Storm Studio, Reason, FL Studio, and Orion Platinum

[sdv]

I am pretty happy to see the sequencer in XT further developed - I am nowday's using it as my main host/sequencer.

I am liking the sequencer in eXT as well... it's finally getting there. I'm pretty much using it as my main host as well. Only thing is I wished Jorgen would have polished all the Components (little things like auto-name on new parts & clips in components, auto-mapping in the sampler, on the fly transposing, etc.) before starting on the Sequencer. As it stands some of the components are about 3/4 baked and need that little bit of TLC to really bring out the sparkle to make eXT an 'instrument' for those who wish to work with it in that way.

[BONES]

But while on the subject of quality, how about quality of build? You just dismiss the fact that pretty much everybody who mentioned even trying the Orion demo said that it crashed a lot. I can easily state that I've personally found more bugs in Orion than in all the other software I've ever used combined. I sometimes found bugs on the very first day of a new release, within minutes. Some buggy behavior seems to be of no interest to Rich so it never gets fixed. Over the years I've had all manner of strange unpredictable behavior in Orion, and so have many others. Like the fact that Orion is actually capable of recording an audio track while the transport is stopped, and record is not armed at all. Like the fact that both pitch bending and audio recording/monitoring are both dependent upon the PPQ setting. At the default PPQ setting, neither will work. The pitch bending issue has been like this for as long as I can remember in Orion. The audio recording has been this way since it was first introduced in Orion. Both problems survived through all Orion's updates and Rich didn't seem to have any idea how to go about fixing it. He just blamed the pitchbending problem on my keyboard and the audio recording problem on my audio interface although everything else I have works flawlessly with my ordinary Edirol PCR-80 keyboard and Steingberg MI4 interface. Another user on the Orion forum told me to try changing the PPQ setting for the audio recording problem and shockingly, it worked. Then I had the wild idea that it might also work for the pitchbending and again, the PPQ was the culprit. One stone to kill two birds and the developer of the program's best advice was to tell me to get "a high end audio interface" and a "better keyboard". This to me says a lot about why Orion is in the state that it's in, in terms of it's quality of build. You keep talking about the quality of it's synths, but what good are they if they're locked inside a sequencer that has all kinds of bugs and glitchy behavior?

Maybe these are more "quality of user" questions and maybe [this has just dawned on me] that is why Rich is reluctant to fix a lot of things. He is quite possibly trying to get rid of casual/amateur users. Who knows?

I used to get this a lot at work, too. People who swear black and blue that the software I used to be responsible for crashes all the time. Yet again, I can't kill it with a stick. I could rarely, if ever, reproduce other people's crashes and yet, like you, they were convinced it was the software's fault. And its not like I'm super-anal about my computer or anything - its just a standard WinXP install with no tweaks or special settings or anything. I use it for absolutely everything, I just treat it with a small dose of common sense.

The other thing which works against it is the small install base. It means that there are always going to be new configurations that show up problems and Rich can either spend all his time fixing individual problems or do things for the rest of his users. I suppose its easier for him to put up with your whinging but at least he didn't ban you like ImageLine did.

The problem with your ranting is that it's by and large simply your "opinion". Not a drop of which can be proven. But you argue it as if it's actual fact while disregarding things that can be proven. Synth A sounds better than Synth B. True or False?

Whilst that is probably [OK, certainly] true to some extent, most of what I've been trying to get through your thick skulls is that you don't even look for quality. Most of the replys in this thread concentrate solely on features as a measure of worth, as I've pointed out several times already. If someone said they thought the EQ in FL sounded way better than ORION's, that would be one thing but to be critical on the basis of the number of features is just ludicrous.

Lastly, I think you're so focused on the built in instruments in a sequencer while apparently, a lot of us are more interested in how easily a sequencer will let us get a job done and that means features.

Well, that's in fact the complete opposite of my oft-stated position. I am well focussed on results and a lot of what you call features, I just see as obstacles to getting things done.

If I need rewire for example, I have to look at how well it's implemented in a sequencer. You say that this means that we are less interested in "quality" than the bells and whistles. I say you're missing the point. If you miss everything else I say here, please get this last point.

To which I counter "no, 'tis you who are missing the point". ReWire is a grat example. Why should you need it? Because the Prop's are control freaks and want to redefine standards which have been established for 20 years or more? That's a krap reason but its a great reason not to use any of their software.

When you choose a sequencer and find that you need something, there are somethings that you can add later and somethings that you cannot.

