Synapse Orion DAW being discontinued after latest public beta 8.6!?

[dmassive]

What I hate about other DAWs, for example, Cubase and Reaper... is that every time you want to do something, you must configure something, is a very frustrating thing compared to Orion where you just play!

[VitaminD]

What must one configure every time in Cubase to play?

I click on the 'Create New Project' button, right click on the new project screen and select 'Instrument Track', chose the VSTi I want, then click 'OK'. And voila I can play.

Not much different from clicking 'New Project' in Orion and then clicking in the menubar for the Instruments dropdown, then selecting the VSTi desired.

[jeffh]

If I may, I'd like to propose a novel solution to the problem of Orion potentially fading away...

The Problem:

Orion is not profitable, not because it's not good software, but because it has stiff competition from companies with more developer resources and more money for advertising. As somebody with quite a long software engineering resume, I can't see the idea of a Kickstarter campaign and hiring another developer or 2 actually making Orion competitive in the DAW market; What are the odds that some random guy is finally going to carry Orion to being considered a tier-1 DAW, when Richard (who is plenty talented himself) couldn't pull it off in 12 years?

The Current Proposed Solution:

Raising money by crowdfunding. IMHO, you need to raise 2-3 million dollars (US) to do the development and marketing to establish Orion as a tier-1 DAW that can eventually become self-sustaining and profitable on it's own. I don't believe that sort of target can be met.

My Proposed Solution:

What we really need is to convince talented developers to work for free; How do we do that? Open source Orion under a GPL or similar license, and form "The Orion Foundation"(or similar) as a steering committee so that Richard can maintain some control over the direction of his project. Then (IMHO) the first order of business should be to port Orion to Linux and Mac by using cross-platform libraries like Qt, Portaudio, Portmidi, etc... which will accomplish not only maximal potential user-base, but also maximal potential developer contribution, as most people tend to develop for only one platform. You could even propose the cross-platform porting as a "Google Summer of Code" project, surely quite a few college students would volunteer to take that on, and Google will even pay them for you.

[chk071]

Unfortunately, there is the chance of what happens to many open source projects then. To die in inactivity. I can't see how a foundation would raise much money (frankly, who's gonna donate for something like this?), and dev's working for free will do it in their spare time, hence development will be very slow. I don't think crowdfunding will raise much money either. Can't really see a solution to the problem here, unless you want to bite the bullet, set Orion open source, and live with slow development, and maybe buggy software due to lack of human ressources.

[Orbit-50]

Serious question. How is version 8.5? I have no way of checking it out so I have no clue. I have version 7.6 and it says I can upgrade to 8.5 for $99 USD. I'm kind of confused here.

.-.

[jeffh]

Unfortunately, there is the chance of what happens to many open source projects then. To die in inactivity. I can't see how a foundation would raise much money (frankly, who's gonna donate for something like this?), and dev's working for free will do it in their spare time, hence development will be very slow. I don't think crowdfunding will raise much money either. Can't really see a solution to the problem here, unless you want to bite the bullet, set Orion open source, and live with slow development, and maybe buggy software due to lack of human ressources.

Of course open sourcing Orion has it's own challenges, and like all things in life, success is never guaranteed. However, I firmly believe it's Orion's best chance at long term viability.

There's even still opportunities to monetize Orion after open sourcing; Red Hat is a billion dollar software company, who make their money selling support subscriptions to businesses for open source software that is available for free on the internet. Red Hat also employs developers to work on some of the open source software they distribute, but some of it is 100% community developed software. The business model of giving away software (source code and all) to people, and selling support services to business really can work, and it encourages participation and fosters a community around the project.

[Tux]

Serious question. How is version 8.5? I have no way of checking it out so I have no clue. I have version 7.6 and it says I can upgrade to 8.5 for $99 USD. I'm kind of confused here.

.-.

Same here. . .

I've been using Orion for years. I'm one of those people who is very slow to upgrade once I get used to something and I have been using 7.6 since about 2008 and have now missed out on the opportunity of upgrading to 8.5. I wanted to get my hands on the Pro9, but it's no biggie.

I'm going to be stuck if Orion dies though because I've not found anything else out there that I 'click' with like I do with Orion. Most DAW's seem to be geared towards capturing live audio. Call me old fashioned but I still do most of my work using synths and drum machines and Orion seems to be geared towards that way of working.

Yesterday I tried out a few demos to see if there had been any change in the situation. . .

Firstly I tried Reaper. So many people swear by it but I found the MIDI capabilities lacking or rather too fiddly. Too much messing about just to load up a VSTi. Great audio capabilities, but I write House music, I don't really care for capturing live audio.

Next I tried Magix Music Studio Producer 2015 (or whatever it's called). It took an eternity to download and install because it was full of bloat ware. And like so many DAW's I have auditioned in the past I couldn't get a note out of any VSTi's I inserted. The on board synths worked fine but nothing in my VST folder would make a sound.

