Moving to Tracktion... what am I missing?

[secretkillerofnames]

Hiya!

Aside from Pro Tools and Logic for work the DAWs I've returned to for my own stuff over the last decade have been Live and Reaper.

I'm happy with Ableton for live jams but I'm looking for something with strong Audio and MIDI composition, similar to Logic, that is cross-platform.

Tracktion is looking good. Particularly like the modular filter approach and the semi-track freeze function. If I can get my copy of Melodyne working more seamlessly that adds even more value.
I'm not interested in something as high end as Digital Performer and so far the prerelease of Reaper 5 isn't convincing me that their MIDI integration upgrades are worth waiting for.

So my question is... What am I missing out on? What might I miss moving from Reaper to Tracktion with my experience and expectations?

Comments and advice much appreciated.

[H.Ole Luft]

Hiya!



I'm happy with Ableton for live jams but I'm looking for something with strong Audio and MIDI composition,



Comments and advice much appreciated.

Question too?

What do you mean with " composition " ?

Fore me Cubase is the only composition DAW at the moment.

Its got :

Notation/Scoring

The "Chord Track"

The "Arranger Track"

The "Chord Pads"

The "Proximity Chord Assistant Mode "

and Daniel Spreadbury is working on more to come.

http://blog.steinberg.net/

[secretkillerofnames]

Thanks for the comment - i'm not really interested in other DAW suggestions though. I am interested in what people who use or have used Tracktion think it lacks to see if they are things I might miss.

For example, I like notation but can live without it. I'm not interested in Chord assistance... have plenty of Max For Live tools that do that kind of thing.

I would define "composition" as building a track piece by piece with MIDI and AUDIO clips in non-real time as opposed to jamming and editing which is what I do with Ableton Live and external hardware.

So far I've found Logic the best for composition but it's flaky on my 2 and 5yr old Macs and I want something that will run on a Windows Laptop that won't be obsolete the minute they stop supporting my OS.

REAPER has been a trusty friend for making edits and mixing but never had much joy composing tracks from scratch.

[frankvg]

To be honest not much I am missing. Beat Mapping and more flexibility with the tempo are on my wish list. But I don't suppose Reaper has that....
For composing Tracktion is inspiring, fast and really a breeze to work with. You should definitely try a demo first because some plugins behave dodgy on some systems. Also check the midi editing to see if it suits you.

[Ben di Arrows]

I do wish Tracktion had Reapers native plugin bridging. We should get it but no ETA as yet.

[zentatonic]

Any word on warp markers? This is one thing I miss, but last I heard it's just around the corner.

This, combined with Tracktion's ghost track feature would make lining up vocals a breeze. I'd like to see it taken even a step further like Sonar, but first things first.

[bobmartinmusic]

You should definitely try a demo first because some plugins behave dodgy on some systems. Also check the midi editing to see if it suits you.

I thought that T6 was going to have a "sandboxing" feature get around plugin issues?

BobM.

[frankvg]

With an annual release schedule, its simply unrealistic to have all planned features completed from V1.0 - there is lots to come throughout the year

Likely they will add the sandboxing later this year.

[dupont]

I use to work with Logic X, Live 9 and Reaper 4/5.

I like the simple side and the one window approch of Tracktion.
Even if Logic X is far more powerfull, has good native plugins, lot of editing possibilities, I find this sometimes are disavantages.
There are so many possibilities in LPX that I tend to try to find something new and cool and at the end not concentrate on finishing a song.
It's a kind of "more is not always better" phylosophy.
I've been using Logic since N°8 (that's thousand of hours now !) and there are some features I've still not catched (and probably some I don't even kwow) and I'm often lost inside the numerous menus.

But I like to regularly swap from on DAW to another, to find new ideas and try something else.

[secretkillerofnames]

Thanks for the comments.

It's a kind of "more is not always better" phylosophy.

This is certainly one of my concerns. I have templates that limit what is readily accessible but at times find I'm clicking around too much in Logic to do simple things. It's also quite laggy on my lower spec Macs Otherwise i'd probably stick with it.
I've been trying out the demo - pushing it in various ways. Only real issue i've had is Melodyne doesn't want to work consistently but that could be something to do with setup.

[secretkillerofnames]

Well i've opted in. I can deal with the Melodyne quirks on Mac at least. Hopefully those issues get fixed on Win8.1 soon.

[secretkillerofnames]

So far i'm impressed by how quickly i'm finding a natural workflow without need for manuals.

What is confusing me are all these complaint posts from apparently old-school users. I can understand the "why does this not work like the old version" mentality but file loading version incompatibility is pretty standard across the DAW landscape.

I've never been able to understand the requests for a DAW to come with synths... I'm of the opinion that a DAW is like an organiser used to manage your media, plugins etc. And I personally prefer the No-Frills organisers that just work and don't have all sorts of doo-dads that i'm not going to use.

As for stability i'm finding T6 on OSX to be pretty fine. Some crashes from plugins - AU versions tend not to work as well as VST and VST32 seem to work better (if they exist) - and T6 seems to be more sensitive than T5 in this regard.
My Melodyne Editor is integrating OK now so long as I remember to have the dongle plugged in - otherwise I may as well close the application because it won't recognise it.

On Win8.1 T6 isn't working enough to be worth using but T5 is great. Glad I have the option of both.

[bobmartinmusic]

I've never been able to understand the requests for a DAW to come with synths... I'm of the opinion that a DAW is like an organiser used to manage your media, plugins etc. And I personally prefer the No-Frills organisers that just work and don't have all sorts of doo-dads that i'm not going to use.

+1

BobM.