Well put but, you need to remember, this thread is about viirtual studios so the included stuff is important to the discusson.

The way I look at it is simple.

Clearly.

When I buy a sequencer and find that it doesn't do something that I need it to do, I can't add that on later, I stuck with trying to work around it, or buying another sequencer.

Reason? ReWire? How does that fit in? I bought eXT with just that kind of thing in mind but I am yet to find a use for it.

That's why the sequencer is far more important for me, and apparently others, than the built in instruments and FX. I know where to get those, but I can't add on respectable audio recording.

Why do you need to? I've never thought of my sequencing environment as the appropriate place for that. That's what Cool Edit is for. I've only ever used the audio recording in ORION to see that it worked.

Orion seems focused on providing more and more FX and instruments

I think that is, in part, because Rich sees a need. Whilst you say you can throw money around on VST's, he feels I think, that he is offerring incredible value with things like the Transient Shaper and real-time IRP [either of which will cost almost as much as ORION Platinum on their own].

while the sequencer itself is unreliable and unpredictable, and comes up way short on features that are important to users.

Not really. Its got all the things you need to do whatever you want. if you're too inexperienced to know how to get it done, how is that ORION's fault?

If I did like WaspXT, or the Sampler in Orion, I'd simply wish they were VST plugins so I could take them with me to whatever host I was using.

Well you can get the Sampler in Sonar Home Studio and if ImageLine knew what they were doing you could have had a WaspXT VSTi two years ago.
Oh, and you're ugly.

[tony tony chopper]

bullshit, and the sampler will only play 8 bit files, what a fcukin joke

The proppelerheads know what they're doing, and if all of their synths were really mono and if their sampler was only playing 8bit audio, I'd laugh hard at them. But I'd rather laugh at you.

[tony tony chopper]

Well you can get the Sampler in Sonar Home Studio and if ImageLine knew what they were doing you could have had a WaspXT VSTi two years ago

instead they got sytrus

[BONES]

I am pretty happy to see the sequencer in XT further developed - I am nowday's using it as my main host/sequencer.

I am liking the sequencer in eXT as well... it's finally getting there. I'm pretty much using it as my main host as well. Only thing is I wished Jorgen would have polished all the Components (little things like auto-name on new parts & clips in components, auto-mapping in the sampler, on the fly transposing, etc.) before starting on the Sequencer. As it stands some of the components are about 3/4 baked and need that little bit of TLC to really bring out the sparkle to make eXT an 'instrument' for those who wish to work with it in that way.

I just sat through all of NicFit's Flash tutorials again and I really don't know if I want to be working that way. Its all very unmusical although, to be fair, I think he is doing a lot of showing off how clever eXT is, I doubt you would really want to do half those things in that way. But my, it looks awful purty with my skin on it - I can stare at it for hours and still get nothing done.

[BONES]

Well you can get the Sampler in Sonar Home Studio and if ImageLine knew what they were doing you could have had a WaspXT VSTi two years ago

instead they got sytrus

Which I see has broken through the 200 mark in group buy. Still, at $59 it still seems a tad more than I'd be willing to spend on something so completely overblown and nearly unusable.

[tony tony chopper]

I'd be willing to spend on something so completely overblown and nearly unusable

I know what you mean, let me guess, what's better than sytrus is surely in ORION?

[sdv]

I am pretty happy to see the sequencer in XT further developed - I am nowday's using it as my main host/sequencer.

Its all very unmusical although, to be fair, I think he is doing a lot of showing off how clever eXT is, I doubt you would really want to do half those things in that way.

eXT is clever for sure, maybe too much at times. But I think one concept is for eXT to be an instrument interface rather than a sequencer.

[peejunk]

Of course people are steering clear of the "quality" debate. It's difficult to argue about quality since "opinion" plays so strongly into this. I do know that I like a certain reverb over another one and a certain distortion module over another, but I can't seriously argue that my opinion is better than another's.

Youre talking to a wrong bonehead there. He actually can argue about that, he allready doeas, with a straight face even. As he said in his answer to me: "there is right, and wrong", and by that he seriously meant "right = what he thinks" and "wrong = what everyone disagreeing him thinks". It's exactly the same way he feels about what he refers to as "quality", "better sounding" etc. He doesen't beleive that his expirience is limited or that his needs aren't the needs of everyone else or that other opionons are equaly valid or that it is impossible to be objective about some things etc.

If I did like WaspXT, or the Sampler in Orion, I'd simply wish they were VST plugins so I could take them with me to whatever host I was using.

