Topic: Extend Podium’s track hierarchy concept

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 54 total)
  • #16960
    thcilnnahoj
    Participant

    Here’s my 2 Eurocents:

    1. You asked for it! Just a simple mockup for a kind of reverse group track with a thinner group bar, a little like a shadow of the receiving tracks. It’s not unlike Frits’ “ghost play” idea. (With and without “input arrows” – arrows coming from below looks even worse! :lol:)

    The biggest downside to this is that there’re as many limits to these specific kind of group/ghost tracks as there are newfound freedoms. Just for example, you can’t have a few tracks from your drum group routed to the same ghost track as tracks from your guitar and synthesizer groups.

    2. The other idea I had is this: Like group or composite tracks, you could configure a track to function as a “relay track.” After you set it as such, this track doesn’t feed its output into the normal signal chain anymore, but instead is available as a source or input mapping to other tracks. This mapping remains only as long as the track acts as a relay track, and is removed when the track is deleted or reconfigured. Filtering MIDI notes would probably need two of these in sequence: one to generate, one to filter and a normal track to recieve – assuming you can’t put a MIDI plugin before a track’s input any other way.

    With this you can route tracks freely from one end to another – just without cables. And that’s the downside, of course… There’s no visual indication of what flows where. Simply because of this, I think it’s just not a good idea to mix and match real modularity with a linear visual/signal flow like we have in Podium. Bar something like the zGrid, or the routing window in Reaper, which are totally separate from the ‘normal’ view of the tracks. This is after all probably the best way. But really… press TAB and get to see lots of cables dangling? Ohh no, thank you! 😛

    For those of us who’ve never used Tracktion, would somebody mind explaining a bit about those racks?

    #16961
    UncleAge
    Participant

    @thcilnnahoj: I’ll put up some screenshots in about an hour or two when I get home of the T3 racks.

    @Fritz: Maybe it could be possible to just allow a track (destination) to use any other tracks as as source as long as that track (source) was not a parent track or higher in the same group hierarchy. That should eliminate feedback loops. And it’s almost similiar to allowing just about any track to work as a send, understanding there would be no return as the audio would just route up through the hierarchy. Now I could see a menu displaying such as being quite long or quite messy but it’s just an initial thought…

    Right now Sends/Returns are pretty static. In this concept what I am trying to describe is somewhat of a patchbay that would eliminate parent tracks as a possible source. Or maybe I’m just trying to convey the logic behind it, I dunno, it’s been a loooong day for me 😉

    #16962
    UncleAge
    Participant

    The more I think about it the more I think that T3’s rack idea would not work in Podium. This is because they may be just a bit too different to pull it off.

    #16964
    UncleAge
    Participant

    Also, I guess it’s been so long since I used it that I forgot you can’t route midi around in T3 like that. I used to get around this shortcoming by using Sony’s virtual midi ports and another plug/prog.

    So in short, no, a T3 rack wouldn’t help in that regard. It just allows for FX chains that can route audio in serial or parallel like the following pic (red lines are Midi and grey lines are Audio)…

    You would then place an instance on any tracks that you wanted. So if you wanted to mix the outputs of each FX separately you place three of these one three separate tracks and mix away. Or you could add volume and pan controls into the rack and mix everything right there setting all outputs to one stereo pair.

    #16966
    kyran
    Participant

    I didn’t reread the entire thread, but is there a reason why a midi out of a plugin can’t be connected to the midi in of the plugin in the parent track (if it has a midi in)?

    If I want to put an arp before a synth, I’d chose the arp in the source slot, and then the synth in the first “effect” track. (if this gets implemented, maybe create a midi fx slot in the rack that goes before the source, which is just a matter of labeling)

    This would allow midi plugins, but not parallel routing.

    #16973
    UncleAge
    Participant

    I think we’ll see something along these lines eventually. It’s a tough one to conceptualize though. Some of the advantages of the hierarchy display may become disadvantages that hinder the implementation.

    #16980
    thcilnnahoj
    Participant

    Thanks for the screenshot, UncleAge! Though this particular setup with a multi-out plug-in I believe you could do in Podium easily, too.
    What I can’t tell at all is how the rack(s) relate to normal tracks. Do you assign a complete rack to a track (are all the outputs downmixed then?), or can you assign separate “rack inputs/outputs” to tracks? :-k

    #16984
    UncleAge
    Participant

    Yes, you can accomplish a similar task in Podium. Once you have a rack created you just ctrl-drag a copy of it to each track that requires separate outs. However, in the background only instance of the plug-in (rack) exists.

    Unfortunately I hijacked things a bit here because this has nothing to do with the routing question that Mike started out with.

    Sorry Mike 😳

    #16986
    Zynewave
    Keymaster

    @thcilnnahoj wrote:

    Here’s my 2 Eurocents:

    1. You asked for it! Just a simple mockup for a kind of reverse group track with a thinner group bar, a little like a shadow of the receiving tracks. It’s not unlike Frits’ “ghost play” idea. (With and without “input arrows” – arrows coming from below looks even worse! :lol:)

    The biggest downside to this is that there’re as many limits to these specific kind of group/ghost tracks as there are newfound freedoms. Just for example, you can’t have a few tracks from your drum group routed to the same ghost track as tracks from your guitar and synthesizer groups.

    2. The other idea I had is this: Like group or composite tracks, you could configure a track to function as a “relay track.” After you set it as such, this track doesn’t feed its output into the normal signal chain anymore, but instead is available as a source or input mapping to other tracks. This mapping remains only as long as the track acts as a relay track, and is removed when the track is deleted or reconfigured. Filtering MIDI notes would probably need two of these in sequence: one to generate, one to filter and a normal track to recieve – assuming you can’t put a MIDI plugin before a track’s input any other way.

