Reaper is not an ugly duckling anymore !

[fandango]

Why? Everything visible, one screen, muted colours, easy on the eyes. I'm not a Tracktion user, but I'm curious about the "Yuck!".

[Lunch Money]

YUCK !

Well, you can pick whatever scheme you want, or design your own. You don't have to like my beautiful scheme inspired by Deviantart.com. Plenty of plain ol' gray for ya out there if you want it.... the point wasn't to demonstrate beauty but rather the option to hide all the elements. Plenty yuckier ones where that came from, too. <chuckle> Though, I do confess, I quite prefer this one for the reasons given above... muted colours being the main one.

[aMUSEd]

with Tracktion you see what you need when you need it.

Except for a full screen mixing view

Well you get that all the time don't you? (except when the settings page is open)

[Mutant]

Why? Everything visible, one screen, muted colours, easy on the eyes. I'm not a Tracktion user, but I'm curious about the "Yuck!".

I guess I'm just too accustomed to Reaper now.
Just few complaints:
1. Colors
2. Tons of wasted space on the left (for example why aren't there at least some useful controls between bass 1 and bass 2 ?).
3. No routing buttons.
4. No solo/mute buttons.
5. No meters.
6. No faders.
7. No phase invert buttons.
8. No FX buttons.
9. Only one control button in the top left corner.

I can't live without all these.

[fandango]

Those are good points, actually. Most of them are a click (or shortcut) away though. But likewise, I prefer having many of these things onscreen at once.

[Bevoss]

Koolkeys already gave me GREAT hints about that (thanks, mate!), and everybody with spare time feel free to tell me about the strenghts and weaknesses of hosts in a pm .

I really don't know Tracktion well enough, so I'll just concentrate on what I THINK Reaper does that's unique:

It will record high track counts for long periods of time with stability...that's proven.

At low latencies it's very low cpu also.

You can mix various sample and file types in the same project (ie midi and audio on the same track, 48k and 44.1 wavs with mp3s and oggs, etc.

Any track will route to any other track, no midi tracks/audio tracks/busses, they are all the same.

Arm and Rearm recording on the fly.

Extreme keyboard and macro shortcuts, the most extensive I've seen.

Great editing tools, eg Tab to transient, auto split/trim, slip/slide, keypad movement of items.

You can record to disk directly, while stopping and starting project recording (eg record the whole rehearsal, while also recording just the songs.)

The only gapless engine (with Smoothseek enabled), apart from Live, that I've come across...and Rewires both ways flawlessly, with VST's still operable.

The screensets just rock! 64 bit path throughout...seriously...that'll do for me, I'm sure others can think of other pros. ;D

On the con side, the midi isn't quite as mature as some, but definitely usable...the Mac side is still way behind...Rewire could stand a tune up, Live is probably a little more mature there...you have to dig in to learn it at first, but on the flip side the community helps so much, and the User Manual is pretty extensive now.

Plus you get Justin, who's always a surprise! Great customer support also. Uncrippled demos rock, That is almost the most impressive aspect imo.

And of course, YMMV.

[bullshark]

with Tracktion you see what you need when you need it.

Except for a full screen mixing view

Well you get that all the time don't you? (except when the settings page is open)

No you don't, all you can get are those fiddly and annoying little level/pan icon that aren't even constant in size or placement while most of the screen is taken by the tracking view, which is useless to me for mixing, but this conversation already took place many times before.

Here's all I need when mixing (well, almost as I would like to see my FX chain; Justin?):



Worth noting, click on any fader strip and the corresponding track instantly jump into view at the top should you need to fiddle with it (but you really shouldn't as when a project is ready to mix, all editing should have been taken care of already, by you or somebody else).

Also worth noting, hover over any button or icon or slider and a window will popup displaying it's value or content, nice to quickly get your bearing on a project started by somebody else; also why I don't scream much for FX chain display...

[Lunch Money]

Why? Everything visible, one screen, muted colours, easy on the eyes. I'm not a Tracktion user, but I'm curious about the "Yuck!".

I guess I'm just too accustomed to Reaper now.
Just few complaints:
1. Colors
2. Tons of wasted space on the left (for example why aren't there at least some useful controls between bass 1 and bass 2 ?).
3. No routing buttons.
4. No solo/mute buttons.
5. No meters.
6. No faders.
7. No phase invert buttons.
8. No FX buttons.
9. Only one control button in the top left corner.

I can't live without all these.

