I really, really, REALLY wanna switch over to Waveform Completely, but... Tracking Experiences/ Metering...

[tmaworks]

I am simultaneously so excited and so bummed out about Waveform. The ability to easily edit, aux, create busses, automate etc. is almost unparalleled in a free DAW, in my opinion. Not quite sure if there is one as user friendly on the market for such things. I would love NOTHING MORE than to be able to fully invest in Waveform and make it my new home, but there are a few things about the UI that I just find almost irreconcilable for tracking and some things that make basic mixing tasks a bit pesky as well. However, I may not be seeing the full picture, so here I am talking with you fine folk...

1. The metering: I am a solo artist and I track myself sitting at a drum kit with 14 microphones going. I need to be able to look at the monitor and see all of my tracks stacked vertically like a nice row of books with detailed volume meters so that I can adjust and monitor my levels. The metering features are severely lacking for me. All I have are these little abstract bars with about 4 db markings on them, which aren't even the most relevant ones (-3, -6, -18). If I make my tracks thin enough for them all to fit on the screen, then the numbers on the volume meters disappear altogether. This wouldn't be that much of a problem if I were tracking other people because I could just go to the volume meter plugin on each channel and toggle back and forth till I was happy, but yeah. I can't do that... I need to be able to look at the screen and see those volume details...

2. No apparent fast way to toggle all the tracks between mono and stereo -No master stereo/ mono button (not that I can find) -Should be a single button.

3. No phase invert button on each track. You have to go into each track and toggle through a menu to get to this feature. Not the end of it for me, but it's annoying. Should be a single button.

4. No apparent way to disable all the plugins at once on each track. Should be a single button. I, also, don't see a way to disable plugins individually (ex. a box to check mark next to each plugin) other than opening each plugin and clicking bypass.

5. I may have done something wrong here, but the session did not recognize the same inputs across all 14 tracks when I reopened it to do more tracking -I had to reassign the 14 inputs again.

I realize my situation is unique. Not everybody is doing what I'm doing -Recording themselves in this way. These are just things that make what I'm doing more difficult.

Although, I consider Reaper one of the most convoluted pain-in-the-kisser DAWS to navigate on Planet Earth (maybe this solar system), Waveform could take some cues from its' UI as far as these things go. For now, I'll continue trying to develop a workflow in Waveform and make it work to my advantage (that's how badly I want to get out of Reaper), but I'm not ready to rely on it for tracking myself just yet. A DAW with the tracking experience and a handful of the UI features of Reaper, with the user-friendly straightforwardness of Waveform would be the perfect DAW, in my opinion.

Cheers, ya'll!!!

[pough]

For "big meters mode" press F12.

[pough]

I think some of the things you're wanting you're either not going to get or not going to get in the way that you expect because you're thinking of tracks in a hardware way. Polarity isn't a property of a Waveform track, nor is mono/stereo. Tracks in Waveform are containers for clips and plugins. Volume and pan aren't even inherent track properties.

You can easily toggle enabled/disabled for a plugin by selecting it and pressing F. You might be able to make a macro for disabling all the plugins on a track. I'm not sure (haven't looked into it) and considering the way they handle such things it might not work the way you'd hope. You can probably only toggle, not specify a certain status.

Waveform has a Mono Switch plugin, but it could be easier to use. It should have an external control on its icon.

[tmaworks]

For "big meters mode" press F12.

Pushing F12 didn't do anything for me other than make my actual waveform tracks disappear -Did nothing to the faders...

I did however spend some time with the little square buttons on the right hand side of the mix menu and I managed to find a way to enlarge the bars to where they are adequate (including a lot more numbers). It's still not what I would like, but it will do... Would be sweet if they were a little more life-like in their look, but like I said, it will at least get the job done, now...

Feel free to contact me if you ever want a graphic artist's point of view on this. It's really the only part of Waveform's look and feel that I'm not on board with...

Thank you so much for responding, sir.

[tmaworks]

I think some of the things you're wanting you're either not going to get or not going to get in the way that you expect because you're thinking of tracks in a hardware way. Polarity isn't a property of a Waveform track, nor is mono/stereo. Tracks in Waveform are containers for clips and plugins. Volume and pan aren't even inherent track properties.

I mean, yes, I see what you're saying, but frankly, we're talking about ease of us, here. So, in my point of view, whatever we can do to make Waveform at the top of i''s class for ease and functionality should be considered... These are things that most people I talk to want in a DAW that they're going to commit fully to.

You can easily toggle enabled/disabled for a plugin by selecting it and pressing F. You might be able to make a macro for disabling all the plugins on a track. I'm not sure (haven't looked into it) and considering the way they handle such things it might not work the way you'd hope. You can probably only toggle, not specify a certain status.

I discovered in the wee hours of the night that you can right click on a track and a pop up with the option of "bypass all plugins on this track" comes up, so that's cool. You're unable to push shit+ and disable them across multiple tracks (ideal), but again, this gets the job done. No real fuss there -Just extra time...

