siegfried.
elysianforestHi there! I just dicovered Podium and have been messing around with the free version a bit and you’ve really got a nice thing here. I’m really enjoying it as a compositional tool for VST instruments. It’s easy to figure out and use immediately – which is rare and a delight …
BUT, in addition to being a composer, I am a professional audio engineer, and not having phase inversion, mono summing, and Pre/Post controls in the mixer at my fingertips is a real hindrance – and an immediate dealbreaker to be honest. I don’t want to have to instantiate a separate vst (or an individual bus for Post fader FX) to accomplish these things which you’d find on most any serious mixing console from the last 35+ years.
I’m keeping my eye on Podium though. The engine sounds nice and it really seems like you’re getting close. And again I really, really enjoy much of the rest of the workflow. Cheers!
-Forest
thcilnnahojCan’t disagree with that, unfortunately. Glad you still like it, though. 😉
Try enabling the Fader & Meter Grid in the mixer (using the menu button in the top left of the mixer) – this gives you an overview of fader and meter position on every track, and you can very quickly set them using the grid. Of course you could also use the Fader and Meter submenus of the track right-click menu for this.
Note that the grid won’t be available if mixer strips are zoomed below 100% (only applies to version 2.36 and up).
Zynewave@elysianforest wrote:
Hi there! I just dicovered Podium and have been messing around with the free version a bit and you’ve really got a nice thing here. I’m really enjoying it as a compositional tool for VST instruments. It’s easy to figure out and use immediately – which is rare and a delight …
BUT, in addition to being a composer, I am a professional audio engineer, and not having phase inversion, mono summing, and Pre/Post controls in the mixer at my fingertips is a real hindrance – and an immediate dealbreaker to be honest. I don’t want to have to instantiate a separate vst (or an individual bus for Post fader FX) to accomplish these things which you’d find on most any serious mixing console from the last 35+ years.
I’m keeping my eye on Podium though. The engine sounds nice and it really seems like you’re getting close. And again I really, really enjoy much of the rest of the workflow. Cheers!
-Forest
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback. The things you mention in your post are on my future plan. So please do stick around, as I would value your input when discussing new features in the preview topics.
I’d like to keep the track concept simple, so my plan is to support mono/stereo, phase invert, L/R dual panning, M/S, and phase correlation/goniometer display through a new zStereo plugin. This plugin will embed into the mixer strips the same way the current zPEQ editor embeds in the strips.
About the pre/post. Are you talking about faders or meters? As thcilnnahoj mentioned, if you enable the grid control in the mixer menu, you can toggle meter pre/post by single-clicking the grid control on each strip. With key shortcuts you can click the squares on the grid control to set fader or meter at a specific effect in the chain.
Frits
elysianforest@thcilnnahoj wrote:
Can’t disagree with that, unfortunately. Glad you still like it, though. 😉
Try enabling the Fader & Meter Grid in the mixer (using the menu button in the top left of the mixer) – this gives you an overview of fader and meter position on every track, and you can very quickly set them using the grid. Of course you could also use the Fader and Meter submenus of the track right-click menu for this.
Note that the grid won’t be available if mixer strips are zoomed below 100% (only applies to version 2.36 and up).
Thanks for the tip, however it would appear that it only toggles metering unless I Shift-click, which is not a big deal, but still an extra step. What might be nice would be when hovering over the grid, have the left mouse button set the fader position, and the right button set the meter position. I suppose it’s also not a huge deal to just right click and use the submenu, but a button/different grid controls would be much faster. And that’s my big issue – these are very common operations that one gets used to at a studio desk, but just seem to not have been considered for Podium thus far. Of course most desks (and even one of my little 8 channel mixers) also have EQ, and often compression, but the lack of this doesn’t bother me a bit because those typically end up being third party software anyway (I do realize zpEQ does show in the mixer strip, but only after you instantiate it. Though again this not a problem for me). But some of the basic stuff that I’d find on any decent console is simply missing, which is regrettable because I’d probably end up buying this software otherwise.
So Frits, if you’re reading, definately let me know if/when you can integrate these things! I’ll continue to evaluate and let you know if I come across any other snafus. You’re doing a great job.
elysianforest@Zynewave wrote:
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback. The things you mention in your post are on my future plan. So please do stick around, as I would value your input when discussing new features in the preview topics.
I’d like to keep the track concept simple, so my plan is to support mono/stereo, phase invert, L/R dual panning, M/S, and phase correlation/goniometer display through a new zStereo plugin. This plugin will embed into the mixer strips the same way the current zPEQ editor embeds in the strips.
About the pre/post. Are you talking about faders or meters? As thcilnnahoj mentioned, if you enable the grid control in the mixer menu, you can toggle meter pre/post by single-clicking the grid control on each strip. With key shortcuts you can click the squares on the grid control to set fader or meter at a specific effect in the chain.
