hmmm...

[koolkeys]

I want you to name ONE software that can handle EVERY audio task. Just one. It doesn't exist. You're being highly unrealistic.

Tracktion CAN handle projects as large as any other software. Why, on my system, can Tracktion take more then Cubase? What about Sonar? Yeah, I've run them all. There is NOTHING that is done in the pro studios here in Nashville that can't be done with Tracktion. Yes, ProTools has the hardware processing, so it gets used often. But for recording and mixing tasks, with the same systems they run PT on, Tracktion can do it.

I defend Tracktion on being professional because it is. You throw the term "professional" out there like you have a clue, but you don't seem to really know what professional is. Hey, guess what. I've never seen timestretch used in a professional song here where I live. You know why? Because PROFESSIONAL musicians don't need it. It can be used in many ways, but the lack of good timestretch hardly makes Tracktion just for hobby musicians. You must not realize that there are many a professional musician and engineer who run Tracktion and similar software.

Oh, and guess what. If you're recording a band like U2, where you need separate monitor mixes, it's your HARDWARE that does that. It's your mixing board, not the softwrae. They will likely not even be using the software for anything but a tape deck.

Real "professionals" can use any software. And Tracktion has the features that "professionals" need. Timestretch isn't something that most professionals seem to even notice is there, cause they don't need it.

Also, go to Cubase. You want to re-arrange the signal flow inside the software by switching effects and inserts around? Wanna take an output directly into the input of a chain of effects then back to a separate track? See how many steps it takes. What a vibe-killer, something that "professionals" have very little patience for.

I don't mean to come off cocky, but your outlook on the professionalism of Tracktion is filled with holes. No foundation, just opinions. And from what you've posted before, you have comtempt for Mackie and Tracktion anyways. So why do you stick around?

Koolkeys

[koolkeys]

Oh, and about Mackie's marketing tactics. How many Mackie items are in pro-studios? How many pros do you think read magazines like Mix, Tape-Op, SOS, etc.? Care to guess? You know nothing about who Mackie is marketing to. By the way, how many desks of people here in Nashville do you think have gotten DIRECT advertising of Mackie for Tracktion? How many PROFESSIONAL schools do you think have gotten DIRECT advertising of Tracktion? I know these answers, do you?

Seems somebody is ignoring that they don't know the facts, and wants to keep poking at Mackie unfairly.

Look at what you've done. I'm fired up over something that shouldn't matter. Call me defensive, call me a fanboy, I don't care. I'm making "professional" money with Tracktion. If you're not, then maybe YOU are the hobbyist, and not the software.

Koolkeys

[Lunch Money]

proffesional is the an application handles the most needed things when you need to make money with it.

Sometimes. Being a professional also means the ability to use the tools presented to you. The software doesn't make you a professional, YOU make you a professional. People have made albums and money with far lesser tools than Tracktion.

When a smal band steps into my studio where i can record the whole band with just a few tracks (up to 20) tracktion is great. but what when the same band comes later back and because they have some new ideas and connections and they want to ad further instruments to the songs (working with 30 and up tracks in tracktion is horrible and the gui nearly stands still on a big screenresolution)

Lots of people do more than 20 tracks. I personally had an edit with 30 tracks, and I just do "basement" tracks that could more or less be done on a 4-track with a touch of bouncing. It's your OPINION that 30 tracks is unmanageable. Another opinion is that you're not very efficient or skilled with your tool, creating appropriate subgroups and so forth. Sure, some extra features WOULD be nice. I'd love to see lockable track and filter sizes. But ultimately, Tracktion will respond to the user and not force the user to respond to it. If you're having problems with the GUI, it may very well be that T's GUI and interface simply isn't suited to your way of working. As a professional, you'd have the option to choose a tool more suited to you. However, to say that T isn't professional or that the GUI is 'horrible' is a blanket statement and a simple opinion. It's not a fact.

Try better project and edit management instead of expecting Tracktion to do it for you. Pro Tools and Logic have limitations with their GUIs too, and there are things that T can do that those apps can't. But the professionals understand their tools and use them appropriately and within the limitations or featureset.

Or lets say they want to have their songs a bit faster (bad timestretch).