Waveform has a Mono Switch plugin, but it could be easier to use. It should have an external control on its icon.

Can you tell me where this is??

My apologies for the wonky "quote" edits. Couldn't really figure that out...

[Watchful]

For the Mono Switch:

1. Click the Plugin icon...
2. Wavform > Utility > Mono Switch

Drag that plugin into the track in question.

[pough]

Pushing F12 didn't do anything for me other than make my actual waveform tracks disappear -Did nothing to the faders...

For Big Meter Mode to meter bigly there must be meterable things. What it does is hide the clips and display big meters over the tracks where there are inputs set up. If none of your tracks currently have inputs set up, there is nothing to embiggen.

[tmaworks]

For the Mono Switch:

1. Click the Plugin icon...
2. Wavform > Utility > Mono Switch

Drag that plugin into the track in question.

Thank you!

[tmaworks]

Pushing F12 didn't do anything for me other than make my actual waveform tracks disappear -Did nothing to the faders...

For Big Meter Mode to meter bigly there must be meterable things. What it does is hide the clips and display big meters over the tracks where there are inputs set up. If none of your tracks currently have inputs set up, there is nothing to embiggen.

Okay, thank you~!

[fde101]

4. No apparent way to disable all the plugins at once on each track. Should be a single button. I, also, don't see a way to disable plugins individually (ex. a box to check mark next to each plugin) other than opening each plugin and clicking bypass.

I'm not sure how this would not be practical in most cases considering that your volume and pan controls are also plugins and would be bypassed right along with the rest of them, but there is an option to do this in the context menu of each plugin - right-click on one of them and the option is there to bypass all plugins on the track.

If you are using the full-height control panel along the bottom of the window and not the now-default wimpy (collapsed) version that they added a while back, selecting a plugin adds an "Enabled" checkbox to that bar that you can use to bypass the plugin. If you have it collapsed, you can alternatively click the wrench icon to find that, or use the equivalent options in the actions panel.

An even faster method is to use the keyboard shortcut "F" after selecting the plugin(s) you wish to disable. Note that you can command/shift click to select multiple plugins and enable/disable them all at once using that shortcut (or the checkbox on the control panel) - this includes selecting plugins on multiple tracks. If you right-click on a plugin there are options to do things like "Select all plugins in this track" and "Select all other plugins of the same type" (which also works across tracks).

[tmaworks]

4. No apparent way to disable all the plugins at once on each track. Should be a single button. I, also, don't see a way to disable plugins individually (ex. a box to check mark next to each plugin) other than opening each plugin and clicking bypass.

I'm not sure how this would not be practical in most cases considering that your volume and pan controls are also plugins and would be bypassed right along with the rest of them, but there is an option to do this in the context menu of each plugin - right-click on one of them and the option is there to bypass all plugins on the track.

If you are using the full-height control panel along the bottom of the window and not the now-default wimpy (collapsed) version that they added a while back, selecting a plugin adds an "Enabled" checkbox to that bar that you can use to bypass the plugin. If you have it collapsed, you can alternatively click the wrench icon to find that, or use the equivalent options in the actions panel.

An even faster method is to use the keyboard shortcut "F" after selecting the plugin(s) you wish to disable. Note that you can command/shift click to select multiple plugins and enable/disable them all at once using that shortcut (or the checkbox on the control panel) - this includes selecting plugins on multiple tracks. If you right-click on a plugin there are options to do things like "Select all plugins in this track" and "Select all other plugins of the same type" (which also works across tracks).

Thank you so much for taking the time! -My apologies on the late response...

Waveform, honestly, is INCREDIBLE. I don't even know what to say coming from Reaper -Spent months with Reaper and as soon as I learned something I would forget how to to do it. I have no idea how people take to that daw... There are definitely some things I'd like to change about waveform, but at least I can use it, basically... lol!

Have you ever used Reaper? I'm curious to hear what your impressions of it are, if you have -especially in comparison to Waveform. One cool thing about Reaper is that you can use all the old weird plugins that you can't in Waveform, but ya know.. I dunno...

[fde101]

I played with the demo of Reaper, but ended up deciding not to get it. If the only other DAW I had was Waveform it might have been more tempting, but I have Cubase, Logic, Studio One, Bitwig Studio, Reason, Digital Performer, Mixbus 32c, FL Studio, and a few other DAW-like apps, and it did not seem like Reaper provided enough of interest when compared to the collection of DAWs I have already accumulated.

There were definitely a few things I liked about Reaper, such as the routing flexibility it offered in some areas, and I liked the idea of its ability to be customized as much as it can be, but I felt like some of the more interesting aspects of its customization were poorly executed (particularly the way that the track headers behave), which was definitely a minus for me.

Good things and bad things, but no real "killer" features that I don't already have elsewhere.