    With this you can route tracks freely from one end to another – just without cables. And that’s the downside, of course… There’s no visual indication of what flows where. Simply because of this, I think it’s just not a good idea to mix and match real modularity with a linear visual/signal flow like we have in Podium. Bar something like the zGrid, or the routing window in Reaper, which are totally separate from the ‘normal’ view of the tracks. This is after all probably the best way. But really… press TAB and get to see lots of cables dangling? Ohh no, thank you! 😛

    For those of us who’ve never used Tracktion, would somebody mind explaining a bit about those racks?

    Thanks for the effort. I appreciate it. Maybe it’s just me, but I think offering this kind of functionality will scare many users away. I know I’m scared 😯

    #16998
    thcilnnahoj
    Participant

    Well, I’m sure there are much better ways yet to visualize the flow of a “span track”, as was suggested. It’s just the best I could think of at the time, but I’m certainly not the smartest UI designer in the world either! 🙂
    It’s always nice to imagine cool ways of doing things, but the basic idea has to become a little more concrete at some point… So, does anyone have another good suggestion for a possible way of implementation?

    I wouldn’t say no to the kind of feature Mike suggested in the opening post. As far as real modularity – which isn’t the topic though, I guess – is concerned, I stand by my comment that it’d better be kept (visually) separate from the normal tracks view.

    #17007
    UncleAge
    Participant

    @thcilnnahoj wrote:

    I wouldn’t say no to the kind of feature Mike suggested in the opening post. As far as real modularity – which isn’t the topic though, I guess – is concerned, I stand by my comment that it’d better be kept (visually) separate from the normal tracks view.

    Every host is a bit different in this regard and I for one don’t miss the modularity of an app like energyXT when I’m working in Podium.

    The link for the video (about 5 minutes long) below shows how routing is handled in Reaper and Live for those who have never used those apps. I still don’t have an answer for how it should be displayed in Podium but maybe there’s something to glean from seeing how its presented to the user in two other apps.

    Warning: It’s about 20MB so if you are on a slow connection beware 🙂
    http://www.uncleage.com/ftp_music/Routing.wmv

    #17011
    thcilnnahoj
    Participant

    That’s a great explanation – thank you! I personally haven’t had the need for this kind of thing yet (I do have a lite version of Live but it gets no use!), but it looks quite handy. After watching the video however, I have no more ideas how it could possibly be improved any further… it’s pretty much perfect in both apps already for the kind of use you presented, isn’t it?

    #17013
    UncleAge
    Participant

    @thcilnnahoj wrote:

    it’s pretty much perfect in both apps already for the kind of use you presented, isn’t it?

    True, but I was wondering how some version of this would be achieved in Podium. I would like to see it implemented one day. One of the significant differences in Podium (Tracktion too) compared to most apps is the visual signal flow. Like in the video, there aren’t any visual indicators other than a drop-down menu or a matrix showing the flow. Maybe Fritz could do the same. Maybe there’s a way to implement it by using the idea behind sends. But in this case its sends without returns. I dunno… I’m just throwing more stuff out there I guess…

    Its a lazy Sunday in Phoenix 🙂

    #17016
    Zynewave
    Keymaster

    @UncleAge wrote:

    @thcilnnahoj wrote:

    I wouldn’t say no to the kind of feature Mike suggested in the opening post. As far as real modularity – which isn’t the topic though, I guess – is concerned, I stand by my comment that it’d better be kept (visually) separate from the normal tracks view.

    Every host is a bit different in this regard and I for one don’t miss the modularity of an app like energyXT when I’m working in Podium.

    The link for the video (about 5 minutes long) below shows how routing is handled in Reaper and Live for those who have never used those apps. I still don’t have an answer for how it should be displayed in Podium but maybe there’s something to glean from seeing how its presented to the user in two other apps.

    Warning: It’s about 20MB so if you are on a slow connection beware 🙂
    http://www.uncleage.com/ftp_music/Routing.wmv

    Nice video, thanks.

    As I see it, what you achieve with the “from” combobox on a track, is that you move the setup of send/return entirely to the target track. You get an implicit return on the target track, and a hidden send on the source track.

    Q: It looks like the Reaper routing window allows to mix the output from multiple tracks onto a single target track. Can you do that in Live also with the combobox?

    #17023
    UncleAge
    Participant

    @Zynewave wrote:

    …As I see it, what you achieve with the “from” combobox on a track, is that you move the setup of send/return entirely to the target track. You get an implicit return on the target track, and a hidden send on the source track.

    Yes, I agree.
    @Zynewave wrote:

    Q: It looks like the Reaper routing window allows to mix the output from multiple tracks onto a single target track.

    Yes, I failed to show that part. But in the picture below you can see that a single track can have multiple sends coming in.

    @Zynewave wrote:

    Can you do that in Live also with the combobox?

    Sort of… Each track can have sends (hidden in the picture below) to the FX/Return tracks. And they can also have their output directed to a track other than the Master Output. In the picture below you can see tracks 1 & 2 feeding track 4. And the option to feed only the sends (read: FX/Returns) is available as well. And there is one more thing to notice in the picture. After the drop-down box “4-Audio” there is another window “Track In”. That window will list all effects on the receiving track that can accept an audio feed as well. This function helps in directing audio to a compressor (for instance) as a side-chain feed.

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 54 total)
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