Sorry, dude. A professional wouldn't generally do it this way. I'm sure it's been done in emergencies, and I'm sure it's been done for things like radio jingles (which are also professional recordings), but if an album's at stake, a real professional producer will have reached a decision about the tempo with the band already, and a real audio engineer will understand that timestretch is not the way to make their "mastering-ready" track 10 or even 5 bpm faster. I may not have a lot of studio experience, but it seems reasonable to me that timestretching a song isn't something that's really 'done' for a song that's going on an album.

or they simply want to rearrange a lot of stuff (horrible, because there's no offsetsnap).

Again, rearranging a song like that, unless it's a dance tune or something, isn't really 'professional'. Part of a producer's job is sometimes to arrange a song with a band. Sometimes the band has already arranged it before they hit the studio. But either way, these are decisions that professional producers and musicians will generally have sorted out before they go in to track the song. I say "generally" because heck, the world is full of creative people and creative people are often a fickle bunch. So, addressing your point in another way:

Of course there is relative snap. Just select multiple clips. OR, if you're only moving one clip, resize it so that it's at a 'snap' location, and then restore it after. Not precise enough? Add a new blank clip, select both, and allow the blank clip to be your snap. OK, so a relative snap option is a better option-- I totally agree. I would use it. But my argument is that a professional isn't made by the tool. A professional using Tracktion would know these tricks and use them. I need to find out what djsubject does to make his videos so that I can make a whole bunch of them and you would really understand that 2 seconds (LITERALLY... that's 1/30th of a minute!) that it takes to insert a new blank clip in order to simulate relative snap would NOT get in the way of a professional musician, engineer, or producer.

would you choose tracktion, to record a 2 hour opera or classic concert with 16 tracks ?

I don't know about Opera, but someone here uses it to record live "jam" music and is well chuffed with it.

would you choose it to do remixes with lots of samples, that need to be timestretched

You got me there. Probably not. Guess people who don't remix things with lots of samples can't be professionals, then.

or would you rearrange stuff in tracktion, where the band has played very lose on a click so you had to zoom in to cut clips just before the next snap, zoom out to move it, and hoping, you didnt lose it's relation to other tracks, because i can't groupe them in any way.

No, I would (and HAVE) re-arrange using a combination of the techniques already described. The fact that you don't know your tool doesn't mean it's not professional. And the fact that you couldn't discover such as easy workaround shows that you MAY be lacking in creative thinking ability.

would you try to record for example u2 with it, where you could be sure, that every musician wants his own monitormix during recording ?

Sure, if I had multi-out hardware. You just set up buses, and instead of assigning that track to the main output, you assign it to an alternate output. Are they really all recording at the same time? Then don't they just need to hear each other, through direct monitoring rather than through the host? Wouldn't you, as a professional, realize that their mixes for each other should be going through the board instead of the host? Wouldn't you already have access to hardware interfaces that allow for setting up different monitor mixes?

I'll confess, because as you know, I like to be fair, the monitor mix issue is probably the one that's the MOST easily looked after by other tools. Tracktion could certainly stand to have a few more features on-board to make it all easier (though it's not impossible now). BUT, if you're a producer or engineer who knows and loves Tracktion, and knows the tool, you could already make it happen. I've never done a set of 4 monitor mixes for various musicians, but when I've seen it done in 'behind the scenes' documentaries, it usually seems to be handled by the board rather than the host. SO:

You'd have a multi-out interface already, being a big enough studio to accomodate such a recording session. Instead of outputting the entire track to the master out, you'd have the guitars to output 1. The bass to output 2. The drums to outputs 3,4,5,6, and 7. The vox to output 8. Etc. These would all be patched into some sort of board, which would handle the mixing duties, and you would own a board that is capable of doing individual monitor mixes.

I mean, honestly... think outside of the box and understand that some of these things aren't necessarily software-specific, but rather hardware-specific.

a proffesional application can handle ALL or nearly all situation that might come in a studiosesion.

Wrong again. A professional (the person, not the software) is in charge of choosing the right tools for the job. Not all professionals buy products that are "all things to all men". A professional keyboard player doesn't expect his Fantom to do everything. He probably owns an ACTUAL Hammond organ, too. The Hammond sure can't do it all, but the professional will know when he's better off using the Hammond, and when he's better off just calling up a Hammond patch on his Fantom.

and tracktion is far away from that. so please stop defending tracktion, when it comes to professionality. tracktion is great for hobby musicians and SOME proffesional projects. not more till now.

In your opinion. Tell that to the professionals on this very board who are using it to make money every day.

