Why you left Bitwig?

[vurt]

in all honesty, it was me.

nice bloke but difficult to live with
current arrangement is better, seperate living.
see each other when we want, but also have free time and space to do what we please
(within a monogamous relationship, may as well disappoint them one at a time)

[vurt]

so yeah, i only go to coffee shops for the ocassional coffee, not a mixing sesh.

[liquidsound]

I grew up in coffee shops (Italy) but when I take a brake from my business I don't mind to let some musical ideas take shape while having a cappuccino.

Better than the Music Cafe here at KVR if I want the real deal.

I'm lucky, my wife loves my music and we enjoy Classical as well.

[vurt]

I'm lucky, my wife loves my music and we enjoy Classical as well.

if your coffee shop has an orchestra, its a slightly more upmarket affair than i usually see
at best its usually an acoustic guitar duet

[EnGee]

It becomes "why you left your wife?"

I left all, Bitwig, my wife and my girlfriend! I've got accustomed to live without clip launcher and romance, which is very healthy to my heart! I chose loneliness with Studio One

[liquidsound]

I'm lucky, my wife loves my music and we enjoy Classical as well.

if your coffee shop has an orchestra, its a slightly more upmarket affair than i usually see
at best its usually an acoustic guitar duet

No way
They actually play some shit "organized noise" type of music.
Classical it's on my couch with fine scotch. Bach or Debussy are my daily reset and much needed.

Or I could listen to some "Periodic Table" music from Polarity
He's great guy.

[BONES]

For the record, I hate cafes. Wanker Central, all of 'em. Pricks who sit around and drink coffee have too much time on their hands and absolutely nobody gets more done leaning over a coffee table than they would at home or at work. Come the revolution, they'll be second in line for the firing squad, after the baristas.

I totally disagree. If it's implemented well and consistently, like in S1 - or surprisingly Reason - then it's a very tactile method of controlling software, merging the best features of mouse and of touch screen.

No. Just no. It has two fatal flaws - the trackpad doesn't map 1:1 with the screen and you can't just tap a spot on the trackpad and have the cursor move instantly to that spot, you have to swipe and swipe and swipe until it's where you want it. It's really a combination of the worst features of a mouse and touchscreen. Trackpoints, those little red nubs in the middle of a Lenovo keyboard, are way, way better than trackpads, although absolutely nothing beats a decent gaming mouse.

The other thing with a mouse is that you don't have to sweat over support being "implemented well and consistently", you can use any old application you like, safe in the knowledge the mousing experience will be great. Why anyone would lug a laptop around and not throw a mouse into the bag with it is beyond my comprehension, especially when you can have a mouse that takes up this little space when not in use -

I can't see how e.g. turning a vertical wheel on a mouse with some modifier key is a natural way to have screen scrolling left/right or zooming in/out horizontally, as opposed to left/right swipes on a trackpad.

Then you have never tried to use a trackpad while flying economy/coach. Because the problem with a trackpad, again, is that you have to swipe and swipe and swipe to get where you want to go, whereas a mousewheel offers a more fluid operation that is much better suited to a confined space.

There is also the issue of only being able to do one thing at a time with a trackpad. e.g. I can be moving my cursor up to the toolbar while I scroll with my mouse wheel, you have to do that as two separate (and really annoying) actions with a trackpad.

Or how pinch-to-zoom works great with trackpads. Or how you can scroll your arrangement diagonally to get quicker where you want, etc.

I'm sorry but that's more work than moving my middle finger on the scrollwheel.

You know you don't have to accept the mouse defaults? You can go in and make it work the way you want it to. Try increasing the sensitivity so you can move the cursor from one corner of your screen to the opposite corner without moving your wrist. I can get from the left edge of my left monitor to the right edge of my right monitor without moving mine. With my gaming mouse I can change the res on the fly so I can slow it down for finer work but that's something I only ever need to do for graphics work.

But one important - for me, at least - benefit of using a touchpad is no extra desk space required. I'm aware that's not an issue for most people, but it's huge for me.

I'd be extremely surprised if you didn't have more room to work with than I do on my boat. Even so, mousing on the palmrest is easy enough so you don't really need extra space at all.

I'm just trying to say touchpads are not (abominable).

Which is why you are wrong.

It's a preference.

No, it's a fact (or a bunch of 'em, at any rate).

