.I wanted so much to like Podium but I’m very disappointed in the structure I have to use while mixing. Take a look at the picture below and then read the follow up comments.
First things first… (if I’ve missed some things please correct me) … and please take these comments in the spirit they’re being delivered. I’m telling you why (at this point) this application dissapoints me so much.
Importing Files: I imported some audio files to mix and I had to go to each and every file to tell it to “enable audio mixing”. That’s simply makes no sense. They’re audio files… when I import them they should be ready to go in the mixer. Why do I have to tell the program to enable audio mixing on each file?
As I was importing those files to the timeline I could find no way to select many at once and drag them all in from the included list. I had to do them one at a time. Did I miss something here?
50% of my work is loading and mixing other people’s contiguous files.
Mixing: Looking at the graphic there’s no way I could keep a smooth workflow the way inserts and sends are built and used in this application. Everything has levels and meters and appears all over the place. Just the simple task of balancing reverb levels on a send and return path took way too long. I’ve been engineering for 25 years and this works nothing like any console I’ve ever used.
Look at the last 3 channels in the mixer. That’s my reverb return with an eq behind it. Now sure, I could have put one of those directy on the return channel and only had 2 there but then I can’t rearrange the one that’s directly on the channel easily. I could see my master channel taking up 6 channels in the mixer. It’s WAY to confusing to just slide over and adjust something. You have to make sure you have the correct channel. In any other daw there a single return channel with a single fader. It slows me down considerably.
Granted.. it exactly works as designed. I just feel it was not designed for working studios but more for individual users and hobbyists who just wanted something “different”. Is that the case? If so my gripes are entirely without justification.
Faders: Not having vertical faders on the tracks makes mixing much more difficult. There’s no way to glance across the mixer channels and get a relative visual balance of things. Having the pan controls and the level control looking almost identical doesn’t help.
There are a lot of “Cubase Style” features in the main screen. One that would serve Podium well is a large vertical fader in the Inspector for tracks. That huge empty space at the bottom of the Inspector in the photo? There could be a vertical fader with horizontal pan there.
Rearranging Plugs In A Chain: I had a simple drum group with a TC reverb on the group. I inserted a comp which fell after the reverb. Rearranging the order of those took a minute. You have to be very precise where you drop it or the group gets all scrambled. This should be much easier.
If I had 4 sends on that channel with two plugs each it would almost be unmanageable in the context of mixing a song with a client looking over my shoulder.
Realtime Operations: In my other “independent developer” daw (who’s name I won’t mention out of respect for your company) I can load large plugins while the song is playing with no glitches. I can patch plugs in and out without ever stopping playback and the audio never breaks up. The advertisements for Podium in this regard are incorrect here for me. In Podium playback pauses for 4-5-6 seconds while some plugs load and then resumes. Same with deleting a large plug (Altiverb), everything pauses while it unloads.
Tiny Interface Gripe: The Cubase style sliders that expand the tracks vertically and horizontally seem intuitively backwards. If I slide a slider out towards the right everything moves left/smaller, sliding up moves down/bigger.
It seems backwards to me. Pushing the slider up should move all the tracks up/smaller and pushing it left should bring all the tracks left/smaller.. the objects should move in the same direction as the sliders.
Summary:
I think Podium is a great product but as far as I can tell it simply doesn’t operate (at a basic level) the way audio mixing has been done for many years. The mixer is all but unusable for me in an actual “working” situation. Working on my own songs is one thing but working for hire on the clock is another. A professional engineer like myself is being presented with too much of the wrong kinds of information and not of enough of the kind we need for a smooth workflow. There’s simply too much redundancy in the mixer and the heirarchy gets in the way in the mixer and in the main track screen.
I wanted so much to LOVE and use Podium. I still LOVE the graphic design and the basic UI, the way most things are presented and hidden and the ergonomics of it. In that regard it is THE BEST I’VE EVER SEEN on a daw.
On a functional workflow level for mixing… I simply can’t use it. I didn’t try tracking anything with it. I’m of the opinion that had you taken a more standard approach to the internal track architechture (plugins, sends, faders, pans etc) Podium would be one of the most sought after daws on the market.
I applaud you for making a fine application that I’m sure will fit with many who “get it” I just don’t get it. No offense intended but I simply cannot use it in my studio for clients as is.
Which is why I’m so disappointed… just looking at it on the screen starts my creative juices flowing. Then they’re interrupted constantly by the internal architecture. Unless I can see single channels in the mixer for groups, returns (with send levels for each send) , audio tracks etc, with standard faders, Podium is just unusable for me.
If I may… with all due great respect to the skill and hard work it must have taken to develop this application… I sure would like to know why (in the face of this FANTASTIC GUI) the decision was make to use this heirarchy-style architecture instead of a standard architechture like most every other daw.
What advantages exactly is it supposed to allow? I don’t see any.
