Topic: Bottom Line

Briefly? (if you can believe that) — after a year or two of pause in any organised discussion, and that was before my time here, I decided to try some effort at discussion again regarding Feature Requests. I saw how things were slowing down greatly in the dev dept., so I hoped to kick up the dust a little and sort of ‘take the pulse’ of the members and, with hopes, Frits. After that I tallied things a bit, did some critiquing of the then-current state of affairs and left it there. This was now several months ago, so renewing things in this area now seems appropriate to me. We see that requests are essentially the same in content and also in priority. During all recently, one important thing we have heard from Frits is that any improvements and new features taken into a tablet version would also be brought into the full PC edition.

Another consideration beginning this time is that a few of us discussed what the actual experience of Podium on tablet might be like. For example, until now and despite that I’m not interested in a serious pro audio app on a tablet, it just hit me like a load of bricks that I can’t see the stuff well enough on those screens to remain sane if I tried seriously to use it. So we’ve been thinking of the realities — and this led back to the importance of doing something about these missing features, less for our personal desires than the fact improvements are essential if Podium is to be taken seriously on both platforms.

We’ve also established what we don’t need. We have no burning desires for a Zynewave compressor or perhaps another instrument. We’ve also seen the notion of a sheet music editor fade into the background, along with a few others. (Lately I’m thinking programmes such as TuxGuitar for MIDI and MuseScore for notation might interface with Podium with a bit of tweaking.)

So, perhaps our only bone of contention is with Time Stretching? More likely, it is about the merits of keeping the Feature Requests and recent and ongoing slow or no progress in the forefront.

It seems unwise to say or do nothing, act complacent and leave off requesting. On the other hand, we can’t boycott, demand or protesteth too much. I’ve been criticised for continuing to cover this and post about the realities and aspects of little progress on features, then on to how a potential tablet launch figures into this. Short of demands, I continue to believe it is important to reaffirm our position as dedicated and concerned users of Podium. The features issue needs to remain fresh as does the pressure to keep Podium relevant in a very crowded field of contenders. To a degree, I’ve even set aside the personal at times to stress the business smarts of resuming regular upgrades to Podium. I think it’s unwise to take any other stance, as this issue is extremely unlikely to go away.

Yes, you bring up the one sticky point — “Talking about it does not necessarily make it so.”

Somehow, through all of this, I feel like it would be irresponsible to simply let the issue die and go on my merry way (the kind of behaviour you see endemic in our Western culture today).

But lets look very briefly at what we have here. Setting all personal bias and connection aside, we have here a DAW that could still be capable of kicking major butt when put up against all but a few leading 3 or 4, and those start at $500 USD now and up from there.

It’s a solid platform, track based (which many of us will always prefer), has a fine MIDI editor, takes plugins much better than several I can name (cripes, some of the top DAWs won’t take any of your favourite plugs!), and more, and for icing on the cake Podium rates still possibly Number 1 as the best-looking DAW (I don’t know about you, but I can’t stare at ugly all night long).

As a “labour of love,” Frits has plenty to be pleased with. After all these several years, some DAW makers are still lacking for other, really horrible reasons — because they have taken faulty paths, made foolish bad-business choices, alienated most of their customers, grossly overcharged, or have somehow just plain got there heads lodged up their butts.

NONE of these apply in Podium’s case. I think Frits should be quite proud of Podium, even if it does qualify as a ‘stealth’ or ‘mystery’ DAW for the time being. Although I can’t prove discussing needed features directly results in any, you have to admit that you can’t prove that not discussing them serves any purpose, either! (Hehe!)

Cheers!
Tele

I am sorry Alex. Was not at all intentional and maybe I just let myself carried away with the topic. I do apologize for the offending words. It shouldn’t really be so passionate, after all we’re talking about a software… 0s and 1s…

And to end my (large) bit of OFF-TOPIC, I should not really say much, probably that’s why I didn’t actually, regarding Podium, as I am not even a paying user. I only used Podium Free and tried the demo version for a while… If I was a paying customer, probably there were quite a few issues I will have mentioned.

Again, sorry Alex for being offending to you. I’ll see you again on better times.

