house music and my last track is easily 60 tracks including automation busses etc.. Logic 8 handles it with not a hiccup. no reason why T3 shouldnt be able to.


and just so you know its possible.. i have successfully finished a track in the 60 + track range in T3....but it was on the PC>

I really don't understand why it's so hard for so many of you to fathom a song with more than 20 tracks!!!! The majority of the professional engineers, songwriters and producers I know use a minimum of 60 tracks per song. I noticed somebody here gave a LOL at the 370+ tracks from the Titanic sound score. If I remember correctly that soundtrack won numerous Academy awards. Now I sure as hell am not expecting T3 to run 300 tracks, but c'mon, 60? That's childs play for the majority of todays professional hosts.

As far as defragging, well each to their own I guess. I've been in this business a long time, defrag EVERY day or so and have NEVER had a HD crash or go bad on me ...shrugs. It's like the debate on whether it's better to leave your comp on 24/7 or turn it off after each use.

[Neil G]

if you can only run 12 tracks in any incarnation of traktion with a quad core and 4 gigs your doing something very wrong my friend.

[oxbee]

Now I sure as hell am not expecting T3 to run 300 tracks, but c'mon, 60? That's childs play for the majority of todays professional hosts.

Being professional doesn't mean you have to put your equipment on its knees. It just means that you know how to use it efficiently in many different situations and uses.

Again, try to figure out what it would have taken in the hardware era to have 60+ tracks mixed together (not to say that you need at least a 16 or 24 tracks bus to route it to a multitrack recorder to make it consistent for the final mix
)...Ocean Way Studios, Abbey Road ?!

It's just about keeping some common sense I think.

I don't know. It's like the person saying he can't run more than 12 tracks on a Quad Core...

[Gabriel_S]

On a side note....I'm really digging your tunes Neil and Ox. Well done !!!!



Gabriel

[hefalump]

Thinking like this - people shouldnt play electric guitars because its easier to play on it than on acoustic or classical guitar. People should learn how to use your acoustic guitar efficiently to play the tunes without distortion or effects. So lets not compare pre-DAW era to DAW-era because its nonsense.

BTW - i just discovered that the most CPU-consuming thing in Tracktion are not even the most advanced plugins but ... channel grouping! Now i see this problem is the next showstopper for me. Being Tracktion fan for 4 years now and using it in studio - now i have to go to another host cuz i just cant trust it in any way (unstable,archiving problems,loosing projects,no quad support and some other minor problems on PC) :<

[captain caveman]

Again, try to figure out what it would have taken in the hardware era to have 60+ tracks mixed together (not to say that you need at least a 16 or 24 tracks bus to route it to a multitrack recorder to make it consistent for the final mix
)...Ocean Way Studios, Abbey Road ?!

It's just about keeping some common sense I think.

I don't know. It's like the person saying he can't run more than 12 tracks on a Quad Core...

I don't get this argument at all.

Music today is different than it was back in the "good ol' days", and if they had the technology to do 100+ tracks easily back then they would have.

For example, the 24 tracks of the Bohemian Rhapsody are really 100 tracks when mixed with busses and if you split back down some of the submixed backing vox and chopped the tracks up to the individual sections and instruments (most of the tracks have more than one instrument on them for different parts of the song too). It must have been a nightmare to mix using the 24 tracks and automation, but these days it doesn't have to be.

Yes, it's a classic and it's big, but that's what a lot of us are trying to achieve - no?

Merci.

[oxbee]

Music today is different than it was back in the "good ol' days", and if they had the technology to do 100+ tracks easily back then they would have.

Thinking like this - people shouldnt play electric guitars because its easier to play on it than on acoustic or classical guitar. People should learn how to use your acoustic guitar efficiently to play the tunes without distortion or effects. So lets not compare pre-DAW era to DAW-era because its nonsense.

I think you guys should keep some reason when doing comparisons . Really, no offence here but Tracktion3 is first a sequencer for musicians like Cubase/Logic "home studio versions" are in its range and it should be used with that focus in mind.

If you want to professionally handle 100+ tracks (it's your right! ) then go for some hardcore hardware like Protools HD. You know, it's the big boy that will put your bank account credit to a negative value for months and give you some headaches before it's set up.

I don't question the fact to use more than say 30 tracks in a project. What I question is to do it with improper tools and then saying they are buggy. It's just not fair for other peoples using it normally and successfully (I'm almost sorry to be one of them .)

Oh and grass is always greener on the other side...Don't think a Mac with Logic will solve this issue.

[ShawnG]

music today is not different than it was in the good ole days, it's nearly exactly the same, the only difference is the tools that we use. Yes, the beatles certainly would not have used a four-track to record Sgt. Pepper if they had a full pro tools Rig at their disposal (or even tracktion for that matter) However, when it came time to record THEY USED WHAT THEY HAD AVAILABLE to the best of their ability, they didn't sit around and mope at the lack of options, and refuse to get their work done. By all means, if the host you're using doesn't meet your needs get another one, but it's not a situation where it should get in the way of your vision, sometimes it just means a little more work, and usually that's inspiring in it's own way, it gets the intellectual juices flowing. personally I got a lot more actual recording done on an old 4track than in any of my digital hosts with copious track counts.

[Neil G]

On a side note....I'm really digging your tunes Neil and Ox. Well done !!!!



Gabriel

wow.. thanks for listening man!! if the lables get of there assess they should all be out by the years end.


all done i n T3 before i switched to logic and the mac.

[oxbee]

On a side note....I'm really digging your tunes Neil and Ox. Well done !!!!



Gabriel

Thanks mate, much appreciated

haha, and no more than 16 Tracktion tracks for each of them

[metamorphosis]

I use a program called Perfect Disc 8 by Raxco. I never heard before this post that defragging will harm a hard disc. Can anyone verify?

With all the changes and writing and files for music I do daily, my largest hard disc, a 750 gig WD gets pretty fragged after one day. At the week stage, it takes over three hours to defrag while a daily defrag takes about 10-20 minutes.

Is is worth it to defrag daily or do one long one weekly. I don't use Microsoft defragger because, everything is all well and good if you wait a day or three months.

Perfect disc is very nice. Please double-check that you don't have Microsoft's automatic defragging-while-idle feature enabled. Use microsoft's own tweakui (I forget which section the option is under).

If you're using two defrag engines (even unknowingly) one will position stuff in a way the other one doesn't think will work.
With NTFS I haven't seen any performance advantages to defragging on even a weekly basis.
If your hard drive is particularly chock-full of stuff, that's more of an issue. In which case, find a new hard drive.

But microsoft's own defrag engine is perfectly fine. I use it with the freeware JkDefrag, which automatically defrags all your hard drives using the built-in engine, but in a faster, more efficient way.

Perfect disc is good, but if you're accidentally running that and microsoft's, you're gonna get a a lot of unnecessary defragging going on.

But to answer your original question, running a defrag every day is read-writing nearly every part of the disc on a daily basis, so yes, you are inadvertently wearing out your hard drive faster than necessary.
Unless you're actually -noticing- problems (drop-outs, hard drive not being read fast enbough in tracktion etc) don't do it. And also, up the cache in tracktion to the full 150mb - I've found it helps with audio-heavy projects.

Thanks,
M@