Do You Embrace A Touch Screen With Your DAW?

[BONES]

To reiterate with Reaper's incredible Track capabilities. "A track is a track is a track", the saying goes and this is no small saying. You can literally load anything and as many things you want onto a track and save it.

Isn't the whole point of a track that it's just one thing, not a whole bunch of different things?

[jancivil]

I like that Cubendo separates MIDI volume from the volume resulting from an instrument channel, the product of (but not actually) the track. Unlike Logic. The first time I saw that in Logic, I said I don't think this is going to work out. There's flexibility with the two concepts remaining two things. CC7 is the amount of energy going TO an instrument, Instrument Channel is the audio that comes FROM the instrument. I don't know what advantage conceptually conflating concepts brings (I'm not asking, I don't care.).

[twal]

To reiterate with Reaper's incredible Track capabilities. "A track is a track is a track", the saying goes and this is no small saying. You can literally load anything and as many things you want onto a track and save it.

Isn't the whole point of a track that it's just one thing, not a whole bunch of different things?

Not the case most of the time for many daws. In Reaper you can have MIDI, audio, and even video on a track. Say you want to have a Hit sound, or a Crash sound, but want flexibility when auditioning for one. You can put a MIDI arrangement, as well as a wav sample on a track, also add some automation to it, save the track and load it into any project you want. You can setup a way to audition by browsing the audio on it. You can have a track load 10 wavs and pick which you want and/or insert the audio anywhere on the timeline by way of inserting the track. You can add all the Reaper bundled fx (like the simple eq, comp, reverb or whatever; in which you may even set to presets, or any third party if you so please) you want and it will not bog down your load time. Tracks are like "blocks of time" you can add anything to and put anywhere on your timeline, very powerful...

[twal]

I like that Cubendo separates MIDI volume from the volume resulting from an instrument channel, the product of (but not actually) the track. Unlike Logic. The first time I saw that in Logic, I said I don't think this is going to work out. There's flexibility with the two concepts remaining two things. CC7 is the amount of energy going TO an instrument, Instrument Channel is the audio that comes FROM the instrument. I don't know what advantage conceptually conflating concepts brings (I'm not asking, I don't care.).

I think you can just automate both instances via separate volume fx however you want to in Reaper.

Adds to interesting flexibility like I mentioned before, just load a track with separate fx volumes and automate each separately, and/or can add your volume control to the track if you don't want automation, and save it- then you can load a Crash for instance that has a wav file and MIDI file with direct control of their volumes if you want to select which one you want..

So, it may not be interesting to you but fun to describe...

[BONES]

So, like I said, just shit your drum machine can do more easily, more transparently and with greater flexibility.

Not the case most of the time for many daws. In Reaper you can have MIDI, audio, and even video on a track.

Yes, you can, but my point is why the f**k would you want to?

Say you want to have a Hit sound, or a Crash sound, but want flexibility when auditioning for one. You can put a MIDI arrangement, as well as a wav sample on a track, also add some automation to it, save the track and load it into any project you want.

Or you can put the sample into something like Battery/Groove Agent/Impact XT and save it as a f**king preset. It's answering a question nobody with even the vaguest idea of what they are doing would ever ask. It's making life more complicated for clueless idiots who should instead make the effort to learn their craft a bit better.

Tracks are like "blocks of time" you can add anything to and put anywhere on your timeline, very powerful...

Maybe if you didn't have to wrap them in an even more powerful DAW but in that context it makes no f**king sense to me at all. It just overcomplicates things that should be simple, for little or no benefit.

[jancivil]

So, like I said, just shit your drum machine can do more easily, more transparently and with greater flexibility.

Not the case most of the time for many daws. In Reaper you can have MIDI, audio, and even video on a track.

Yes, you can, but my point is why the f**k would you want to?

Say you want to have a Hit sound, or a Crash sound, but want flexibility when auditioning for one. You can put a MIDI arrangement, as well as a wav sample on a track, also add some automation to it, save the track and load it into any project you want.

Or you can put the sample into [..] and save it as a f**king preset. It's answering a question nobody with even the vaguest idea of what they are doing would ever ask.

LOL, exactly.
It's one thing to proselytize for your DAW of choice but make it make sense. Those are not things someone that does drums in life says.

I audition a crash in the instrument. I don't need "a track" to do it. It's not confounded with other things so how is going to it directly where it's loaded inflexible?
I don't know why save and load it wherever is any challenge at all.

I have individual parts of a drum kit automated individually, in the instrument. I also output all of the components of the kit individually. This is what that looks like:

---

Drums part in project.png

---

and there's an automation lane for a crash.