Frits
Looks like we’re writing at the same time! zStereo sounds okay I suppose. I guess what might be nicer for me is if this zStereo plugin, or a lite version of it, automatically instantiated with the track, and then you could choose to bypass or remove it. It’s the extra steps for these things I use all the time (as do many other professionals I’ve seen at work) that I’m not loving.
Zynewave@elysianforest wrote:
zStereo sounds okay I suppose. I guess what might be nicer for me is if this zStereo plugin, or a lite version of it, automatically instantiated with the track, and then you could choose to bypass or remove it. It’s the extra steps for these things I use all the time (as do many other professionals I’ve seen at work) that I’m not loving.
There are various ways that allow you to easily preconfigure a track with your desired settings/effects. I don’t know if you have stumbled over the track template feature yet, but this allows you to save various channel strip configurations that you can use to create new tracks with, or to replace the effect chain on existing tracks. Another way is to use Ctrl+C to copy a track, and then Ctrl+Shift+V to replace the effect chain onto other tracks, including plugin presets etc.
elysianforest@Zynewave wrote:
@elysianforest wrote:
zStereo sounds okay I suppose. I guess what might be nicer for me is if this zStereo plugin, or a lite version of it, automatically instantiated with the track, and then you could choose to bypass or remove it. It’s the extra steps for these things I use all the time (as do many other professionals I’ve seen at work) that I’m not loving.
There are various ways that allow you to easily preconfigure a track with your desired settings/effects. I don’t know if you have stumbled over the track template feature yet, but this allows you to save various channel strip configurations that you can use to create new tracks with, or to replace the effect chain on existing tracks. Another way is to use Ctrl+C to copy a track, and then Ctrl+Shift+V to replace the effect chain onto other tracks, including plugin presets etc.
No, I hadn’t stumbled upon that and now I just feel silly because I think this is a very workable solution to my problems. I’m used to setting up session templates, but never really felt a need for track templates before, so it just didn’t occur to me. Now I very much look forward to seeing how zStereo will integrate into the channel strip.
Think about what I said to thcilnnahoj for the mousing on the grid though! I think controls of both Fader & Metering parameters with left/right mouse buttons would be more intuitive and faster. But in the meantime Shift-clicking is not so bad. Thanks for you’re responses!
-Forest
thcilnnahoj@Zynewave wrote:
I’d like to keep the track concept simple, so my plan is to support mono/stereo, phase invert, L/R dual panning, M/S, and phase correlation/goniometer display through a new zStereo plugin. This plugin will embed into the mixer strips the same way the current zPEQ editor embeds in the strips.
The best thing about making this a plug-in is that it’s easy to move it around in the signal chain.
A downside might be that, for example, it’d make the normal pan controls on tracks useless, and would probably take quite some space with all that functionality. Also, you’ll have to keep embedded editors visible, which you might not always want, as other editors besides the EQ and zStereo are possibly not needed as much during mixing.
Have you thought about making track controls a lot more customizable? I mostly mean showing/hiding buttons individually. A simple example… you could have a track template called “audio track”, which had SMR buttons, gain and stereo pan controls, just an input selector, and additionally a phase invert button on the mixer strip.
Or a “MIDI track” template with SMR buttons, MIDI level and pan controls, input, source, and preset selectors on the track header.
I guess this would be the exact opposite of “keeping the track concept simple”, however. 😆
Well, here’s hoping for a zSurround someday. 😉
Zynewave@thcilnnahoj wrote:
Have you thought about making track controls a lot more customizable? I mostly mean showing/hiding buttons individually. A simple example… you could have a track template called “audio track”, which had SMR buttons, gain and stereo pan controls, just an input selector, and additionally a phase invert button on the mixer strip.
Or a “MIDI track” template with SMR buttons, MIDI level and pan controls, input, source, and preset selectors on the track header.
I guess this would be the exact opposite of “keeping the track concept simple”, however. 😆
That sounds complicated, so no, I haven’t thought about that. 8-[
elysianforest@Zynewave wrote:
@thcilnnahoj wrote:
Have you thought about making track controls a lot more customizable? I mostly mean showing/hiding buttons individually. A simple example… you could have a track template called “audio track”, which had SMR buttons, gain and stereo pan controls, just an input selector, and additionally a phase invert button on the mixer strip.
Or a “MIDI track” template with SMR buttons, MIDI level and pan controls, input, source, and preset selectors on the track header.
I guess this would be the exact opposite of “keeping the track concept simple”, however. 😆That sounds complicated, so no, I haven’t thought about that. 8-[
Complicated schmomplicated… I really like what thcilnnahoj is suggesting. It’s more like optional complication. You could have a new menu called Complications or something else for the techies. Unless you meant complicated to program. That I could understand.
siegfriedYes I really like this idea (optional controls for phase adjustment – maybe like TriTone PhaseTone? – could be the killer feature, etc.)!!!