How is Tracktion working out for you? My decision tomm

[headquest]

Just read this on the Sonar 5 review, sounds hell of a lot useful. I'm sort of feeling sonar. I can't wait to demo.

Waveform preview is indeed a useful little function. Just as useful though - whenever you play a track in Sonar it keeps a record of the peak in the waveform level, and a flag appears over the track identifying the peak value in dB. This means that you always have an accurate view of how much headroom there is on the track.

An envious cynic would describe advanced features like these as "bloatware", but in fact both the peak level flags and waveform preview are highly useful. They basically require you to do nothing, but give exactly the visual feedback you need to aid the mixing process, making it easier for rank amateurs like me

[Lunch Money]

headquest, enough with the rhetoric. Even though you know you're as much to blame for a heated exchange of opinions, you're STILL trying to put it on me. Let's both shoulder equal responsibility instead of stubbornly holding on to our personal tendencies to try to 'win' even at the last moment. I apologize for getting too serious. I keep telling myself that I'm better off "letting it go" most of the time, and I'll publicly state that I'm letting it go because I'm hoping that my own pride will FORCE me to stand by that publicly-stated stance. But I'm a right stubborn git.

No name and CMM, the jokes were understood as jokes. Or, in other words, I knew you weren't trying to cut me down whole-heartedly or with any intended malice, but part of the implied message was that I was somehow imposing my will on somebody when if anything I just want people to remain objective. Could have just been bad timing that I didn't acknowledge the humour aspect of the jokes and just focused on what I took as a bit of a dig. If I had an army of Tracktioneers, we would be a force for good and liberation, not for evil.

--

Sonar LE came with my keyboard that I got last night. It'll be fun to try it out.

Greg

[No name]

If I had an army of Tracktioneers, we would be a force for good and liberation, not for evil.

Like George Dubya? I don't think Tracktion is out of this equation at all yet, I shall demo!

[darcyb62]

Just as an FYI, I've been using Tracktion for a 1 year or 2 and I'm thinking of moving on. It's okay but there are certain aspects that I am starting to find cumbersome. Leading the list of contenders is Podium.

[Synthbuilder]

Oh, can I chime in here...

Greg asked for showstoppers in Tracktion. Well, I have a few. Indeed, so much so I sold my T2 licence.

Midiclock doesn't work properly. It was promised and it doesn't work. It doesn't obey the standard rules of midiclock. It doesn't send start, stop or even continue. And the midiclock pulses that are sent are not sent correctly on my PC.

Secondly, midi timing was poor on my machine. It would hiccup during screen redraws as well as being generally intermittently laggy.

Thirdly, no aftertouch support.

Fourthly, no linking of midi CC to rewire names. So to automate any rewire device I had to keep grabbing the Reason manual to find out which CC corresponded to what.

Fifthly, screen updates were slow. So much so that the track marker would move jerkily across the screen. The counter would go up in lumps as opposed to counting fluidly. Removing the VU meters completely would speed things up somewhat.

Other than that I did like Tracktion. Its workflow was good and its audio handling very good.

It is obvious that not everyone had the bugs I had, but when the last update actually made the midi problem worse and not better, I decided to sell up.

I bought Live. With the exception of no PDC for rewire devices, it is pretty much all I could want in a music making environment.

[headquest]

Even though you know you're as much to blame for a heated exchange of opinions, you're STILL trying to put it on me. Let's both shoulder equal responsibility instead of stubbornly holding on to our personal tendencies to try to 'win' even at the last moment. I apologize for getting too serious. I keep telling myself that I'm better off "letting it go" most of the time, and I'll publicly state that I'm letting it go because I'm hoping that my own pride will FORCE me to stand by that publicly-stated stance. But I'm a right stubborn git.

Hey Greg, I think we have become known for winding each other up whenever this topic comes up . I already shouldered responsibility and apologised to you (more than once) and I'm glad you've now done the same

As you said on the other thread, people here must think we hate each other Actually we do get along and have even done music together ... we just hate each others sequencers

Anyway, peace bro', and I hope you have more pleasure with your Sonar LE than you did with your Live 4 Lite

[headquest]

Oh, can I chime in here...

Greg asked for showstoppers in Tracktion. Well, I have a few. Indeed, so much so I sold my T2 licence.

Uh-oh ... DUCK

[Synthbuilder]

Uh-oh ... DUCK

Hey Headquest I think you're safe for now.
I am enjoying Live

Of course, I will still blame you if I suddenly realise I don't like Live...

[headquest]

But of course

[pHz]

Oh, can I chime in here...
Greg asked for showstoppers in Tracktion. Well, I have a few. Indeed, so much so I sold my T2 licence.(/quote]
before greg says it i will (tongue in cheek of course) ... just remember showstoppers for YOU might not be of any consequence to other (maybe even a majority of) tracktion users ...

Midiclock doesn't work properly. It was promised and it doesn't work. It doesn't obey the standard rules of midiclock. It doesn't send start, stop or even continue. And the midiclock pulses that are sent are not sent correctly on my PC.
Secondly, midi timing was poor on my machine. It would hiccup during screen redraws as well as being generally intermittently laggy.

depending on what you perceive as a reasonable time to wait for a fix (or how many time-critical projects you have on the go) you might just have jumped ship too early ...