Finally I took a look a Renoise. This looks like the only other DAW geared towards my way of working (yes I know there's FL Studio, I'll cover that shortly.) Renoise looks really interesting but like so many others I'm put off by the tracker interface. Yes I appreciate how quick it is once you get used to it, but that's just the problem. I'm not used to it. And I haven't got time to get used to it. I just want to make music, not learn a whole new way of working.

I wish I'd got into the tracker thing back in the late 80's because in a way they were pointing to the future - the self contained 'inside the box' way of working, which would become the norm (for me at least) a decade or so later.

I didn't have time to try anything else out although there were several DAW's that I wouldn't entertain anyway because I have friends that use them and I've seen them in action.

Ableton Live - No. My best friend uses this. Too much unwanted baggage. I want something simple quick and easy. I'm not interested in performing live. I don't understand how it works.

FL Studio. - No. My other best friend has been using this thing since it was a drum machine back in 1999 or whenever it was. I've never been able to get my head around it. I've spent hours in the studio with my friend watching him work and come out with some outstanding tracks, but all it is to me is a sea of grey blocks. It's the original fifty shades of grey. I'm fully aware of how powerful that thing is now, but the GUI just does not make sense to me. It should do by now, but it doesn't.

Podium. - No. Can't get a sound out of it. Cannot figure for the life of me how it's supposed to create music. I think it's been abandoned by it's author anyway.

Cubese - No. Too big. Too expensive. Too many features I don't need. I never got on with it back in the 'Atari day's' either (when everyone and their dog had a bootleg copy.) I used to use a program called Sweet 16, which was like a poor man's C-Lab Creator. Cubase is a completely different beast now of course. In fact it beats me why it's still called Cubase actually.

Bitwig. - This looks interesting but again it requires quite a lot of processing power to run and is stuffed full of features I'm not really interested in. Too many bells and whistles. I started making music in 1989, a time when bells and whistles were not available to the average man.

I stumbled across Energy XT webpage last night. This thing looked interesting but I'm lead to believe it's been abandoned?

So it looks like I'm 'stuck' with Orion for the time being. I do hope someone will rescue it and take care of it. As long as they don't do a 'Mackie' and fill it full of bugs then shelve it indefinitely.

But I suspect Orion will probably end up in DAW heaven along with Musys and Project5.

[crimsonwarlock]

Firstly I tried Reaper. So many people swear by it but I found the MIDI capabilities lacking or rather too fiddly. Too much messing about just to load up a VSTi.

The handling of VSTi plugins was the main reason why I jumped to Reaper from Orion. The problem (for me) in Orion is that when you load a VSTi, it becomes 'locked' to the channel and it's sequencer patterns. You can not swap out a VSTi for another one on a channel. There have been 'workaround' solutions, like the ability to send the MIDI from one channel to another so you can have another instrument play that part. In Reaper, the VSTi is just the 'instrument' playing on that channel without any hard-link to the performance MIDI on that channel. You can delete the VSTi from the channel but the MIDI stays intact. You can also load several VSTi instruments on one channel to stack sounds without the need of any additional routing or patching.

As for loading a VSTi in Reaper: right click in the track-control area, choose 'insert virtual instrument on new track', choose the instrument from the plugin browser that pops up, your done. If it is a multi timbral and/or multichannel VSTi, Reaper will propose to automatically build the channel configuration and routing for you. It is absolutely simple to do

I'm a bit sad to see Orion go, as I was very much involved with it in the beginning. I founded and ran Orion-Central.com for several years, which was the central user-support hub for Synapse Audio (then named Sonic Syndicate) back in the days. I still have Orion installed, but when I eventually move to a new DAW machine, it won't get re-installed as I haven't done anything with it in years. When I started out with Reaper, I had a strong feeling that there would be things that where easier to do in Orion, but nowadays I'm so much at home in Reaper (which admittedly took some serious time, that thing is amazingly deep in features) that I can do anything I want with it.

The big thing I liked in Orion was/is it's mixer-centric workflow. But, although Reaper is not really mixer-centric in its design, I have build a mixer-centric workflow for myself that works pretty close to how Orion works in that regard.

Although Rich and I didn't have any contact in recent years, I still see him as one of my friends. I wish him all the success in setting a new course for his company

[Kriminal]

The handling of VSTi plugins was the main reason why I jumped to Reaper from Orion. The problem (for me) in Orion is that when you load a VSTi, it becomes 'locked' to the channel and it's sequencer patterns. You can not swap out a VSTi for another one on a channel. There have been 'workaround' solutions, like the ability to send the MIDI from one channel to another so you can have another instrument play that part. In Reaper, the VSTi is just the 'instrument' playing on that channel without any hard-link to the performance MIDI on that channel. You can delete the VSTi from the channel but the MIDI stays intact. You can also load several VSTi instruments on one channel to stack sounds without the need of any additional routing or patching.