Silly ducky, the point of that screenshot was hiding all that stuff. What's an "fx button"? And a "routing button" for that matter? What's the control button you're referring to in #9? As for #2-- I personally don't find it "ergonomic" to cram a bunch of crap into empty space. By not having a mess of controls in there, you get an instantly pleasing overview of your track names and their folders. I'll take accessible and legible organization over a bunch of fiddly buttons, thanks.

Yay! Host wars!

[Mutant]

Silly ducky, the point of that screenshot was hiding all that stuff.

I know - I just replied to fandango's "why yuck" question.

What's an "fx button"?

In Reaper it is a button that shows fx window for the track.

[Lunch Money]

Sorry, added more stuff to the above post--you don't have to reply to it, but I wanted the record to show that Mutant wasn't ignoring what I wrote.

You can't reply to "why yuck" with that list, though, unless you qualify that you need all those things visible in ANY host... that's what I'm saying... it would be the exact same "yuck" as if you hid all the Reaper features.

fx window for a track? No thanks.

[Bevoss]

Yay! Host wars!

Yeah, lets crank it up! This place has been decidely too amicable lately...

(awaits 2 page rebuff from Koolkeys) :D

[Klemperer]

It will record high track counts for long periods of time with stability...that's proven.
...
At low latencies it's very low cpu also.
...
And of course, YMMV.

Thanks!!! Well the stability with many audio-track is most important here, whereas I'd always run EXT inside it so there are Midi-possibilities enough. Very helpful, I'll test in the evening now and will print out your post. Podium and Reaper look both very promising. See, that was ON topic

[bullshark]

Koolkeys already gave me GREAT hints about that (thanks, mate!), and everybody with spare time feel free to tell me about the strenghts and weaknesses of hosts in a pm .

I really don't know Tracktion well enough, so I'll just concentrate on what I THINK Reaper does that's unique:

It will record high track counts for long periods of time with stability...that's proven.

At low latencies it's very low cpu also.

You can mix various sample and file types in the same project (ie midi and audio on the same track, 48k and 44.1 wavs with mp3s and oggs, etc.

Any track will route to any other track, no midi tracks/audio tracks/busses, they are all the same.

Arm and Rearm recording on the fly.

Extreme keyboard and macro shortcuts, the most extensive I've seen.

Great editing tools, eg Tab to transient, auto split/trim, slip/slide, keypad movement of items.

You can record to disk directly, while stopping and starting project recording (eg record the whole rehearsal, while also recording just the songs.)

The only gapless engine (with Smoothseek enabled), apart from Live, that I've come across...and Rewires both ways flawlessly, with VST's still operable.

The screensets just rock! 64 bit path throughout...seriously...that'll do for me, I'm sure others can think of other pros. ;D

On the con side, the midi isn't quite as mature as some, but definitely usable...the Mac side is still way behind...Rewire could stand a tune up, Live is probably a little more mature there...you have to dig in to learn it at first, but on the flip side the community helps so much, and the User Manual is pretty extensive now.

Plus you get Justin, who's always a surprise! Great customer support also. Uncrippled demos rock, That is almost the most impressive aspect imo.

And of course, YMMV.

Worth mentioning Reaper also has the best multi-core, multi-processor support in the industry.

And it's the only host I know of that can record directly to compressed format, lossy OR lossless.

[Mutant]

Sorry, added more stuff to the above post--you don't have to reply to it, but I wanted the record to show that Mutant wasn't ignoring what I wrote.

You can't reply to "why yuck" with that list, though, unless you qualify that you need all those things visible in ANY host... that's what I'm saying... it would be the exact same "yuck" as if you hid all the Reaper features.

fx window for a track? No thanks.

If you hide all useful features you will (usually) need more clicks to use those features - and in my extremely humble opinion is not a good idea if you want to do something as fast as possible - less clicks is always better.

And about empty screen spaces - what do you need them for ? What can you use them for ?

[Lunch Money]

I agree-- I rarely hide the stuff I access all the time (the FX area, the properties panel); the screenshot was just to illustrate that you could. Less clicks IS better, though, which is why something like an fx window to me is a bad idea. Why not just click the effect/instrument you want to edit?

Regarding empty screen spaces: it's all about ergonomics. It's not "what can you use them for," it's "what value do they add?" The value they add is that your eye can instantly and quickly scan for the information you need. Empty space is very important for almost any visual design you can think of. Artists, marketing copywriters, typesetters... such people understand the value of empty space. You might not even be aware of how much your brain "needs" it until you're faced with clutter. Then you'd suddenly think, "this feels kinda busy and claustrophobic, and I'm not 100% sure why." Good ergonomic design will make proper use of space, not just fill it up for the sake of filling it up.

Greg