First impressions (bugs? & qs)

[.jon]

Okay, after the second session with my shiny new Traction I'm pretty satisfied. One-screen interface feels extremely comfortable after SX2! It will take a while to adjust, the interface is rather different but I'm unlearning Cubase faster than I'd have expected... which tells something about T, I find there are many things better implemented than in other hosts.

Here are some notes I made, if some of them are known issues with work-arounds available, I'd be grateful if someone could show me the way. I'm running version 1.5.1.16 on Windows 2000 SP3 with Audiophile 24/96.

1. Click-thru bug
I was pretty surprised to see the mouse cursor penetrate happily thru Crystal's GUI! This happened a couple of times, and as far as I observed only with Crystal.

2. Track focus lost after closing VSTi window
I select a track, and it's parameters appear on the bottom part of Traction screen. Then when I open the VSTi and noodle smthg and close it, the track is no longer selected, and I have to click the track again to make it active. Minor nag, but probably easy to fix...?

3. Key shorcut to "loop selected clips"
My most used key cmd in Cubase was a really handy one - It moved the In & Out markers around the selected clips and started looping the selection. AFAIK I need 6 keystrokes to do that with Tracktion, am I right? (Home, I, End, O, L, Spacebar according to default keycmds)

4. Idea for improving the zoom/quantise relationship
I had a hard time quantizing midi notes in T... it seems to be related to the zoom level? This could actually be cool, if there was an indicator somewhere showing the current zoom level in "note time".. like 1/1, 1/16, 1/64 and so on. I noticed there was a rather hasty pop-up signalling the snap level in the main edit screen, perhaps something like this would help in midi edit as well...

meanwhile someone please tell me how to quickly quantise notes to 1/16 for example ?

Thanks in advance for anyone kind enough to comment!

Sunny days,

Jon

[.jon]

I must have been awfully interesting

... any tips on quantizing? (please )

[frankvg]

I must have been awfully interesting

... any tips on quantizing? (please )

When you have a 4/4 bar, use 1/4 beat. That equals 16th notes

I don't think the quantise is zoom level related. And beware: I usually have to edit the notes after quantizing.

What are the general opinions about Tracktion quantise? Could this be improved?

[Rack Bitz]

well
sorry my man i cant give you any tips on quantising cuz personally i think its the worst thing in tracktion
the way i do it is to zoom in and use the snap
this just lets me snap individual notes the nearest nth
if you know what i mean
the quantise i just cant fathom
i think it may be too complicated for its own good
hopefully it may get better in later versions
but its not really a concern for me
on the vsti focus thing
dont you just need to lock the particular interface youre trying to keep in focus?(a little padlock symbol on the top left hand corner)

oh and nothing wrong here with crystal on two pc's
so cant help there either

oh yeah and thanx for the thanx for the kindness

[.jon]

Cool, thanksthanksthanks

I don't think the quantise is zoom level related. And beware: I usually have to edit the notes after quantizing.

Frankvg, that's just the problem I ran in to - I'd very much prefer Tracktion to quantize the notes so that I wouldn't have to edit them after that... kinda ruins the idea of quantizing! Maybe I'll understand it later

Rack bitz, I think I'll use that method until quant gets fixed... manual and a bit tedious, but at least I understand it

I have no probs with VSTi focus, locking the GUI works ok, but clicking on a VSTi GUI deselects the Tracktion track that I had focus on.

Crystal works as a synth ( I wouldn't use Tracktion if my main instrument wouldn't!), but I managed to click right through it a couple of times... which was a bit freaky.

You'd love the key shorcut to "loop selected"... trust me!

[jens]

about quantizing:

Tracktion has two ways of quantizing -

1. the quick one show in the clip-properties area
of a selected clip

2. when you open the midi-editor and select at least one note the clip properties area becomes the note properties area - here you can do a lot of changes to the selected notes - amongst other possibilities you have a very comprehensive quantize-function here.

[jens]

[.jon]

Thanks, jens - that's the menu I was using, and I agree the options it sports are quite comprehensive. I guess I did something wrong, or then I'm used to different handling of notes (Cubase), but I honestly had a hard time with that menu.

I chose "q start times", and tried different "nearest" values, but I'll be damned if the notes behaved the way I expected- I had to fix them manually after every quant effort.

Perhaps it's best to go back to T tonight to see if it's me or Tracktion. I just have more time here at work to jadajada about these things than I have time at home to actually make music ...

[jens]

Thanks, jens - that's the menu I was using, and I agree the options it sports are quite comprehensive. I guess I did something wrong, or then I'm used to different handling of notes (Cubase), but I honestly had a hard time with that menu.

I chose "q start times", and tried different "nearest" values, but I'll be damned if the notes behaved the way I expected- I had to fix them manually after every quant effort.

Perhaps it's best to go back to T tonight to see if it's me or Tracktion. I just have more time here at work to jadajada about these things than I have time at home to actually make music ...

ah - that's the old weird problem:

I strongly believe that Jules did some things in Tracktion different only for the difference's sake and this is one of them - he always kept defending his strange idea but for me it's only

- Forget what you have learned: '1/4' is 1/4 of 'a beat' - 'a beat' is the divisor of the time-signature which you can set individually for each song (default is 4/4 of course - thus default is: '1/4' is: 1/4 of 1/4 = 1/16 ; '1/2' is: 1/2 of 1/4= 1/8 etc.)


that means when you have a time-signature of e.g. 11/16 (and I really have songs with that time-signature) the coarsest quantize-option is 1/16
('1 beat' is 1/16)

[valley]

1. Click-thru bug
I was pretty surprised to see the mouse cursor penetrate happily thru Crystal's GUI! This happened a couple of times, and as far as I observed only with Crystal.

That happens to me all the time, and with a number of vstis. Jules says he can't replicate it, so no fix pending at this time.

I note you are using Win2k. I wonder whether this bug is a win2k only thing? Anyone else with click-thru problems care to chime in on this?

3. Key shorcut to "loop selected clips"
My most used key cmd in Cubase was a really handy one - It moved the In & Out markers around the selected clips and started looping the selection. AFAIK I need 6 keystrokes to do that with Tracktion, am I right? (Home, I, End, O, L, Spacebar according to default keycmds)

I can't rememebr the key shortcut offhand (for some reason they come naturally when in front of tracktion, but I forget them totally the moment I close Tracktion down) but I'm sure there is a keyshortcut for set markers around selected clips (possibly 'm').

[Rack Bitz]

surely if there is a keyboard shortcut to do this
cant you just go and change it to whatever you want in the setup options?

[.jon]

Jens, thanks for the explanation - that clears the oddness... have to readjust myself then maybe there will be an option in T2 preferences between "Tracktionesque" and "Traditional" quant... please?

Valley, good to hear I wasn't hallusinating. Fingers crossed for an accidental fix. Thanks for key shortcut, I was blindly looking for "loop selected" ... it's "M", and called "put markers around the selected clip".

[malamut]

I note you are using Win2k. I wonder whether this bug is a win2k only thing? Anyone else with click-thru problems care to chime in on this?

I have seen the click-through problem on my system, which is a WinXP with SP1 and all relevant security fixes. I see it very rarely, however, and even then only if I click on a place of a VSTi which intentionally will not react to my click on it's own. Of course, I usually don't click on such places. So it's not a big issue to me.

malamut

[bk]

I've got click through problems as well on Win98SE, with numerous VSTs.

@Pakana: I wonder if this might be causing your tracks to become unselected as well?

[AndrewSimon]

The click through problem used to drive me crazy (I use w2k) but since the last update it seems to be solved or at least reduced cause I don't remember seeing it lately.