KVR Audio

kmatheussen · Post by **kmatheussen** » Sat Sep 05, 2020 9:34 am

Three years since Radium 5, Radium 6 has been released.

Radium is a music editor with a new type of interface. Radium is inspired by the tracker interface, but it also takes advantage of the power of modern computers.

Radium V6 has been updated to include features expected from a modern DAW. This includes hard drive recording and playback, revamped user interface, improved stability, improved manual, and so forth.

https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/

Jonas78 · Post by **Jonas78** » Sun Sep 13, 2020 3:27 pm

Can you finally install it without having to install Jack drivers on windows, just use your own soundcard drivers? Have never gotten it to work.

kmatheussen · Post by **kmatheussen** » Sun Sep 13, 2020 3:47 pm

You can run Radium without installing Jack.

(jack is not a driver, by the way, it's just a convenient way for programs to access the soundcard driver.)

THE INTRANCER · Post by **THE INTRANCER** » Sun Sep 13, 2020 5:44 pm

I'll be honest, as a tracker and I've been using trackers since the early 1990's from vast variety of which existed on the Amiga, it looks incredibly cluttered and overly complicated whilst aesthetically unappealing. I'm really not seeing much difference in the GUI compared to earlier versions of this. Trackers by their very nature are not the most intuitive programs to learn when you compare them to the more established DAW's of today, so the further away you are from conformity in adapting common design principles, the less likelihood people will have inclination to adapt to it, unless you can present it in an intuitive and pleasing way.

Also this version of Radium won't even run on Windows without Jack which just isn't acceptable.

kmatheussen · Post by **kmatheussen** » Sun Sep 13, 2020 6:39 pm

Trackers by their very nature are not the most intuitive programs to learn when you compare them to the more established DAW's of today, so the further away you are from conformity in adapting common design principles, the less likelihood people will have inclination to adapt to it, unless you can present it in an intuitive and pleasing way.

Radium is made the way I wanted trackers to be. When I used octamed, I spent a lot of time tweaking note velocities and effects. I spent a bunch of time extending octamed by both hacking the octamed binary itself, and writing scripts, but it was still inefficient. I don't think Radium is less intuitive than Renoise for instance, it's probably just that you're used to that way of working, or perhaps you make types of music where editing numbers actually is more inefficient. A graphical line is both faster to understand, and usually faster to edit, than numbers. (You can edit numbers in radium too though)

Radium is of course less intuitive than simple piano-roll-based sequencers, but there are a million of those programs. Radium has tracker-advantages such as more musical data is shown at the same time on the screen, and that it has better support for keyboard-based note editing.

Also this version of Radium won't even run on Windows without Jack which just isn't acceptable.

Starting Radium is not more work than starting any other DAW. You have to configure and start the sound card also when you don't use Jack. And you don't have to install jack when you use Radium, you just start the included version of Jack first, and after that start Radium. Why isn't this acceptable?

Charlie Firpo · Post by **Charlie Firpo** » Sun Sep 13, 2020 6:55 pm

Coming from Renoise, it took just a little while to get adjusted, but now it feels second nature. I like the interface of Radium, and the ability to zoom tracks is great. I don't have a problem with Jack. I just click on the standalone Jack app, and then start Radium. Thats it. What i would love to see in future Radium is some more love to midiFx, maybe something like Renoise Phrases?

THE INTRANCER · Post by **THE INTRANCER** » Sun Sep 13, 2020 7:33 pm

kmatheussen wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 6:39 pm Also this version of Radium won't even run on Windows without Jack which just isn't acceptable.
Starting Radium is not more work than starting any other DAW. You have to configure and start the sound card also when you don't use Jack. And you don't have to install jack when you use Radium, you just start the included version of Jack first, and after that start Radium. Why isn't this acceptable?

You should not need any third party soundcard configuration software and require users to configure it before even starting the program you are trying to start. Not only does this external software ( which should not be required in any case) not auto recognise the audio interface, when pressing the start button which additionally throws up popup windows and error list in a mini console, it's non standard in how DAWs are configured on the PC platform which simply have all this builtin within the software code of the application itself. The inconvenience and repercussions in which JACK can cause potential issues on one's system which may already be configured and setup, just isn't normal, in expected requirements from a Windows users experience. Sure using JACK may not have any adverse effects upon one's system, but if you are not conforming to normal in-program configuration setup procedures, it's not going to help you sell this or even have people even demo it, if very few... I'm sorry to say. The Linux world is a world away from the Windows one, at least since Windows 95.. in ease of use and accessibility in configuring things. Just because a piece of software exists to enable you to operate a piece of software you have developed, it doesn't always mean it's a good one. As you've not addressed this yet, I'd say you'd better put this audio configuration integration aspect at the top of your list in addition to a big revamp of the GUI, so it's more intuitive, accessible, less cluttered and less head bending.. and more nicely presented.... Alternately start afresh on new tracker software project that is exclusively a Windows only one.

kmatheussen · Post by **kmatheussen** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 10:34 am

The GUI-program we use to start jack, QJackCtl, has some issues on Windows. Especially in the past, it was very buggy on that platform, and it should never have been included with Jack. Jack itself on the other hand has been pretty flawless on Windows since the beginning (if started from the console), except that it's not always very good at finding default interface, as you say.

