Podium

[DuX]

The demo is pretty crippled, but ait doesn't matter because anyone who used a lot of different hosts will immediately recognise Podium's quality and shell the dough, if he/she doesn't mind the aforementioned workflow or simply get used to it. I think Podium -will- get better with time, and I will shell the dough, too, at some point .

[kangul]

I agree with christianmusicmaker. Podium's workflow is not bad. It's just different.

And I'm going to bed now.

Good luck everybody.

[DuX]

I agree with christianmusicmaker. Podium's workflow is not bad. It's just different.

And I'm going to bed now.

Good luck everybody.

It's not simple click - here's your VSTi, click - here's your SendFX and you have it on the track and you have it in your mixer, too. It's click-click all over the place for something that should be simple and everybody knows where it should show up. Why can't I add a SendFX from my list of VST FX and simply have it instantly in my mixer? Nooo, you have to make two tracks and two channels and click all over the place to make a simple send FX. Those folders are great, but routing VST outputs and SendFX have to be simpler and more obvious. It shouldn't be complicated like that at all. Even Cubase does it more simple. Routing in general should be more simple, even as it is now it is quite powerful, but it's not obvious and it's not simple.

Seems like my main word here is -Simple-. Yea, why shouldn't it be simple? What's so complicated about adding a SendFX to the mix? Try adding 6 SendFX and see where it gets you, and I like having even 8 or 10 sendFX per mix. Thank goodness at least it's easy to add an insertFX, and it's not so complicated to add a VSTi, but handling multioutput VSTi's also isn't actually very simple, quite the contrary.

I'm ranting so much about it because of two reasons: I have high hopes for Podium, and hosts/daws are too complicated in general, except eXT. Nothing beats modular environment for flexibility and ease of use. It's like having a real studio and you plug the cables wherever you want .

Cheers!

[jens]

It's not simple click - here's your VSTi, click - here's your SendFX and you have it on the track and you have it in your mixer, too. It's click-click all over the place for something that should be simple and everybody knows where it should show up.

if you e.g. got five different synths which you want to try on a certain midi-track it's a single click to switch between them - it ain't bad in eXT but it's still twice the amount of clicks and you lose the ability to instantly switch between the different sounds (which can be important if you're undecided which synth to chose)


that's just one of the many things which are different but simple and great in Podium.

[jens]

I'm ranting so much about it because of two reasons: I have high hopes for Podium, and hosts/daws are too complicated in general, except eXT. Nothing beats modular environment for flexibility and ease of use. It's like having a real studio and you plug the cables wherever you want .

Cheers!

it's strange then that I almost never touched the main area in eXT - would ou say I'm doing something wrong?

[Zynewave]

One of the things I'm looking for is good hardware integration. I read it has some of the features Cubase SX has like being able to use a hardware effect (and instrument?) like a plugin and being able to load patchbanks (I think it can read the same format as Cubase patch scripts - is that right?) Do these work well? (I have 3 hardware synths -well 4+ if you count Scope)

Podium can import Cubase patch script files. One of the videos on the Zynewave home page (3rd one: External hardware) explains how hardware devices are integrated with plugins. The video was made a couple of years ago, so the Podium UI has changed since then, but the principles remain the same.

[DuX]

I'm ranting so much about it because of two reasons: I have high hopes for Podium, and hosts/daws are too complicated in general, except eXT. Nothing beats modular environment for flexibility and ease of use. It's like having a real studio and you plug the cables wherever you want .

Cheers!

it's strange then that I almost never touched the main area in eXT - would ou say I'm doing something wrong?

Yep. But not wrong, just differently. You can work in many ways in eXT, and I like cables . The "main area" will be used far more in v2. Actually, Jorgen is working on something similar to what I have in mind - one area for routing/connections and the sequencer area which will be connected and also connected with the mixer, so when you put a VSTi in the main area, it will show up in the sequencer and in the mixer, and if you put a VSTi from within the sequencer it should show up in the main area and in the mixer. Pure and simple. That's what I'd like to see in Podium, too. I hope Jorgen will do it right... He's also implementing the "replace VST/VSTi thingy" , now when you mentioned that, actually it's already in 1.4 beta.

These two are really the best PC sequencers, and what's odd is that behind them stand just two guys: Jorgen - eXT and Fritz - Podium and not some moronish and slugish corporation full of PR idiots, you know who they are .

There's also one man behind Voxengo plugins and he's doing some brilliant work.

Those guys really deserve some kind of medal for their contribution to PC Audio or something like that in my opinion [and their prices are fair, even too fair for what we get].

[Zynewave]

I've seen the "videos" and read most of the guide, so I know exactly how it works. It's excellent but hampered. A musician doesn't work that way. eXT is far closer to that, but I really wish Podium had a better workflow. it's the only thing IMO that stands in its way. I've never seen such fluent playing of VSTi's on a PC, never. It's coding must be superb - such fluency, there's no other word to describe it. It pisses me off how good it is .

etc...

