If you really want to appreciate Tracktion...

[Lunch Money]

It does MIDI the way I'd expect it to, which is very different than the way Beardedone expects it to, so that's totally understandable.

But in general, I ALWAYS (whether I intend to or not) have "WTF?" as my initial reaction to people who describe its workflow as anything other than intuitive and obvious. If you can't understand T's workflow, it's because you're trying too hard. You're expecting complexity when there's only simplicity and elegance.

Just an opinion, of course.

[kL]

I have no axe to grind (well, I do have a machete, but that's for the occasional coconut) and realize that everyone's experience is unique to themselves.

But even cursor movement is a drag in Sonar -- you can't grab it, you can't click in the track area: all you can do is click in the little strip in the top... and that doesn't always work first time. And forget about zoom. A bunch of ways to do it, none of which are the obvious intuitive choice: the scrollwheel.

I started doing this back in the dark ages of the Atari, repping at NAMM shows and the like for Dr. T's Music Software (ever edit MIDI in Tiger? Probably not and too bad... it was a high water mark in useability that disappeared, gone with the wind) when I wasn't touring. I've used nearly every program, at one time or another.

The stuff has come a long way -- and a rising tide lifts all boats -- but for the first part of a project -- especially one using soft synths -- nothing is as fast for me as Tracktion.
I don't like mixing in it, but up until that point it's a revelation. And that revelation took about 15 minutes to reveal itself to me.

But people are like snowflakes: no two alike. Vive le difference.

[Beardedone]

It does MIDI the way I'd expect it to, which is very different than the way Beardedone expects it to, so that's totally understandable.

But in general, I ALWAYS (whether I intend to or not) have "WTF?" as my initial reaction to people who describe its workflow as anything other than intuitive and obvious. If you can't understand T's workflow, it's because you're trying too hard. You're expecting complexity when there's only simplicity and elegance.

Just an opinion, of course.

I want to explain why I am not happy with Tracktion. My musical MO oftentimes is to program midi notes by hand. I sometimes play them and edit them after. My model for ease of doing this is FruityLoops with Sonar and eXT close behind. In Tracktion this kind of operation is not at all easy.

My particular difficulties are as follows:

1 : There is no midi track by default - not huge but strange. OK, I can insert one. You wouldn't know to look at that it was anything but an audio app.

2: Piano roll scrolling always seems to disappear. I have to click around the keyboard to find it. I often cannot.

3: Zoom in and out is very awkward I find it hard to manage clicking and pulling up or down on the "now time" cursor. I always find it tricky to line up. There must be an easier way.

4. There are no midi FX or piano roll comps - arps, randomizers or selective quanitizer functions. This is a major deficiencies.

5. No matter how often I use it I cannot remember where things are -- OK that's just me but Sonar and Fruity have many buttons and such and I always can recall what they do and know instantly where they are.


Things I do like:

VST automation - easy as pie. Beautifully implemented.

Supports all of the instruments and effects I have and loads them quickly also.

Its sounds great.

I would sincerely like to get some good out of this program. I know many who do. I don't want to be the exception.

Cheers,
Gordon

[Rock]

...Dr. T's Music Software (ever edit MIDI in Tiger? Probably not and too bad... it was a high water mark in useability that disappeared, gone with the wind...

Go Dr. T's! They need to bring this one back cause Dr.T's VST would sound cool. One thing that has changed since I used Dr. T's that makes sequencing easier in my opinion is having a hard drive.

[Lunch Money]

Beardedone:

1. This one is really the only one I am surprised by: it never struck me as anything but "the way it should be". I hate it when an app opens with default tracks. Since my MIDI usually comes from other sources (ie. recording it via a controller keyboard, dragging it from Stepchild) I never really think about it. But the few times I HAVE needed it, it seemed to me that "insert new MIDI clip" works dandy and is intuitive. I want new MIDI, I insert new MIDI! Where people have problems, I believe, is in the concept that each track is both MIDI and audio. So many people expect to have either a MIDI track or an Audio track, so they look around for these things, when in fact all you have is... a track. It's up to you to decide what gets put in there, and I'd be annoyed if my program decided FOR me! This becomes even handier when using plug-ins that can use MIDI and Audio information simultaneously (GSnap, GetaBlitch Jr.).

2. The "piano" part of the piano roll does indeed seem to disappear at inconvenient times. I can relate to you here.

3. Zooming in and out is one of T's strengths... you just have to use your mouse wheel! I can't remember which is the default, wheel or shift+wheel, but I have mine set up so that wheeling zooms, and shift+wheel scrolls forward and backward through the timeline.

4. I agree completely. Which is part of the reason I got eXT in the first place (also, Racks hadn't been implemented when I got eXT). Tracktion + eXT's comps = hella good!

5. The cool thing is that you don't HAVE to remember where anything is! It's all context-based. That's why there aren't TOoo many buttons around. You have a MIDI clip that you want to do stuff with, you click it and look at the options in the bottom. You want to offset an audio clip, you click the audio clip and the option's in the bottom. You want to do tricky-foolery with individual MIDI notes, you click one, and in the bottom (surprise, surprise!) you can "Select all notes of same pitch" and then transpose them all or apply a groove to them.

There's nothing to remember!