[edit 1: (forgot to add this) Also, it's silly to say "stop defending tracktion", because it makes a lot more sense to think and say, "If it's not suited to you, what on EARTH are you gaining with your kinds of posts?" Are you trying to stand at the music store's door and beat customers away, saying, "If you're here for Tracktion, go away, because I don't like it!" I just don't understand your motivation.]

[edit 2: koolkeys got it right. Your hardware is doing the monitor mix, aldi. Even after I posted it myself (without having seen koolkey's post) I was like, "You know... it really IS done with your hardware...." Come on now. I have no bones about what I am. I tell everybody that I'm a home studio hobbyist with fairly poor gear. I wish you'd do the same instead of pretending to be something you're not, and have inside information that you've CLEARLY demonstrated you don't.

boogooloo: just use the snapping workarounds I mentioned and you'll be fine. Come on man, think outside the box!]

Greg

[freeztar]

There is NOTHING that is done in the pro studios here in Nashville that can't be done with Tracktion. Yes, ProTools has the hardware processing, so it gets used often. But for recording and mixing tasks, with the same systems they run PT on, Tracktion can do it.

That says it all for me. PT is the standard and when I tell recording musicians and studio owners that I meet that I use Tracktion...the response is half "humph, never heard of it" and the other half is "ok...". In a way it is embarrassing, but fcuck the elitist. Most of those people have had exposure to nothing but PT. I've seen PT in use, and I personally prefer Tracktion. Not that PT is bad, I just personally prefer Tracktion. If I were making money off recording/mixing gigs, then I would own PT and be certified. But when I got home, I'd boot up and click on that lower case 't' icon, proudly.

[multree]

I think....



















WHATEVER

[headquest]

Surely there are different types of "professional"?

Firstly there's the types who are employed by a commercial studio to record professional artists for major labels, etc. Whether they like it or not, these guys are usually using ProTools as standard.

But then there's the Project Studio owners who make all or part of their living by recording indie releases and demos for local bands. They can effectively use whatever they want to (and I know there are some using Tracktion) ... but they will obviously want to impress their clients and attract new ones by getting the job done as efficiently and as well as possible.

koolkeys and aldi - I agree with points both of you are making, but I think you're possibly targetting different types of professional users in your thinking.

[philip]

I get a small shiver go down my spine whenever people mention a product's "lack of standard features".

If this was the case with Tracktion, it wouldn't have had single-screen operation, track-freeze, object-oriented inputs and filters, in-line midi editing, clip-based VST support, user-definable rack filters, scaleable vector graphics, freely-mixable sample rates, in-line timestretch (I'm talking about the concept, not the quality), Ogg support, a complex archiving and Project Management structure... erm, no mixer whatsoever... etc. etc.

There's nothing "standard" about track folders, for example. If I had my way, Tracktion would probably do away with tracks completely. Why does any sequencer/editing system have to have tracks? Who made that an international law?

The reason these products are generally left-to-right scrolling track-based, is simply because nobody's come up with anything better... yet. But whilst people keep clamouring for everything to have the same features as everything else, nobody ever will.

Incidentally, if you look back at early sequencers like Steinberg's Pro-16 and even Pro-24 they didn't even have tracks...

...meaning somebody took the innovative step of representing the sequences and patterns horizontally, and scrolling these along.

So Tracktion is all about introducing new, better ways of working. Some of these are hits and some may well turn out to be misses, but if everyone made everything "as standard", we'd all still be using something which looked like this, wouldn't we:



...and on the subject of "professional", I used software just like this to compose broadcast music for TV (and even make records for record companies).

For me, the term "professional" means being able to create that which is required with whatever tools are at your disposal. I've been doing this for 20 years and nothing's really changed... music's still music, sound effects are still sound effects, guitars still go out of tune, drummers are still a bit sweaty, so let's just get on and use these products, rather than waiting for something better to arrive, so we can "do a better job".

Philip

[pHz]

ooh ... thats a SERIOUS post phil (must be ... no 'ex-head of ... ' signoff)

slainte rob

[philip]

ooh ... thats a SERIOUS post phil (must be ... no 'ex-head of ... ' signoff)

Philip Meehan wishes it to be known that the views expressed in the above post are in no way affiliated with any third-party company or organisation and represent the views of the individual. Any similarity to those views expressed by other organisations, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

[headquest]

That's a fantastic post Philip

If I had my way, Tracktion would probably do away with tracks completely. Why does any sequencer/editing system have to have tracks? Who made that an international law?