Waveform, while relatively simplistic from an overall feature standpoint, has much more uniqueness to offer as compared to Reaper in terms of its workflow, keeping it more interesting to me.

[tmaworks]

I played with the demo of Reaper, but ended up deciding not to get it. If the only other DAW I had was Waveform it might have been more tempting, but I have Cubase, Logic, Studio One, Bitwig Studio, Reason, Digital Performer, Mixbus 32c, FL Studio, and a few other DAW-like apps, and it did not seem like Reaper provided enough of interest when compared to the collection of DAWs I have already accumulated.

There were definitely a few things I liked about Reaper, such as the routing flexibility it offered in some areas, and I liked the idea of its ability to be customized as much as it can be, but I felt like some of the more interesting aspects of its customization were poorly executed (particularly the way that the track headers behave), which was definitely a minus for me.

Good things and bad things, but no real "killer" features that I don't already have elsewhere.

Waveform, while relatively simplistic from an overall feature standpoint, has much more uniqueness to offer as compared to Reaper in terms of its workflow, keeping it more interesting to me.

Hmm... I appreciate the feedback/ experience!!

Any of those I should look to try out -For a bonehead, dead-simple-daw-using-songwriter??

Do you find yourself doing certain tasks in one DAW versus another??

I am basically like a fish out of water when it comes to REAPER -god bless all the Reaper fanatics out there... Whatever brains they have, I have the opposite... Audacity and Waveform are basically my "trench" tools at the moment...

And, yeah Waveform is relatively simplistic, but golly-gee -What else do you need to make a record?? Cut, paste, copy, delete, automation, volume, pan... Am I missing anything?? haha! They didn't have barely anything with tape and they still managed to get it done... I have no use for the accelerated or more advanced features of Reaper. I'm not looking down on anyone who does -I just don't... The customizability aspect is awesome, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. Knowing myself I would just jack everything up...

Ha!

[fde101]

Waveform should be fine for now to get started with. As you progress, depending on the direction in which you want to take things, you may want to try some of the others and see if they provide tools, features or workflows that are applicable to what you want to accomplish.

For example, Logic Pro, Cubase Pro and Digital Performer all have proper surround sound support if you need to create surround mixes for movie projects (or for anything else for that matter), something most of the other DAWs (including Waveform) are missing.

Logic Pro, Cubase Pro and Studio One Pro have built-in basic notation features if you ever need to work with traditional music notation rather than a piano roll.

If you are creating electronic (EDM-type) music, you might want to try out FL Studio and at least one of Ableton Live or Bitwig Studio, as while they are certainly capable in other areas, and Waveform is certainly capable of producing electronic music, those programs offer unique workflow capabilities that Waveform does not have which tend to lend themselves well to those styles of music. Different people work in different ways, so you may or may not like what they have to offer, but it would be hard to know that unless you try them and find out. Waveform has a few nice things for this too.

[tmaworks]

Waveform should be fine for now to get started with. As you progress, depending on the direction in which you want to take things, you may want to try some of the others and see if they provide tools, features or workflows that are applicable to what you want to accomplish.

For example, Logic Pro, Cubase Pro and Digital Performer all have proper surround sound support if you need to create surround mixes for movie projects (or for anything else for that matter), something most of the other DAWs (including Waveform) are missing.

Logic Pro, Cubase Pro and Studio One Pro have built-in basic notation features if you ever need to work with traditional music notation rather than a piano roll.

If you are creating electronic (EDM-type) music, you might want to try out FL Studio and at least one of Ableton Live or Bitwig Studio, as while they are certainly capable in other areas, and Waveform is certainly capable of producing electronic music, those programs offer unique workflow capabilities that Waveform does not have which tend to lend themselves well to those styles of music. Different people work in different ways, so you may or may not like what they have to offer, but it would be hard to know that unless you try them and find out. Waveform has a few nice things for this too.

Awesome! Very neat! Thank you!!

Yes, at the moment, my needs are very basic, like I said -Just guitar, bass and drums, basically. Interesting to hear what the other DAWS might excel in, though. I'm also curious about Harrison Mix bus, which seems to have something of a cult following... Also, just curious to dive into Waveform, more!!

One thing that I actually favored more in Reaper, but then began to love even more in Waveform is AUTOMATION -Mainly, in Waveform, I think it's cool how you can modify the "curve" of the automation point right there -You just click on the dot and the degree of the curve changes right there. Not nearly as easy, as far as I know, in Reaper...

Downloaded Cakewalk today, but it really slowed down my computer for some reason. So, I uninstalled it and I think I accidentally uninstalled some little things that other programs use, because after that I had some problems (Windows said something was wrong and they were trying to fix it... They couldn't, of course...) -So, I've gotta call Geek Squad tomorrow! Oh, well! next time I download Cakewalk, I'm going to opt out of the zillions of music samples and drum library or whatever -Never use any of that stuff anyway...

Thanks for the interaction and input.