---

Now, I have to say that the one area I cannot debate is people's MIDI editor preferences. Not only is it personal taste (making a debate pointless), but I'm not enough of a MIDI guy (I record, move, change velocity, erase, transpose, and groove... I think that's about it...) to miss anything that other people seem to miss. I like the controller lanes + pencil/line for doing those sorts of things, so I guess I'm happy enough. But when people like you have varied and legitimate concerns about MIDI, particularly when MIDI is your main form of expression, I run out of things to say. I simply don't have enough of a frame of reference.

Greg

[Beardedone]

Glad to know that the disappearing piano roll is happening for others. I thought it might be due to my occasional frustrated WTF clicking fests that messes up the works - I sometimes do that when I cannot get where I want - I am not the most mature 51 year old around.

The scroll wheel! Yeah! that is so cool. Man it works too.

Context-based help actually is OK but I find it often gets in the way. I prefer knowing where things are by rote. Now, if I can manage to work more than a couple of days in a row with Tracktion I am sure I will remember. As it stands, I have yet to work with Tracktion for longer than a couple of hours or so then I leave it alone for a couple of weeks.

There a few great things about the midi editor that you have pointed out. If I can just get a smooth workflow going with it then maybe I will get somewhere.

Thanks again for the pep talk Greg. I appreciate it.

Cheers,
Gordon

[jens]

2. The "piano" part of the piano roll does indeed seem to disappear at inconvenient times. I can relate to you here.

that's the midi-toolbar - it depends:

A: Tracktion is set to 'show midi-toolbar at the left of the track' - it dissapears

- whenever the mouse-cursor is on the left of the screen (where the inputs are assigned)

- whenever the mouse-cursor is on another track which hasn't got the midi-editor opened


B: Tracktion is set to 'show midi-toolbar at the left of the track' - it dissapears


- whenever the mouse-cursor is on the left of the screen (where the inputs are assigned)

- whenever the mouse-cursor is on another track which hasn't got the midi-editor opened

- whenever the mouse-cursor moves to empty space on the left from a clip which has the editor currently opened



In general:

- move the cursor left from the toolbar and it dissapears

- move the cursor above the clip you've been editing and the toolbar dissapears

- move the cursor below the clip you've been editing and the toolbar dissapears

except if this move means that the cursor is on another midi-editor


The toolbar always re-appears when the mouse-cursor moves on a midi-clip which currently has the editor opened


Simple, isn't it?

[IIRs]

1 : There is no midi track by default - not huge but strange. OK, I can insert one. You wouldn't know to look at that it was anything but an audio app.

Yes there is! Actually there are 8 of them.. a track is a track is a track in Tracktion: you can put MIDI on them, or audio, or both at the same time.

[jens]

Now, if I can manage to work more than a couple of days in a row with Tracktion I am sure I will remember.

what Greg meant is that you do not need to remember anything as whatever you might look for it's in the editor on the bottom of the screen whereas in Sonar things (features/functions)are in several different places (and he is right)

[jens]

it seemed to me that "insert new MIDI clip" works dandy and is intuitive

intuitive yes, but awkward nonetheless - in eXT it's a simple double-click - if you (like me for example) program most of your beats/percussion/synth-basslines by clicking them in the editor you might need to insert a lot of clips...

[flanneljammies]

it seemed to me that "insert new MIDI clip" works dandy and is intuitive

intuitive yes, but awkward nonetheless - in eXT it's a simple double-click - if you (like me for example) program most of your beats/percussion/synth-basslines by clicking them in the editor you might need to insert a lot of clips...

Just press G (or is it Alt-G?) to insert a new MIDI clip. Easy peasy.

[Beardedone]

Thanks Jens and IIRs! Good advice. Midi and audio in the same track eh? Never thought of that. Very nice!

[jens]

it seemed to me that "insert new MIDI clip" works dandy and is intuitive

intuitive yes, but awkward nonetheless - in eXT it's a simple double-click - if you (like me for example) program most of your beats/percussion/synth-basslines by clicking them in the editor you might need to insert a lot of clips...

Just press G (or is it Alt-G?) to insert a new MIDI clip. Easy peasy.

not as easy as a double-click - in other words: not as fast and easy as it could be (but of course it's o.k. yeah - and unlike eXT Tracktion allows to define your own shortcuts...)

[flanneljammies]

Just press G (or is it Alt-G?) to insert a new MIDI clip. Easy peasy.

not as easy as a double-click - in other words: not as fast and easy as it could be (but of course it's o.k. yeah - and unlike eXT Tracktion allows to define your own shortcuts...)

Actually it IS just G. So, assuming you're right-handed, your hand never even has to leave the mouse (since the G key is toward the left-side of the keyboard). That's about as easy as it can be. Not that a double click would be a bad idea, I guess.

[Lunch Money]

Wow, it's a real stretch to argue "double-click" vs. "Alt-G", Jens.

You're totally right. One takes 0.5 seconds, while the other takes 1.0 seconds, which is TWICE as frigging long! At that rate, if you did a project in eXT with 50 MIDI clips, that's 25 seconds, as opposed to NEARLY A MINUTE with Tracktion. Mind you, if you're inserting multiple clips at once, your hand's already on the "alt" key and your fingers are in place, so time would be saved....

Man, oh, man...

I think I'll just make "G" my new insert MIDI clip shortcut since I'm not using "G" for anything else, though. No need to hit alt anymore. Don't think it could be faster. In fact, if you imagine hammering away at the "G" until you've placed 100 MIDI clips, vs. double-clicking until you've placed 100, you'll probably find the keyboard shortcut quicker.



Man, what a crazy thing to debate. Jens, that really takes the cake!

Greg