Same thing as with Reason, I wish NN-XT was a VSTi but in no way would it make me want to work in Reason. As for Orion, I don't think I'd really like anything from Orion, maybe Ultran...

[TeeLangSun]

"Most of the replys in this thread concentrate solely on features as a measure of worth, as I've pointed out several times already."

Because it's impossible to successfully argue "quality", but you're not seeming to grasp this simple point. People know about quality, they also know that it's a waste of time to try to prove that synth A sounds better than synth b.

"To which I counter "no, 'tis you who are missing the point". ReWire is a grat example. Why should you need it? Because the Prop's are control freaks and want to redefine standards which have been established for 20 years or more?"

It's not about what I personally need, but what people need in general. If people say they need rewire or any other feature, who are you to say that they shouldn't?

"Maybe these are more "quality of user" questions and maybe [this has just dawned on me] that is why Rich is reluctant to fix a lot of things. He is quite possibly trying to get rid of casual/amateur users. Who knows?"

So you're saying that he purposefully allows Orion to stay buggy to rid himself of amatuer users? LOL. Then we have to watch you dispair at the low opinion that CM has of it.

"I used to get this a lot at work, too. People who swear black and blue that the software I used to be responsible for crashes all the time. Yet again, I can't kill it with a stick. I could rarely, if ever, reproduce other people's crashes and yet, like you, they were convinced it was the software's fault."

Absolutely. When audio recording refused to work properly for years in Orion for me, Rich's advice was that I should get a "high end" audio interface and he recommended a hammerfall. LOL. Eventually another user recommended that I simply changed the PPQ. That fixed it. In other words, the default PPQ setting in Orion rendered audio monitoring/recording in Orion disfunctional and Rich was unaware and could only offer ridiculous advice. Also, people were complaining about Orion's disfunctional pitchbending. It would randomly not return to zero when you let go of the wheel. Rich's advice, get a better quality keyboard. I'm using and ordinary Edirol PCR-80 which, like my audio interface has no problems with any other sequencer. The real answer to the problem was amazingly, the PPQ setting. That one stone killed two birds and Rich had no idea and could only offer more ridiculous advice. Let's not forget that I've found and reported more bugs than you and you're a beta tester. So you can call what I was doing "whinging" if you like, but now that the rest of the world seems to agree with me that Orion is quite buggy, I feel quite vindicated. And it's not like I had anything against Orion. I truly wanted to see this program get it's act together because I liked it better than anything else as far as workflow goes. But after all these years, one has to wake up and smell the coffee. Orion is in the state that it's in because that's the level of Rich's ability. If he could, he'd have Orion as stable as FL or any other sequencer. Instead, he just keeps creating delays and reverbs. How do you make sense of Orion having 8 delays and 5 reverbs!!!!!!!!! For anyone reading this who hasn't looked at Orion, that last part was not a joke. Orion has more delays than NYC public transportation. And still, I personally choose a single very capable plugin delay to handle all my delay needs. Why? Because I'm more interested in quality, not quantity.


"I Quoted:
When you choose a sequencer and find that you need something, there are somethings that you can add later and somethings that you cannot."

Well put but, you need to remember, this thread is about viirtual studios so the included stuff is important to the discusson."

Virtual Studios need well equiped sequencers. By well equipped sequencers, I mean well equipped for everyone to do what they need to do, not just you in particular which is what you seem to think. The included stuff being important to the discussion is sort of a technicality. We're more interested in what will allow us to get our work done. Be it a Virtual Studio, or a Full Blown sequencer, or a Tracker, etc. Call it what you will, but don't miss the main point of having this discussion at all. This discussion is about making music and the tools that allow us to do it.

"Why do you need to? I've never thought of my sequencing environment as the appropriate place for that. That's what Cool Edit is for. I've only ever used the audio recording in ORION to see that it worked."

And now you're saying that a sequencer is not the proper place to record audio tracks. To which I'm struggling to find a response. The one thing that evident in nearly all of your posts is, "me, me, me, me, me, me, me" Everything you say is narrowly focused on you.

"I Quoted:
Orion seems focused on providing more and more FX and instruments"

Bones Quoted:
I think that is, in part, because Rich sees a need. Whilst you say you can throw money around on VST's, he feels I think, that he is offerring incredible value with things like the Transient Shaper and real-time IRP [either of which will cost almost as much as ORION Platinum on their own]."