Hey DuX,

I like your points of view. Why aren't you throwing those ideas around over at the Zynewave forum? Part with the 90$ and you may even have the power to guide Podium development in the right direction

I agree with your comments about setting up send effects. This procedure involves a few repetitive steps which can easily be reduced. Like when adding a bus send mapping to a track then the bus return group is automatically created if not already present. I'll give this some thought.

I recently made some enhancements to the track setup which haven't found its way into the Podium guide yet. This includes e.g. the option to hide the track lanes for tracks that are used to hold effect or bus mappings. The track clutter can be effectively reduced this way. Also added recently is the possibility to drag a mapping onto the first part of an existing track to insert it in the chain. Inserting an effect or bus send can thus be done with a single drag and drop from the mapping list to the track header.

[DuX]

"when adding a bus send mapping to a track then the bus return group is automatically created if not already present."

Exactly that .

You don't have to tempt me into spending those 90$, your software is doing that by itself every time I install the newer and newer demo . Really, it's that good, and I know there will be more and more sold with every new version, there's no other way, it speaks for itself when you click on that "play" button and see how it works.

You know, there was a time when I was using Cubase at home, too [I hate Alsihad/Protools even more than Stainberg], but since my brain got back from vacation, I've just ditched it [not the brain - Cubase ] and started using eXT. Then I discovered Podium and now I'm slowly starting to think: there they are - The two most efficient and stable sequencers/hosts on PC and for the price of less than 150$. What else can I say? I will never throw away the money for "something pro", because "pro" doesn't seem so pro to me in comparison. More like "Pro-bloat" and bloatwaresation leads nowhere. It's so stupid that where I work, people simply expect to see ProTools or Nuendo/Cubase, but that's another story... sad and stupid one, and there's nothing I can do.

I definitely expect to shell those 90$ sometime in the near future for Podium, as it's growing on me every time I see the new demo and it will be the best money ever spent.

And as my the man Claus Larssen would say: save money on sequencers and buy lots of VST and VSTi's . - very well put, and for the price of, say Cubase, you can buy heaps and heaps of VST's, not to mention for the price of "Alsihad"... gosh.

Cheers!

[Lunch Money]

"It's not unintuitive, once you learn to use it" is one of the funniest statements ever.

[once_twice]

"It's not unintuitive, once you learn to use it" is one of the funniest statements ever.

Yes, indeed. A contradiction in terms. Intuition is instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes), whereas learning involves rational processes.

[Improv]

I know somebody will say to load eXt in Podium,

Understand your point, but right now I have been using exT in Podium presetup on a few tracks in a default project. It really does help till Frits gets the vst/i workflow sorted and smoothed out.

Also I started trying the new SonicBytes Phrazor in Podium, it works great as well.

Cheers

[.jon]

I tried the demo and really have to congratulate Zynewave for getting a very high-end feel to the GUI. I don't mean the graphics, which are very nice btw, but the screen drawing is very smooth and fast.

The overall first impression was indeed good, thanks for the helpful pop-up menu. There are many features that I liked right away; the interaction of mixer and arrangement view

Some notes/questions:

- maybe the demo reminder pop-up shouldn't appear right away?

You have been using Podium demo for 10 minutes, please considering purchasing bla bla

... I had just found out how to make a new project and was like "gee thanks but could I try this just a little bit more"

- I think having a "window elements and terminology" page in the very beginning of the Getting Started guide would help a lot. You know, screengrabs with nice circles explaining that "this is the Embedded Sequence Editor, here you can fix your horrid timing". Podium has some unique concepts and terms, going thru them would be logical start for the manual.

- tooltips would be nice, too.

- can the playhead cursor be moved without stopping playback? In eXT I never stop, I just throw the playhead around.

- can the cursor line width be adjusted? It's rather thick, like the region indicators and does not fit with the rest of the GUI.

- is it possible to float or move the main transport bar?

- is it possible to set up multiple VST folders?

- it would make more sense if turning off power disabled key shortcuts as well, but the main power is genius feature

I'm considering something to complement eXT in hardware integration (currently not possible to use external synths natively), and Podium looks very serious. I hope eXT2 improves in this area, but I don't think jorgen uses hw himself.

[kingtubby]

tooltips would be nice, too.

Click the 'help' button at the top right.

can the playhead cursor be moved without stopping playback?

You can move it back and forward one bar at a time using the num-pad arrow keys without playback stopping.

can the cursor line width be adjusted?

I don't think so.

is it possible to float or move the main transport bar?

It's not freely movable but the GUI elements/buttons can be ordered, removed/added and placed at the top or bottom of each window.

is it possible to set up multiple VST folders?

You can scan and import all your plugins from your root vst folder and all it's sub folders. If you have some plugins in a different place then you have to reset the root vst folder (ctrl+w opens project wizard) and rescan. Also plugins can can be imported individually. Podium creates a 'device mapping' object which links to the plugin .dll - these objects are easily organised into folders and sub-folders.

Hope that helps - sorry if I've confused things

Mart.

[aMUSEd]

Well I've got the demo but I think I need to watch these videos or something because even though I've set up my ASIO Ican't seem to get a sound out of it and it crashes when I direct it to my VSTi folder (choked on something I guess). Pity you can't have more than one VST folder, then I could point it to one at a time till I've excluded the culprit.