Tracktion VS Cubase SX ??

[Churchy]

I have been a Cubase SX1 user for some years now; and only now (today) from reading this forum i have found out about Tracktion - and i am intrigued!

I like the look of it .. sorta understated

I am a heavy VST-user, I don't really use audio tracks much

i am not very happy with my VST performance with Cubase ; will Tracktion improve this at all??

Are there many things you can't do with Tracktion??

cheers all

[Churchy]

from the mackie website - "It won't pretend to be a mixing desk or show you panels with pictures of screws that are accurately copied from a real piece of hardware"

that really appeals to me; i hate all that wank

[C00kie]

Welcome to KVR!

In most cases switching of host (e.g. Tracktion for Cubase) will not solve performance problems with VSTi's. Normally the host itself uses only 5% of total CPU power and the rest is used by the plugins you use in the projects.

I think this might be important to you: Tracktion was at first designed as an audio recorder to which midi was added. Tracktion V1.6 has a very basic & crude midi editor compared to Cubase, but the one in V2 is supposed to be much better.

Maybe there are ways to improve the performance of Cubase for you, like "freeze" tracks that are not currently edited. Or use other VSTi's that do not use as much CPU. Or maybe by raising the buffer size (increase latency) or lowering the sample rate (44.1 instead of 192kHz) you can get back some CPU power.

It helps if you state your CPU processor type (speed) RAM size, sound card, its settings (buffer size, sample rate) and some of your favorite VSTs.

[Churchy]

thanks for the reply!!

i use an AMD athlon 2600 with 512mb RAM, and a rather crappy soundblaster audigy. i use 48kHz (soundblaster won't support anything else) and I usually use a latency of 10-20ms (at work now so i cant tell you actual buffer size stuff)

yeah i'm just not getting good enough performance out of it in my opinion.

i mainly use native instruments FM7, kontakt, pro53 also the cpu-hogging z3ta, and sometimes the synth1

i tend to make quite nasty music so i use a lot of effects, ie overdrive, quadrafuzz, waves 6-band parametric eq, wavechanger etc

hmmm i see that tracktion doesnt seem to support VST-automation; this puts me off *a lot*

[IIRs]

hmmm i see that tracktion doesnt seem to support VST-automation; this puts me off *a lot*

Yes it does! Tracktion's VST automation is one of its best features IMO, barring little niggles like not being able to tie it to clips etc.

[Churchy]

oh really??? i thought i read in a thread you couldn't'

that's cool then, i'm sold ;D

thanx

[C00kie]

I think freezing tracks (bouncing to audio temporarily) is your short term solution, Churchy. Z3ta is rather nasty with CPU indeed... Do you freeze the finished tracks? Helps a great deal! Though I heard stories that some Cubase versions may need 10 minutes to freeze a track of 30 secs

Why not download the demo of Tracktion 1.6 and see what it does for you. It has a very easy freeze function

[Churchy]

freezing sounds like a damn good idea; i would do it but there's no quick & efficient way to do it with Cubase SX1 , so i don't do it

yep i will d/l the demo and give it a shot !!!!

thanks for your help guys

[Churchy]

okay i have had one nights experience with it now!

i like it - the layout is cool + uncluttered

so far the main problem i have is with timing ... there doesn't seem to be any shuffle setting like cubase.

i know i can use groove quantize, but i like to be able to see the shuffle on the grid itself ... you can't 'see' groove quantise..

am i doing something wrong or is this just the way it is?

[IIRs]

Just the way it is I'm afraid.

[.jon]

so far the main problem i have is with timing ... there doesn't seem to be any shuffle setting like cubase.

The grid/pianoroll editing was the biggest problem for me as well after switching from Cubase... in fact it still is until v.2 comes out, and to overcome that problem I bought energy XT. I do all the MIDI stuff there and then import waves to Tracktion. (I could also use eXT inside Tracktion, but arranging with finished audio clips has improved my workflow.)

I never got my head around Tracktion's quantize paradigm ( ) either, it counts the measures in some obscure mathematical way that's too much for me

I hope T2's improved MIDI editing sees to these issues. Anyway, I'm really glad I ditched Cubase, having a clear, functional interface is more important to me & my music than billion of tiny buttons for a horde of obscene functions I never use.

.jontu

[IIRs]

I never got my head around Tracktion's quantize paradigm ( ) either, it counts the measures in some obscure mathematical way that's too much for me

Just divide by 4. quantising to 16th notes in Cubase = 1/4 beat in tracktion..

[.jon]

Just divide by 4. quantising to 16th notes in Cubase = 1/4 beat in tracktion..

See, I told you - higher mathematics! :p

[IIRs]

Just divide by 4. quantising to 16th notes in Cubase = 1/4 beat in tracktion..

See, I told you - higher mathematics! :p

Actually, thinking about it, you need to multiply by 4 to get from 1/16 to 1/4.

[cbit]

tracktions groove quantize is unuseable for me too

A couple of other things cubase can do that tracktion can't yet:

T can't timestretch without sounding awful.
T can't apply pitch envelopes to audio.
T doesnt have auto beat slicing (and extracting to groove maps etc)