Does that mean that you actually need Orion's 8 separate delays and 5 separate reverbs? I think the reality is something different. I think Rich is doing things that he simply enjoys doing. Smashing bugs and adding mundane but highly useful features into the sequencer are probably a lot less interesting than creating yet another new synth that, unfortunately, only you seem to care about. That would explain the surplus of FX I think.

"Not really. Its got all the things you need to do whatever you want. if you're too inexperienced to know how to get it done, how is that ORION's fault?"

Translation: It's got all the things that YOU (Bones) needs. Being too inexperienced to know how to get it done is not a point worthy of mentioning. What you're talking about is what we commonly call workarounds. I could spend an eternity in Orion trying to do things that take a second to do in a sequencer which simply has that ability built in. For example, highlighting a section of audio and hitting a key command to reverse it. In Orion, how would you do that. First of all, if Orion even had that option, the key commands don't work reliably so it wouldn't work. Yet another thing that is apparently beyond Rich's ability, or interest, to fix. If the feature is simply not there, how's it up to me to "get it done". Let's look at one of my personal favorites. Export all tracks to separate wave files. Here's how it works in FL. All tracks get exported SIMULTANEOUSLY. Each resulting wave file retains the name that I've given to that mixer channel. Along with the separate tracks you also get a mixdown of the entire song. It takes about as long to do as it does to simply do a mixdown.

In Orion: Each track is exported, not simultaneously, but one after the next. This feature is buggy so it's quite hit and miss and you may either crash during the process, or end up with 3 good tracks and 12 empty tracks. Each pass takes as long as a single mixdown. Do 15 tracks x 3 minutes each. Each track get some generic name instead of the one that I named on the mixer channels. I now have no idea what's what. I must them all into a wave editor just to identify what they each are. In the end, it would have been better to do the old solo/mute and export each one yourself where at least, you could have named each track. What you have in Orion is a poorly implemented feature (and I hate saying it because I was the one who asked him to implement it) and workarounds. What you have in another sequencer is this same feature implemented to perfection to the point of being truly and simply impressed.

In other words you focus on things that can be easily added (soft synths which range from free to a dime a dozen) while a lot of us seem more focused on things that you either have in your sequencer, or you don't. I'm not gonna tell you that you're wrong, but I certainly don't see anything wrong with the way I'm thinking.

"Well you can get the Sampler in Sonar Home Studio and if ImageLine knew what they were doing you could have had a WaspXT VSTi two years ago.
Oh, and you're ugly."

Actually, that's Dyad DXi you're talking about and it's been around for years as a plugin. You don't need Home Studio to get it. But the truth is, it's not really the same as the Sampler in Orion. It looks like Orion's sampler used to look, but it's not the same sampler.

[Soleil Vert]

The sequencer however is getting more polished which makes it easier to get something happening right away for those steeped in other apps.

I still prefer playing around with MIDI Parts as patterns and trigerring them from a simple sequence or from my controller.

I admit that's where the most fun is, hooking up Arp, Chord, MIDI & Audio parts for 1-key triggering of mad beats. And those have been there from the get-go.
The sequencer has taken most of the development time and I wonder why Jorgen has spent so much time on it instead of other components (like the sampler) when most user already have a sequencer of choice and can easily bring in eXT as a VST for live work.

So our complaints are the same... seems that the focus of purpose has shifted in it's development.

Totally, eXT has missed the boat in my opinion concerning development. I love the modular environment, as Bones said triggering midi parts and such, but all the dev focus is on the sequencer, witch is not modular (or original) like the main window.

[diverdee]

"Most of the replys...blah blah blah..not the same sampler.

Yeah but ORION is the bestest because.... blah blah blah (thought i'd get it in before bones did

So there.

[bluedad]

(thought i'd get it in before bones did

sorry, it just isn't the same

[jens]

Jorgen has spent so much time on it instead of other components

Thankfullly, yes!

The reason for it might be that Jorgen doesn't want to let his oldest customers out in the rain (I'm not one of them though) - eXt was always planned to be a Massiva replacement - please keep that in mind!

(b.t.w.: things like PDC affect the whole application, don't they? )

[original flipper]

HI

I use XT in 2 way's - load up XT and throw a DLL file into the gui for a quick demo.

OR

Open up the sequencer and use it in a traditional way (if there is such a thing!).

All the fancy modular stuff I very rarely use - for the price just using XT as I do is still EXTREME VFM.

I don't think you need to (necessarily) worry about the depth that any program offers up - unless it might benefit you: in which case XT has a lot of undiscovered territory to look into.

Flipper.