[pdxindy]

Then you have never tried to use a trackpad while flying economy/coach. Because the problem with a trackpad, again, is that you have to swipe and swipe and swipe to get where you want to go, whereas a mousewheel offers a more fluid operation that is much better suited to a confined space.

You obviously haven't used a good trackpad recently... it doesn't require one to swipe and swipe and swipe. On my MacBook Pro one swipe easily covers the whole screen. Half a swipe can cover the whole screen. A slow swipe scales so it is still precise. I have no trouble getting to any specific point on the screen with one movement.

Overall I prefer the mouse, but I can do stuff fast with the trackpad too.

[antic604]

Trackpoints, those little red nubs in the middle of a Lenovo keyboard, are way, way better than trackpads

This right here is enough to tell me you've absolutely no idea what you talk about, or at least that you've used some terrible touchpads with bad drivers and your experience is tainted by this.

And I'd really love to see how you're flying economy/coach and doing better with a mouse than me with a touchpad

[BONES]

You obviously haven't used a good trackpad recently... it doesn't require one to swipe and swipe and swipe. On my MacBook Pro one swipe easily covers the whole screen.

I'm pretty sure that's not right, unless it's changed in the last 18 months or so. Even those huge new trackpads aren't mapped 1:1, I've tried them, and if the mapping changes with the speed of your swipe, that's gotta be even worse, surely?

This right here is enough to tell me you've absolutely no idea what you talk about, or at least that you've used some terrible touchpads with bad drivers and your experience is tainted by this.

I'd suggest it's the other way around - you've never taken the time to learn how to use a trackpoint properly. A good one is incredibly responsive to pressure obviates the need for a trackpad or mouse, although you still end up with the problem of the mouse buttons being in the centre of the laptop chassis, again not great in cattle class.

And I'd really love to see how you're flying economy/coach and doing better with a mouse than me with a touchpad

Easy, the mouse is over on my right side, where my hand is, so I don't have to reach across my body and then try to swipe with the correct orientation to make the trackpad do what I want. And it doesn't require any extra room because I use the palmrest as a mousing surface. You have to realise that you don't really move your mouse very far when you are using it, the palmrest on a decent size laptop is more than big enough to be useful. If you don't believe me, measure it yourself. I can move my cursor from the left edge of my screen to the right edge, using my normal CPI setting, and the mouse itself only moves 4cm or so. Top to bottom is around 3cm so that's all you need - 4cm x 3cm, with a bit extra for the mouse itself to sit on. Way smaller than most trackpads these days.

[GaryG]

Maybe it's a generational/experience thing but I can't see me ever moving over to a touchpad full time, maybe when we have those keyboard size pads they promise but then that's just a weirdly separated touch screen really. I can get by with one (especially the fairly big one on my work HP laptop) but I find a mouse so much more productive what with all the modifier keys you tend to use in a DAW etc. Space isn't an issue, I'm using a mouse at the moment sitting in an armchair where the arms aren't much wider than the mouse, spans the screen with a miniscule amount of movement.

Hate those fricking nubs though.

[Tj Shredder]

First we read in this thread why people love Bitwig and don't leave, then leave their husbands and then leaving trackpad/mouse??? I leave the mouse for the cat...
Maybe the op thought left it the past of love? I always thought its the opposite of right. I still don't know what the right thing is to do... leave, left, love... Love sounds best to me...

[antic604]

I find a mouse so much more productive what with all the modifier keys you tend to use in a DAW etc.

What does this have to do with mouse vs. touchpad? I use modifier keys with touchpad all the time.

[tooneba]

When pro gamer migrated to trackpad from gaming mouse it's the point trackpad outperformed mouse's overall usability: accuracy/speed/weariness. Until then you don't even need to care about it. ZZzzzz

[antic604]

When pro gamer migrated to trackpad from gaming mouse it's the point trackpad outperformed mouse's overall usability: accuracy/speed/weariness. Until then you don't even need to care about it. ZZzzzz

You produce music with Guitar Hero?

Touchpads won't go away and they get better all the time. This reminds me the rhetoric from few years back when discussing DAWs - "Why would anyone use a 4K screen?! You make music or graphics?". Fast forward to today and we're in a world where lots of DAWs still fail to support high-DPI properly, plugins use different methods to scale their content (or don't bother at all, like Waves or NI).

No, those who think ahead will usually have advantage, like Bitwig with its touch interface when transition of Macs to ARM arcitecture will inevitably lead to running desktop DAWs on iPads.