Tracktion Software

harvon · Post by **harvon** » Mon Jul 20, 2020 10:26 pm

What do you think, would there be users for a Waveform simple version that would have only those tools whose removal would make it useless?

Watchful · Post by **Watchful** » Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:50 pm

Honestly, there's nothing simple about any DAW. By the time you get it to the MIDI editor and ability to edit audio, you're pretty much all the way there. Everything else is just editing features that make other tasks more interesting or useful.

I'd think by the time you get to that point of skill, you're ready for more features anyway.

cron · Post by **cron** » Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:35 am

I don't think it really fits the Waveform business model.

'Starter' DAWs like Cubase Elements or Live Intro make sense because the parent product is expensive. Waveform Pro on the other hand doesn't cost all that much more than Cubase Elements. Stripped back DAWs like Elements and Intro also act as a low-cost gateway into the ecosystem, but Waveform Free does this for Tracktion Software and it's a feature-complete product with no cutbacks.

Waveform Free literally being "yesterday's Waveform Pro" also means there's no separate product to code/maintain/support. It's a mature product that's had the benefit of bugfixes and the like patched in back when it was the flagship. A "simple" version of of a DAW is only really simple to the user - to the developer it's probably no less complex a project that needs to be worth the development time/support burden.

Peter Widdicombe · Post by **Peter Widdicombe** » Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:46 am

The other thing is - Waveform is inherently much simpler to conceptualize for new users. I find the gyrations required to add a midi .vst to some other DAWS to be somewhat confusing, compared to the simple/logical Waveform left-to-right processing.

The ONE thing I would change would be to default the view to show the full selection panel at the bottom, rather than hiding it. Have the hidden option be a user selection that you can "optimize" after you've figured your way around and not leave newbies struggling to find the "highly useful" primary settings.

Others might be the "recording" section - selecting track/input/armed/virtual MIDI keyboard. Logical once you've used it a few times (or watched some of the videos on the Tracktion site, which are excellent by the way ! ).

jabe · Post by **jabe** » Tue Jul 21, 2020 1:35 am

It's like spreadsheets and word processors. You don't have to use every feature. Just use the ones you want. A simplified version isn't going to cost less than free.

pough · Post by **pough** » Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:49 am

$100 says you will never get any two people to agree on which features can stay and which can go.

harvon · Post by **harvon** » Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:07 am

Yes, there're many angles to view the idea of a simple DAW. The richness of features makes any DAW intimidating for beginners. It would help if the DAW had two menu sets, one complete and one simplified.

chico.co.uk · Post by **chico.co.uk** » Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:13 am

Watchful · Post by **Watchful** » Thu Jul 23, 2020 2:21 am

chico.co.uk wrote: Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:13 am..

Chico makes two good points.

kudamm · Post by **kudamm** » Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:54 pm

Didn't want to start a new thread for this, but does anyone know if projects created in Waveform Free are compatible with Waveform 8?

EDIT: never mind. Figured it out.