The reason these products are generally left-to-right scrolling track-based, is simply because nobody's come up with anything better... yet. But whilst people keep clamouring for everything to have the same features as everything else, nobody ever will.

I've got to completely agree with your philosophy there. Music software WILL NOT stand still, and products that do will simply get left behind in the medium term.

I would look at it like this:

All musical elements - pitch, time, rhythm, timbre, texture, harmony... - are arranged in (for want of a better word) an organisational/conceptual Grid. That Grid might take the form of a linear arrange page, as in Tracktion, or a piece of staff notation, or simply a progression of chords scribbled on the back of an envelope (remember those ).

But the success of the music will generally be linked to the extent that the musician understands and can navigate that grid (e.g. how effectively they can use the sequencer, read notation, or understand chords.) For example, in jazz music, the quality of improvisation will depend a lot on whether the player understands the formation of the underlying harmony.

Regarding sequencers, I think that for me the most effective sequencer will always be the one that make the Grid easiest to navigate. Tracktion is certainly way ahead of some of the others in this respect, and has very user-friendly ergonomics.

Many here know of course that I am using another sequencer rather a lot these days. The same principal applies however - the point is that *it* allows me to navigate the grid easily and effectively (and in real time, which has many benefits for me as a musician in terms of relying on musical instincts/timing rather than intelectual decision making when making an arrangement).

So my advice to people would have to be, if you want Cubase/ProTools/Sonar/Logic, go buy them. And good luck navigating their grid. But in the case of Tracktion and other more radical programs, can we please encourage them to keep moving forward and being brave in trying new approaches? It would be an enormous shame to see the newer, fresher sequencers turn into "bog-standard comprehensives", to pilfer somebody else's phrase

[pHz]

its all a question of perception and marketing i guess ...

... one of the other 'sequencers' i use regularly - audiomulch - has NEVER had a 'standard' track layout but is more than capable of producing MASSIVELY complex multi-track compositions ...

... but because of its VERY different way of navigating headquests 'grid' it always seems to be seen as a geek / experimental sound designers tool rather than a music-making tool in spite of the fact that there are enough users making full compositions with it to give the complete lie to that perception of it ...

slainte rob

[headquest]

I completely agre with you Rob.

By "Grid" I also don't mean as in a spreadsheet (although Live obviously proves that there is some interesting mileage in that direction). In fact I would conceptualise the Grid more like one of those organic Mind Map TM things that have become popular in business/education. And modular packages like Mulch, Bidule and eXT are making exciting explorations in that direction (as do Tracktion's "racks").

I very much doubt that many of us will be using the same sequencers in ten or even five years time... musicians are a creative bunch, and top thinkers like Jules/Philip and others will always be searching for new and better ways of simplifying the grid for the rest of us

[Barbarossa]

Ah, now i even learned, navigation in 30+ tracks in Tracktion is good.
All those 'Pros' here, stating to have no problems with medium projects: could you please tell me, how you navigate quickly?
Please tell me your secrets.

The tracks need to have a certain size, otherwise the plugins disappear. Even more, since we don't even have a auto-track-zoom.
Quick navigation stands clearly against useability.
How can someone defend that?
We need tools, to solve that problem, instead of defending negative aspects!

Reading such posts, only defending T, like it were a family member or friend, i can imagine very well, Mackie sees no reason, to make big improvements.
For an amateur-proggie it's already good enough.

Some seem to forget, that the slow progress during the last months was often explained with the argument, Jules is only a one man show.
But now i don't see a reason, why Mackie shouldn't offer it's customers needed standard features in an adequate time.

[jens]

drummers are still a bit sweaty, so let's just get on and use these products

[jens]

Ah, now i even learned, navigation in 30+ tracks in Tracktion is good.
All those 'Pros' here, stating to have no problems with medium projects: could you please tell me, how you navigate quickly?
Please tell me your secrets.

The tracks need to have a certain size, otherwise the plugins disappear. Even more, since we don't even have a auto-track-zoom.
Quick navigation stands clearly against useability.
How can someone defend that?
We need tools, to solve that problem, instead of defending negative aspects!

Reading such posts, only defending T, like it were a family member or friend, i can imagine very well, Mackie sees no reason, to make big improvements.
For an amateur-proggie it's already good enough.

Some seem to forget, that the slow progress during the last months was often explained with the argument, Jules is only a one man show.
But now i don't see a reason, why Mackie shouldn't offer it's customers needed standard features in an adequate time.

just for the record: I completely agree with this post...