UncleAge.
Mike GHi,
I’ve an idea to extend Podium’s track hierarchy concept.
At the moment you can have many tracks feed into one “group” track.
My suggestion is to allow hierarchy from the other way round too. Allowing a single “Span” track to feed it’s output into many tracks below it.
This could be available with both MIDI and audio signals.
The uses are many and varied, here are some of the uses that spring to mind…
Uses for splitting MIDI…
1 – You could use it to have one midi input drive many “stacked” synths.
2 – Also you could split your midi many ways and (when we get midi plug-ins!) filter midi notes down differently for each split. For example sending all midi notes to your main drum machine but sending just the bass drum to another drum machine, and using that as a side chain input for a compressor. (That way you don’t have to have a separate copy-and-pasted then edited drum track just for your bass drum)
3 – Continuing on the drums theme… you could split and filter different parts of your midi so that one range of notes (or even individual notes) trigger different instruments. E.g. Using MIDI to trigger different samples or synthesised drum machines. You could use this to build your own “collage” drum kit. There are a few benefits I can think of from this building been done in the DAW
-You could use any available vst plug-ins to process each separate drum or even a group of drums. i.e. Not just limited to the effects that are built in to a drum sampler vst plug-in.
-You can directly trigger synthesised drums and still tweak the parameters rather than having to sample them.
Uses for splitting Audio …
4 – You could take audio and have different EQed versions of it processed separately and then merged back together. i.e. Split your audio 2 ways. high pass one part and compress it. Low pass the other and compress that, then mix the 2 back together…. you’ve then just built your own multiband compression. (I think!)
5 … But you could also do the same with other effects, not just compression. E.g. Different reverb on your low frequencies to the reverb on your high ones.
6 – Use it a bit like a wet/dry control… but on steroids! enabling you to bleed some of you original signal back into the mix but also process that original signal in a different way.
I could go on but I hope you get the idea.
Most of this could probably be ‘technically’ achievable in other ways (e.g. cloned midi tracks, audio busses etc.) but then again I think the same it true with track hierarchy in general. The hierarchy is just a better way of visualising and thinking about it.
None of this is anything I “need” like I said it can be done other ways but it might add flexibility to Podiums high profile unique selling point of track hierarchy.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Mike G
PiginiRequest permission to shout “Bravo” in a very silly and high pitched voice.
“BRAAAHHHVO!!!!!”
… very much looking forward to the Big Push…
UncleAgeI’ll second that Bravo!!
ConquistadorSeems like a very clever idea. I am equally interested in Frits response. 🙂
roninHmm not a bad idea! But I’d like to say that there are different ways for solving some of the mentioned tasks. For example: audio sends could easily produce the multiband compression. (You already mentioned this)
The point is that there should not be too much ways of achieving something since this adds a probably unwanted complexity to the app. Maybe this becomes more clear if you imagine yourself at a crossway. If there is only one way you don’t have to think about it. Hopefully this way is an easy one but in our case there is someone who is working on that. His name is called Frits 🙂
Please don’t misunderstand me! I like the idea as it is a good one for the midi stuff. But one has to think about what I call consistency and complexity.
edit: I was thinking about what is mentioned in the next post and the above text is related to that.
pavouk100Sounds like a great idea. But I tried to imagine how track headers and mixer would look like, and I wasn’t able to come up with anything acceptable. Fortunately, I’m definitely not the smartest UI designer of the world… 😉
Pigini@ronin wrote:
Hmm not a bad idea! But I’d like to say that there are different ways for solving some of the mentioned tasks. For example: audio sends could easily produce the multiband compression. (You already mentioned this)
There are always different ways. Many streets leading to Rom.
Different are the visions of an enjoyable ride.
…says your fortune cookie…
@ronin wrote:
The point is that there should not be too much ways of achieving something since this adds a probably unwanted complexity to the app. Maybe this becomes more clear if you imagine yourself at a crossway. If there is only one way you don’t have to think about it.