Thirdly, no aftertouch support.

i dont use this personally but as i remember tracktion DOES respond to aftertouch but doesnt record it ... i agree though ... this ought to be addressed ...

Fourthly, no linking of midi CC to rewire names. So to automate any rewire device I had to keep grabbing the Reason manual to find out which CC corresponded to what.

admittedly not great ... but a showstopper ??? ... no more than live not playing clips in the arrangement view when i dragged them there from the session view and instead having to always remember to record them across instead ...

Fifthly, screen updates were slow. So much so that the track marker would move jerkily across the screen. The counter would go up in lumps as opposed to counting fluidly. Removing the VU meters completely would speed things up somewhat.

this issue has been discussed to death and you take a personal view on where the 'blame' lies between individual syustem setups and T2s code ... admittedly mackie have a responsibility to try and ensure T2 runs smoothly under as many configurations as possible but no application runs identically in terms of resource usage and performance on ALL systems (especially where PCs and windows is concerned) ...

Other than that I did like Tracktion. Its workflow was good and its audio handling very good.
It is obvious that not everyone had the bugs I had, but when the last update actually made the midi problem worse and not better, I decided to sell up.
I bought Live. With the exception of no PDC for rewire devices, it is pretty much all I could want in a music making environment.

no arguments there ... my post was just for balance (and more mischeviously to keep the debate going) ... as previously mentioned i wobble between T2 and live on a regular basis although at the minute im with mackie and not ableton ...

slainte rob

[headquest]

but a showstopper ??? ... no more than live not playing clips in the arrangement view when i dragged them there from the session view and instead having to always remember to record them across instead ...

That's very odd Rob - I have never had that problem. To make sure I wasn't imagining it I just tested this with my machine, and I successfully dragged some audio and MIDI loops into the arrangement view while playing another project. Not only did it work, there were no audio dropouts at all even though I was adding new material to the timeline while the track was playing. Another example of Ableton's truly phenomenal gapless audio engine at work

Did you have this problem as a one-off? Please do a double check and either:
A. send your system specs to Ableton if you've not previously done so, or
B. confirm back here that it was an honest mistake and it does actually work

my post was just for balance (and more mischeviously to keep the debate going) ...

[naturestoned]

for me discovering Tracktion had a simple effect... I am more creative and productive now. The workflow is IMO very good and - for me - better than the large sequencer suites.
No more struggle with lots of windows... I have been licenced Cubase user but changed to Tracktion2 after exploring the free Tracktion 1 NFR Version downloaded in Dec 2004.

I love the RACKS where you can define cross-project modular VST setups with all settings (Vocal channel strip, guitar fx chains, (bi-amp-sim'd) distortion guitars ...)

Some things are still missing for me but lets see what T3 brings to us ....



...and when

[Karbon L. Forms]

Fifthly, screen updates were slow. So much so that the track marker would move jerkily across the screen. The counter would go up in lumps as opposed to counting fluidly. Removing the VU meters completely would speed things up somewhat.

this issue has been discussed to death and you take a personal view on where the 'blame' lies between individual syustem setups and T2s code ... admittedly mackie have a responsibility to try and ensure T2 runs smoothly under as many configurations as possible but no application runs identically in terms of resource usage and performance on ALL systems (especially where PCs and windows is concerned) ...

Jules is currently doing some funky refactoring of JUCE graphics rendering with a view to acceleration. I imagine this will help this issue somewhat.

http://www.adbe.org/juceforum/viewtopic ... highlight=

[Lunch Money]

I didn't mean to say that there weren't things that were showstoppers for some people, just that they're not showstoppers for all or even I'd wager most people. Not being an outboard MIDI gear guy, I can only go by what I've seen other people report, and if someone told me they were planning on that kind of setup with Tracktion at its core, I'd definitely give them fair warning and get them to try the demo first.

I hope that newbies either reading this or other threads understand that all the issues mentioned don't interfere with someone's ability to use and record MIDI through their controllers, though. I can well imagine someone thinking, "Wot, then, does that mean I can't use my Evolution to control my SampleTank?" and I just hope people understand the difference.

In sum, one person's showstoppers are another person's non-issues.

Greg

[headquest]

I'm interested to hear Synthbuilder mention the slow GUI updates problem as one of his showstoppers. For me that issue was the final straw that made me abandon Tracktion and move over to Live as my main host. The GUI slowdown problems was actually causing audio dropouts when recording, which basically made it a no go for me.

The point is that when I raised this issue on the forum I was consistently told by people (including some who have contributed to this thread) that it must be system specific because other's weren't having the issue. Well Synthbuilder, for one, obviously did have that problem. And if, as pHz says, it has been "done to death" on the Tracktion forum I can only assume that quite a few people have experienced this particular showstopper.

It's good to know that Jules is doing something that may help in the future, but like the MIDI note drop, rewire issues, etc, I assume that this will not make it into the Tracktion 2.1 update and will have to wait until the audio engine is rewritten for Tracktion 3 next year.