---

Here's a *track* for the drums:

---

the part, a selection.png

with the name of an articulation of one crash cymbal selected in the box for 'pitch'.

Do you want to do something just because it can be done, or do you have reasons for choices.

I have a single *MIDI* part for drums. MIDI part goes to drum instrument. Ultimately I'm probably going to render a two-file and mix. Why would I place samples on the same track as the MIDI? This confuses terms and does in no way afford flexibility I ain't got.

[twal]

So, like I said, just shit your drum machine can do more easily, more transparently and with greater flexibility.

Many artists don't use drum machines. I use them, for drum parts. I don't load Crashes, Hits, and Voxes into drum machines. That's what I was talking about. If you do that, then fantastic.

Many people that use Ableton just place audio wavs on the timeline.

Not the case most of the time for many daws. In Reaper you can have MIDI, audio, and even video on a track.

Yes, you can, but my point is why the f**k would you want to?

It's not that you would usually, I mean you can if you want, and there are reasons to that I don't care to even mention; but like I mentioned before, I can save a track template with MIDI and an audio file on it if I want to have options I can isolate later (like creating a track template that is a riser- and have a wav and a synth to use on it).

More importantly what this inherently implies is I don't have to search track types when I want to add a track template to the timeline. I don't have to differentiate shi* if I want to look at a list- I can just pick and choose what I want, AND then add or subtract from the track later if I want to without having to load up a new differentiated track. Sometimes I may even want to add audio on a track used for midi because I frankly want to drag it there.

Say you want to have a Hit sound, or a Crash sound, but want flexibility when auditioning for one. You can put a MIDI arrangement, as well as a wav sample on a track, also add some automation to it, save the track and load it into any project you want.

Or you can put the sample into something like Battery/Groove Agent/Impact XT and save it as a f**king preset. It's answering a question nobody with even the vaguest idea of what they are doing would ever ask. It's making life more complicated for clueless idiots who should instead make the effort to learn their craft a bit better.

So many people don't use drum machines, I guess they are all idiots.

I mentioned earlier it's great to have options if you so please, you can you load a 4 track brass ensemble with automation for each instrument and fx for each one. You may not want to, but this may appeal to someone who does.

Tracks are like "blocks of time" you can add anything to and put anywhere on your timeline, very powerful...

Maybe if you didn't have to wrap them in an even more powerful DAW but in that context it makes no f**king sense to me at all. It just overcomplicates things that should be simple, for little or no benefit.

I can load a track that has 10 audio files on it with 10 different automations and 10 different fx on it to piece off as different parts to different sections of a song in half a second of time. That would take you much longer using a drum machine. If these things don't appeal to you that's fine but they simplify things not complicate them.

[twal]

I have a single *MIDI* part for drums. MIDI part goes to drum instrument. Ultimately I'm probably going to render a two-file and mix. Why would I place samples on the same track as the MIDI? This confuses terms and does in no way afford flexibility I ain't got.

I'm not saying you would want to render them together but you might. I meant, let's say I have a track template called "riser", and said riser track has a midi file on it with a note event, with also a synth to effectively play said note; and I have an audio file that is a riser as well, I can put them both on the same track template and then load them both at once, then pick which one I want to keep. Things like this I find interesting in implication and possibility- not that this instance is so farfetched but it may or not be useful to someone.

[machinesworking]

I like that Cubendo separates MIDI volume from the volume resulting from an instrument channel, the product of (but not actually) the track. Unlike Logic. The first time I saw that in Logic, I said I don't think this is going to work out. There's flexibility with the two concepts remaining two things. CC7 is the amount of energy going TO an instrument, Instrument Channel is the audio that comes FROM the instrument. I don't know what advantage conceptually conflating concepts brings (I'm not asking, I don't care.).

I know you did not ask but DP used to need a MIDI track for each instrument track, this meant that the fader you would naturally use was a cc7 fader on the MIDI track, and it's surprising how many virtual instruments do not respond to cc7 unless you either set it up in their preferences or assign cc7 to the volume knob in the plugin. Logic and Live must be why then if Cubase also honors cc7.

[BONES]

Many artists don't use drum machines.

Many artists are clueless f**king idiots. This is not news to me.

I use them, for drum parts. I don't load Crashes, Hits, and Voxes into drum machines.

Why not? Didn't think of it? Battery's factory library includes all kinds of things. Sometimes Sample One is a better fit.

Many people that use Ableton just place audio wavs on the timeline.