Don’t be different, so you don’t get bullied. Never stray from the path, don’t dare going to that bookshop again. …and never sit on that White Dragon, Atréju.
No seriously, I feel what Mike G suggested is not just a clever idea, it’s brilliant. It’s about being imaginative, it is so different to the usual way and the potential is huge. Of course there are many different pathes leading to all kinds of destinations already, but these here is a magic door, a teleporter. It uses the object based hierarchic way podium is programmed in the best possible way. You don’t need your worn foot pathes anymore, when you know how to work the Stargate.
Pigini@pavouk100 wrote:
Sounds like a great idea. But I tried to imagine how track headers and mixer would look like, and I wasn’t able to come up with anything acceptable. Fortunately, I’m definitely not the smartest UI designer of the world… 😉
The smartest GUI designer in the world will find a solution, I hope. 😉
Conquistador@Pigini wrote:
@pavouk100 wrote:
Sounds like a great idea. But I tried to imagine how track headers and mixer would look like, and I wasn’t able to come up with anything acceptable. Fortunately, I’m definitely not the smartest UI designer of the world… 😉
The smartest GUI designer in the world will find a solution, I hope. 😉
Seems like a potentially large job but it does look like a new lease of life in a big way for the current Expanded mode. Ironic in a way. “Advanced” mode might be better this time because the suggestion Mike came up with sounds pretty wild (in a good way) 😉
Or maybe even “buckle up” mode would be a better fit 😛
PiginiHe said “span” track.
It could look like a clamp, maybe one color for midi clamp, one for audio, a third for both. It does not necessarily need to look like a warped group track flying backwards.
ConquistadorPigini…
I think the level of complexity and flexibility Mikes suggestion offers is best used in an advance mode, that is what I was referring to. Even a “Span track” (yes I read his post) or similar is too much complexity potentially for a new user. That is the point I was trying to make. 🙂
Pigini@Conquistador wrote:
Pigini…
I think the level of complexity and flexibility Mikes suggestion offers is best used in an advance mode, that is what I was referring to. Even a “Span track” (yes I read his post) or similar is too much complexity potentially for a new user. That is the point I was trying to make. 🙂
Understood. Yes advance mode would be a good place.
Any mode suits me, as long as I can find it. 😉
duncanparsonsYou can kinda already do that with intelligent use of busses – there’s no new features to add.
On Source: Track -> BusSend -> other processing -> Master
On Targets: BusReturn -> Processing -> Master
It’s a fiddle, but not impossible.
pavouk100@duncanparsons wrote:
It’s a fiddle, but not impossible.
Exactly. If there is a way to accomplish something, do not add another way. IMHO this feature would add unnecessary bloat (sorry, Mike G :oops:).
The only thing from your example which cannot be done right now is that MIDI stuff, and it is because MIDI routing and effects support is missing – IMO this is the needed feature, because it allows you to do something you just cannot do in any other way right now.
PiginiThat objections from the “already one way to do it”-crowd remind me a bit of the discussions, when some hosts (like massiva) started to offer a simple and quick way to assign your vst’s directly to the tracks, instead of doing it on the mixer screen.
There are enough examples for more than one way of achieving the same results. I think a host should work a bit like a graphics app for music, giving you all kinds of tools for the creation/manipulation of your data in all the many ways any combination of utilizing those tools allows.
The more tools and the more ways to combine them, the more ways to do things, where everybody might find his favourite technique.
Anyway, what Mike suggested was another way of linking functional elements along with a few examples how it could be used.
For many things it might be even quicker than the other way.
And I don’t think connecting some already existing functions in a new way, could result in bloat.
It’s never a bad thing for a host, having some unique features.
What sounds better in a review?
“Podium, besides being able of handling all the basic production needs, in addition offers many rather unique and original ways to achieve outstanding results very quickly.”
OR
“Podium is an affordable bread and butter host, which offers a solid selection of the most important features and working techniques, which you might know from cubase already.”
I don’t think, Podium is that host described in the last sentence, but only because Frits wasn’t content with the one way of doing things before.