But usually Jack just works. You have to set up and start sound whether you use Jack or not, and I've fixed the most serious problems with QJackCtl. I doubt serious users would think the use of Jack is any problem. In fact, most people may not even know that they are running Jack. The way Radium is set up, you don't really have to know or think about Jack at all, and you don't have to install anything either, neither Jack nor Radium has to be installed. Just unpack the zip file, and run the program. For the Jack part, all the users see is a program to start and configure sound, and this program has to be run before Radium. So there's usually no more work configuring Jack than it is setting up sound on any DAW on Windows. In addition, Jack has many advantages such as frame-accurate synchronization to other programs and more stable operation since the sound card driver access runs in a separate process.

However, some people still have some issues with QJackCtl and Jack, so I've been looking into alternatives lately. Hopefully there will be an alternative to Jack before Radium 7.

kmatheussen · Post by **kmatheussen** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 10:41 am

Charlie Firpo wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 6:55 pm Coming from Renoise, it took just a little while to get adjusted, but now it feels second nature. I like the interface of Radium, and the ability to zoom tracks is great. I don't have a problem with Jack. I just click on the standalone Jack app, and then start Radium. Thats it. What i would love to see in future Radium is some more love to midiFx, maybe something like Renoise Phrases?

Thank you. I wonder what you mean by midiFX though?

Charlie Firpo · Post by **Charlie Firpo** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 1:50 pm

Thank you. I wonder what you mean by midiFX though?
[/quote]

I was thinking about things like a user selectable chorder (assign different chords to different keys), Arpeggiator, you know .. fun stuff

but then again, i know there's some alternatives out there like Phrasebox by Venomode.

kmatheussen · Post by **kmatheussen** » Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:23 am

Yeah, some more creative stuff would be good. There is some stuff under the "Edit" tab below the editor, but not that much. Should also make scripting more streamlined to make it easier for 3rd parties. Thanks for the input.

jalex · Post by **jalex** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:09 am

One of those moments when a developer's stubbornness makes potential users pass by. Because the project is very interesting. And simply abandoning this utility could significantly increase audience and feedback.

ps
forgive me for my tone and criticism.

kmatheussen · Post by **kmatheussen** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:30 am

jalex wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:09 am One of those moments when a developer's stubbornness makes potential users pass by. Because the project is very interesting. And simply abandoning this utility could significantly increase audience and feedback.

Is it the jack situation that you are thinking about? I have never denied that using Jack on Windows is not ideal. I wish I could snap my fingers and have an alternative, but unfortunately it's a lot of work since Jack provides a lot of stuff that Radium uses. However, actual users of Radium don't mind using jack. As far as I can see, none of the 1058 issues on the bug tracker is/was about replacing jack. There's not really much trouble with jack anymore, so it's not the most important thing to fix right now. But it is on the list.

antic604 · Post by **antic604** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:33 am

Oh, this one should definitely be featured in "best & worst looking DAWs of 2020"

jalex · Post by **jalex** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:49 am

kmatheussen wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:30 am
jalex wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:09 am One of those moments when a developer's stubbornness makes potential users pass by. Because the project is very interesting. And simply abandoning this utility could significantly increase audience and feedback.
Is it the jack situation that you are thinking about? I have never denied that using Jack on Windows is not ideal. I wish I could snap my fingers and have an alternative, but unfortunately it's a lot of work since Jack provides a lot of stuff that Radium uses. However, actual users of Radium don't mind using jack. As far as I can see, none of the 1058 issues on the bug tracker is/was about replacing jack. There's not really much trouble with jack anymore, so it's not the most important thing to fix right now. But it is on the list.

Im osx user. and the jack works poorly on a mac, as many as I have not tried. and I am only among those users who have a negative experience with jack. As a regular Renoise user, I would love to explore the new platform. the irony is that once a year I download the latest version of the radium. and once again I face Jack's difficulties and this is where my curiosity ends. I understand that you are primarily considering the radium as the implementation of your own ideas. But if you want to increase your audience, you know how to get our attention.

Happy New Year!

Radium 6 (Tracker-like DAW)