As do I, when that's what gets the job done. Studio One's timeline has a lot of handy features that can make doing that really, really powerful. But that's not the kind of thing you were talking about earlier.

Say you want to have a Hit sound, or a Crash sound, but want flexibility when auditioning for one. You can put a MIDI arrangement, as well as a wav sample on a track, also add some automation to it, save the track and load it into any project you want.

So that all your projects end up sounding the same. I don't use templates, I start every project from scratch.

So many people don't use drum machines, I guess they are all idiots.

Clearly. Clueless idiots.

I mentioned earlier it's great to have options

Actually it's not when it makes things far too complicated. It's kind of a good example of why I've never had any interest in Reaper - it's got every stupid idea every clueless idiot ever thought of crammed into it. Of course, all DAWs are going the same way now - in a desperate effort to appeal to a wider audience, they dilute all the things that made them popular in the first place. It's counter-productive.

It would be great if you could build your own DAW in the same way you can build a custom Linux kernel with just the features you need and nothing else.

if you so please, you can you load a 4 track brass ensemble with automation for each instrument and fx for each one. You may not want to, but this may appeal to someone who does.

In Studio One, you can just drag those 4 tracks from another project in one go, you don't need to complicate things any more than that.

I can load a track that has 10 audio files on it with 10 different automations and 10 different fx on it to piece off as different parts to different sections of a song in half a second of time.

Yeah, same in Studio One, I think, but it's still just a single track, with multiple clips. Nobody needs to put every individual audio file on its own track.

That would take you much longer using a drum machine.

That would depend. Battery has per sample effects and envelopes, for example, so it can do all those same kinds of things.

[jancivil]

I like that Cubendo separates MIDI volume from the volume resulting from an instrument channel, the product of (but not actually) the track. Unlike Logic. The first time I saw that in Logic, I said I don't think this is going to work out. There's flexibility with the two concepts remaining two things. CC7 is the amount of energy going TO an instrument, Instrument Channel is the audio that comes FROM the instrument. I don't know what advantage conceptually conflating concepts brings (I'm not asking, I don't care.).

I know you did not ask but DP used to need a MIDI track for each instrument track, this meant that the fader you would naturally use was a cc7 fader on the MIDI track, and it's surprising how many virtual instruments do not respond to cc7 unless you either set it up in their preferences or assign cc7 to the volume knob in the plugin. Logic and Live must be why then if Cubase also honors cc7.

I've not seen noticed a vi that doesn't, personally. I've only set up two controller presets in Cubase that include CC7, one has a pitch band lane, the other doesn't. Both have SINE in their names because CC7 is what SINE Player's "Core" channel uses in everything. There is no Host Automation to be had there so it's a necessary part of it, they're not trying to be consistent or normalize everything.

I saw someone at the other forum talking about CC7 default levels in VSL Synchron Player making some difference, but they use a notation app to sequence the thing anyway. I can't say I know what 'off' means in terms of a level but half the time I don't care, I skip setting it unless it's a case like SINE or* Sometimes it seems like "127", sometimes quite less but I'm not measuring. *: Meaning I want juice going to but have the option of backing off *mixing*.

I don't know what an instrument track that isn't a MIDI track even is, except it's a way of instantiating an instrument in Cubendo (as opposed to the "rack"), and we used to have to establish it to make a drum map saveable/useable. I noticed when I made the screen shot there they've fixed it.

[jancivil]

Many artists don't use drum machines.

Many artists are clueless f**king idiots. This is not news to me.

I use them, for drum parts. I don't load Crashes, Hits, and Voxes into drum machines.

I knew this before I saw it. Yes, we're familiar with the type that uses sample packs... "artists"

We use a 'drum instrument'* with a 'library' where a 'crash' may offer bell, bow, edge, be struck with a stick, a mallet, brushes, hand, and then the instrument has a modeled swell setting, short, medium, long, "hihat splosh", washy ride, "very subtle ride" for cymbals. The hihat has tip, shank, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 of each, pedaled splash etc. Were we talking "flexible", here? "drum parts", sure.

(*: I don't know if we call BFD (or Battery or fill-in-the-blanks) a drum machine but I'm fine with the term.)

[twal]

I had sat here writing out responses for about 30 min. but frankly I just think it's better to close that discussion. I saved the response in case someone is actually curious but everyone have a great day; and hope you all find new ways of looking at things. Anyone with a good sense of critical thinking (or you don't need that either) can deduce what is happening here, God Bless...

[Psuper]

If you "mobile" then yes. For everyone else it's a hard absolutely not.