Dear Waveform Devs...

[tmaworks]

So, I'm gonna make this as quick as possible.

The things that make me not take Waveform as seriously as I want to and the things I think that absolutely 100% would have to change in order for me to do so. They are few and they are:

1. UNDO function must apply to:

VOLUME,
PANNING
&
PLUGIN PARAMETERS

I need undo to cover EVERYTHING. It's part of my workflow. Ninety percent of the time I'm going back and forth between different plugin functions turning this knob turning that knob, experimenting; Undo is an essential part of my workflow (and others' from what I'm gathering) and this basic function must be a part of any daw I use for serious mixing. Absolute MUST. If I could only have ya'll take care of one thing. It would be this -Hands down, it would be this.

2. Would be nice if you could pause during loop recording. that would be nice.

3. During regular tracking -when you're doing take after take and you're not in loop mode, it would be nice if the take beneath the take you're doing would be muted automatically. As is right now, you can hear the previous take beneath the one your doing, so... that's annoying.

4. It would be nice if there was an "invert polarity" button right there on the track and you didn't have to open another menu to get to it. That would be very nice and would show that Waveform is a real Tracking Man's Daw. That would be nice...

I could talk for a while about all of the positives about waveform, but these are the things that are really holding it back for me.

I'll continue to mix in reaper until the undo thing is resolved. Would not hesitate to pay a nominal fee if just even the first issue was taken care of...

Thanks.

[Watchful]

Number 3 is by design, so that you can layer recordings (vocals in particular). If you want previous takes muted, you use Loop.

[tmaworks]

Then it's not a serious tracking DAW, imo -I've never come across another DAW that does it that way. If I want a certain take to be going beneath the one I'm doing, then that's something I would do manually -How does it make sense to be recording a drum kit with 14 mics and be hearing all those mics again beneath the take I'm doing?? -Not pro...

I was trying to get around this with "loop mode", but you can't pause loop mode -which is another draw-back when you're doing multiple takes of an 8 minute long song and you wanna take a break in-between. If you could pause loop made, then that would be a viable work around...

I, also, think there is a way to monitor only the source you're listening to, which would be acceptable, but I don't know where it is and I think it's something you have to set, so that's cool -But the other way I mentioned is my preference and the way that every other DAW I've used does it... Still though -This is all secondary to the undo functions applying to the aforementioned parameters, imo...

[jabe]

3. During regular tracking -when you're doing take after take and you're not in loop mode, it would be nice if the take beneath the take you're doing would be muted automatically. As is right now, you can hear the previous take beneath the one your doing, so... that's annoying.

I'm certain the lack of undo/redo is accidental and most likely an inadvertent result of other changes.

Just a thought - it took me a while when you first posted to understand what you meant; I've never previously heard anyone refer to the recording and building of tracks as "tracking". I wonder if it's confusing anyone else. Perhaps others do say it. Anyway, you might like to be aware in case anyone else appears confused.

[Watchful]

How does it make sense to be recording a drum kit with 14 mics and be hearing all those mics again beneath the take I'm doing??

I'm sorry--I forgot you had so many mics going at once. I recall you explaining your set up previously, whereas I was thinking only one mic live at a time (e.g., vocalist). Yes, I see your concern. I've seen other folks criticize Waveform's ability to manage multiple inputs at once, too, so you're not alone.

And you're 100% right on "pausing while looping." I needed that again last Friday and had to abort/redo some takes because of it. Would have been great if I could pause, deal with the issue, and then resume a minute or two later. Instead, it wound up being easier to abort/redo the whole thing.

[Watchful]

4. It would be nice if there was an "invert polarity" button right there on the track and you didn't have to open another menu to get to it.

You can right-click on any clip and invert its polarity from there.

I believe there's a way to do a whole track by clicking on the pan/level plug in as well, if you have a bunch of clips in a track. It's been a while since I've done it, and it's not--sigh--a documented feature.

[tmaworks]

3. During regular tracking -when you're doing take after take and you're not in loop mode, it would be nice if the take beneath the take you're doing would be muted automatically. As is right now, you can hear the previous take beneath the one your doing, so... that's annoying.

I'm certain the lack of undo/redo is accidental and most likely an inadvertent result of other changes.

Just a thought - it took me a while when you first posted to understand what you meant; I've never previously heard anyone refer to the recording and building of tracks as "tracking". I wonder if it's confusing anyone else. Perhaps others do say it. Anyway, you might like to be aware in case anyone else appears confused.

To your first point: I thought that, as well, but I heard back from one of the higher ups at Tracktion this morning and he said that it was by design

Two: Thank you for the clarification on that. I've always known recording and tracking to synonymous with each-other! But, thanks for bringing that to my attention...