Aw, how sweet — you chaps have settled your misunderstandings and good mates once again!

Actually, I’m posting now (I mean, aside from the email notice) because a couple of the non-contentious comments got me thinking . . .

alex wrote:

(I know better than to argue with somebody on the internet).

Well, not here, these forums being delightfully cheery and normally mellow. But on certain others I’ll pick my battles well and have at it. Certain forums and products attract certain ‘types’, shall we say. There’s just a massive swarm of young people accessing these forums on the internet today. They have never been taught the first thing about manners or etiquette. Can’t buy a job most of them, because of this and the fact they can’t spell or write a coherent sentence, or say ‘Yes, Sir’ and so on, so this has got them edgy as well, in addition to their usual bad attitudes. Often what figures in heavily is adimatis’ remark . . .

adimatis wrote:

It shouldn’t really be so passionate, after all we’re talking about a software… 0s and 1s…

Oh, that’s what very often starts it. Some kid discovers that you don’t worship his favourite DAW, compression plugin, or more commonly it’s a brand of plugins, such as Waves or U.A.D. Or if they have been completely spoiled rotten by Mum and Dad it might be Pro Tools. For guitar, they may worship Axe FX Fractal or some line of metal amps. This is that fanboi phenomenon I know you’ve seen.

Don’t tell them it’s only ones and zeros! Worse, don’t dare say you like a competitor’s wares better. You either agree with this type or you’re liable to being cussed out. You get a feel for this before long. Now, honestly, I don’t go around trolling for an argument, but at the same time I don’t receive profanities and enraged youth well, either.

I never return like for like, but it can be rather easy to figure whether they are posers or perhaps 27 and still living at home with Mum — things like that. In fact, the more they think you can read their minds the more berserk they usually become. I’ve even had one follow me from thread to thread, making a complete fool of himself, since others had no idea of what he was on about.

It can be so hard to resist sometimes. The challenge is to verbally grind them to bits, their beloved software as well, without the use of nasty language or going to their level. One hopes they somehow learn from the experience, although this I cannot tell.

So I have taken things the rest of the way off-topic now. I suppose I just couldn’t resist chiming in about the joys of internet forums!

Cheers, and wishing you all well!

Hi,

i think thats my first post here. First…happy 2013 :D/

From the list above i would say:

first => 6. Support for more file formats (mp3, flac etc)
second => 4. Time stretching
third => 3. Dithering

Here are some suggestions which would improve my (and others?) workflow.

1. drag/drop audio from Browser into plugins which support drag/drop too. Like in ShortCircuit for faster mapping or Imageline Edison and Granite from New Sonic Arts for faster/easier workflow.

2. Easier export for related audioparts with one click. To clarify my problem here is an example:

I have a big sample database with drums, hats, snares, loops. I browse with podiums file browser through the files and drag the samples which i like into my arrangement. When i save my projekt podium doesn’t save all the samples in one directory in my project folder. I have to export all the files one by one via the editor – see workflow 😀

All in all podium is a real powerfull daw but the WORKFLOW could be improved…

Regards, Impulslogik…

My suggestion is forget about trying to be an equivalent or competitor to ProTools, without massive marketing dollars, partnerships with hardware vendors and an actual development team you are wasting your time.

There is a massive market of people who just want to make tunes on their PC/Laptop @ home and on the road. Traditional musicians and the new breed of electronic musicians no longer need a big time studios to create hits.

I could see Podium fitting nicely into the space with Mixcraft, Traction, MuLab. One of the issues that Podium has compared to other DAW’s that it comes with no content at all; whilst that doesn’t matter to those of us that have our own instruments/samples to anyone starting out it’s a big turn off. Why not try to create some partnerships with plugin makers and bundle with Podium.

With Podium you have a professional piece of software that has massive potential but looks to the outside world that it’s no longer being developed.

I’d love to offer my help again & you have a community here that might even be able to help you market / grow Podium, but if the priorities are things like making plugins load faster then maybe it is already too late.

Anyway /endrant

1) Virtual Keyboard
2) More Audio File Format Support
3) More Effects