When I started musing around VST plugins I looked for host which would suit my needs. I needed something free that would be usable for live playing or improvisations (as I can't read notes). Fortunately it was time when the Element was just open sourced and it definitely became my home DAW. It's very fast (even on slow machines), has intuitive interface and it's developer is very responsive on Github.
However - it's not built for conventional scenarios. It lacks timeline and all the recording (and sound editing) functions. I actually ended implementing my own four-track recorder VST, but this actually fits my workflow.
So if you are looking for conventional DAW for recording, this is not for you. But if you are looking for something fast for synth improvisations, sounds effect rack or for some modular environment this is your tool.
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Has Potential. At the moment It does not recognize several plugins. There is also no way to load banks or preset .just the default bnks are available. No running engine so that Instruments that depend on that do not workd-like Rps or Blue arp or PM2. lso crashes from time to time. Still I like it and think it will provide a good daw in the future.
You should try the most recent version which is much better than what you describe above.
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Yesterday the hold function of the MIDI keyboard worked like it should, today its just not holding the note.
this is one very important functionality of this software for me.
How does one go about fixing that?
Weird it'd just stop working. Bugs can be reported @ https://github.com/kushview/element/issues if I don't get to it first.
Great slim piece of software. I use it on a macOS 10.13 with soundflower to have a global equalizer/effect chainer. It saves presets and all in all it's very handy software.
it is still in beta, and as such, has many bugs:
- VST3 plugins do not receive pitch bend
- VST plugins with a data entry popup get frozen (window hidden under source window)
- no popup to find a VST plugin if it is missing on the system when sharing presets
- point above happens if you share presets with a freind and he has a VST installed in different location. Element just stores a list of absolute paths instead of plugin IDs
in the end I decided it is basically not usable until these bugs are fixed.
1.0 seems good: https://github.com/kushview/element/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
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