Orion has a clone feature now...similar and very effective, tho not 'all on the same channel'

I cant see how anyone can go fron Orion to reaper...i tried it, its a nightmare to use. Been trying out a few diff hosts recently as i suspected this would happen. Nothing has the pattern based workflow, or the ease of use of Orion (i dont mean easy cos im familiar with it) Some dont work at all, such as Live...it crashes when i scan plugins, and i have to reboot the pc...

So, as long as Orion keeps working on my pc, i'll keep using that. When it doesnt, i'll prob be too old to care. I dont do much these days anyway, mostly testing and some other small work for ppl.

I think if Orion went open source, it would become a total mess... too many ppl with too many poorly thought out ideas...

[Tux]

I agree Kriminal.

Orion open source would be a total mess.

Glad I'm not the only one who cannot find anything as quick as Orion for pattern based sequencing.
I'll probably stick with it too. Hopefully Rich will knock out some end of line copies of 8.5 or whatever on the cheap before he calls it a day. . .

[bluedad]

I remember him saying he'd put it back up after doing the beta update. I think I'd better upgrade from V7 too.

[Trancit]

Same here. . .

I've been using Orion for years. ...

I stumbled across Energy XT webpage last night. This thing looked interesting but I'm lead to believe it's been abandoned?

So it looks like I'm 'stuck' with Orion for the time being. I do hope someone will rescue it and take care of it. As long as they don't do a 'Mackie' and fill it full of bugs then shelve it indefinitely.

But I suspect Orion will probably end up in DAW heaven along with Musys and Project5.

If you´ve found something like energyXT interesting and you`re overwhelmed with the big ones, you should take a very serious look into MuLab of MuTools...
http://www.mutools.com/
It may take a little time to fully understand it´s potential, but it´s especially developed to be an easy to use alternative to the big players without being bloated!!!!

[nBeat]

I stumbled across Energy XT webpage last night. This thing looked interesting but I'm lead to believe it's been abandoned?

Not quite.
Coming next @ energy-xt.com
energyXT Forum @ KvR

[MachFront]

Firstly I tried Reaper. So many people swear by it but I found the MIDI capabilities lacking or rather too fiddly. Too much messing about just to load up a VSTi.

I empathize. I love doing music stuffs but I've always been both stubborn and ever have a rather difficult time learning new stuff. It feels as though...or rather just is...that I take ten times as long to learn music-oriented things than other like-minded folk.

Just watching a short video or two on YouTube was enough to get me going with Reaper.

Loading VSTis is quick for me because I made a custom button (and one for inserting a MIDI item). Making the buttons was easy. Right-click on an area of said button toolbar in the upper left, select 'customize toolbar', then 'add', type in the action to choose it from the action list, then select a button for it. Done.




I think it's worth spending a bit of time with Reaper.
But as someone who likes things quick, simple and easy, I'd also recommend energyXT and/or MU.LAB.
But, Orion is working well for you now so you've time yet.

[crimsonwarlock]

Orion has a clone feature now...similar and very effective, tho not 'all on the same channel'

This is exactly what I didn't like in Orion (in the end); because of how instruments are locked into a channel, it needs 'solutions' like 'clone channel'. In Reaper we can also clone a channel (for other purposes), but because the underlying architecture is so flexible you can do a lot of other things, like cloning a certain plugin (instruments and FX) into another channel's chain but keeping the settings from the original. There are an incredible amount of options when working with plugins on channels in Reaper, things that are impossible to implement in Orion, even within years, because the underlying architecture is to rigid.

This has been, to my opinion, the downfall of Orion. It is impossible for Rich to keep up development with the competition. To develop features that the Reaper devs (for example) do in weeks because of the 'open' architecture, Rich needs months or longer to have the same options because he needs to build complete new structures into Orion for that.

I cant see how anyone can go fron Orion to reaper...i tried it, its a nightmare to use.

That probably has a lot to do with the fact that Orion does work for you, and you therefore look at Reaper to see how it can work 'the same'. For me, on the other hand, I went on with Reaper to see where it could do the things that I was actually missing in Orion, first. Later on, when I was well at home with Reaper, I started tweaking stuff into my own way of working.

Orion came very close to my ideal workflow, if it wasn't for the few problems that became show stoppers for me over time. However, the final workflow I build in Reaper is not exactly 'like Orion', because it is now exactly 'what I want', something that was also impossible with Orion as it has virtually no features to actually tweak or enhance the DAW environment.

Going from Orion to Reaper felt like moving from a eight-track home studio to a full fledged commercial facility with a large flexible console. Yes, that will leave you a bit overwhelmed at first (it did for me as well) AND brings a serious learning curve. But if you put in the time to learn things, in the end you get to play in a 'full fledged facility' instead of that eight-track home studio