[tmaworks]

4. It would be nice if there was an "invert polarity" button right there on the track and you didn't have to open another menu to get to it.

You can right-click on any clip and invert its polarity from there.

I believe there's a way to do a whole track by clicking on the pan/level plug in as well, if you have a bunch of clips in a track. It's been a while since I've done it, and it's not--sigh--a documented feature.

You're right about the clip part and the other part, too. Yes. The option to reverse the polarity on one clip seems a little silly to me. Like, if you're editing a bunch of audio and chopping things up... I dunno... If it doesn't hurt anything, then whatever, but if you're setting up and actual tracking session with lots of mics, the way they have it set up does not expedite the process. They have a mute button and a solo button and an add plugin button and whatever other button on each tracks mixer panel -Why not just add ANOTHER ONE -"P" for Polarity Flip...

[tmaworks]

How does it make sense to be recording a drum kit with 14 mics and be hearing all those mics again beneath the take I'm doing??

I'm sorry--I forgot you had so many mics going at once. I recall you explaining your set up previously, whereas I was thinking only one mic live at a time (e.g., vocalist). Yes, I see your concern. I've seen other folks criticize Waveform's ability to manage multiple inputs at once, too, so you're not alone.

And you're 100% right on "pausing while looping." I needed that again last Friday and had to abort/redo some takes because of it. Would have been great if I could pause, deal with the issue, and then resume a minute or two later. Instead, it wound up being easier to abort/redo the whole thing.

Right! These things along with the undo/ redo stuff are what make me not take Traction Waveform seriously as a Upper Tier, Recording Man's DAW...

I love the click track feature, the snap, the grid, automation, bussing and auxing, editing, whatever else Waveform has -In my opinion, I'd rather perform all of those tasks in Waveform over any other Daw I've tried -But, the already discussed things really bring Waveform to a deficit, in my opinion...

Whenever I bring up these issues to some of my fellows on other forums the unanimous consensus is "Just stick with Reaper -Why would you mess around with that thing??". The thing is -I don't like Reaper -I like WAVEFORM. And, I don't want Waveform to be like Reaper -But, these types of basic functions really need to be addressed... I hate the fact that people look down on Waveform...

Another amazing thing would be if Waveform included a BRIDGE so that you could utilize 32but plugins!!! Why not?? I use a bunch of thirty two but plugins.

These are all simple, simple changes that would really ratchet-up Waveform into the big leagues...

[Kott]

Bridge is far not a simple feature. As Waveform inherits plugin hosting from JUCE framework it's doubtful that can be implemented by Tracktion devs.

[tmaworks]

Bridge is far not a simple feature. As Waveform inherits plugin hosting from JUCE framework it's doubtful that can be implemented by Tracktion devs.

Question then (And I'm not trying to be sarcastic) -Why is it as easy as buying J-bridge or any other bridge plugin?? I, to be totally transparent, have never purchased any of bridge plugin or mechanism, but I know that's all you have to do in order to be able to use 32 bit plugins with a 63bit daw -Just load one up...

[Kott]

Bridge is far not a simple feature. As Waveform inherits plugin hosting from JUCE framework it's doubtful that can be implemented by Tracktion devs.

Question then (And I'm not trying to be sarcastic) -Why is it as easy as buying J-bridge or any other bridge plugin?? I, to be totally transparent, have never purchased any of bridge plugin or mechanism, but I know that's all you have to do in order to be able to use 32 bit plugins with a 63bit daw -Just load one up...

Do you know how such bridges work?

[tmaworks]

Bridge is far not a simple feature. As Waveform inherits plugin hosting from JUCE framework it's doubtful that can be implemented by Tracktion devs.

Question then (And I'm not trying to be sarcastic) -Why is it as easy as buying J-bridge or any other bridge plugin?? I, to be totally transparent, have never purchased any of bridge plugin or mechanism, but I know that's all you have to do in order to be able to use 32 bit plugins with a 63bit daw -Just load one up...

Do you know how such bridges work?

Obviously not.

[Kott]

Obviously not.

You have to implement a cross-platform part (to load 32-bit binaries) which the DAW communicates with. It's possible but brings complexity. So having out-of-process plugin scan and sanboxing in relatively recent JUCE/Waveform I don't think that devs would step in that in visible plans.

[Watchful]

I had a conversation with the devs a couple years ago about including a bridge into Waveform. They were quite candid in their response: the number of support headaches a bridge would cause far exceeded the number of users that would benefit from it; they correctly pointed out that the number of people depending on 32-bit plugins decreases every year.

In short, it would make more people annoyed with performance issues than a bridge could ever make happy.