Topic: Podium 2.0

@Zynewave wrote:

I’m working on expanding the group panel. This includes an option to compact the headers in the tracks region so that only groups with track lanes are shown. This will get rid of the thin bars for the chained tracks, which can be visually overwhelming with large chains.

I would need to see this to fully understand what you mean but it sounds like a very good idea already if I understand it correctly.

In effect, the only place where you see fx tracks are in the group panel and in the stacked strips in the mixer.

You might want to have those 1.94 changes set up by default as you described. So maybe have Podium set up so that the Group panel will “compact the headers in the tracks region” by default so that a user will not see additional tracks and as you described likely just manage them in the group panel instead. This makes sense to me.

In addition to that, I suppose a user could then choose to disable the “Expand all tracks” option in the View menu of the mixer, so that the small cross hair appears on tracks. That allows one to minimise any set of tracks (FX in this case) and leave the main track being processed visible in the mixer.

If the FX tracks are really just connectors then we really do not need to see them. Nice for analysis (metering) even I have detailed the advantages of seeing them on speparate tracks elsewhere on the forum but now being able to hide them in the arrange view completely would be great. Defintely my first preference.

It sounds like it might be a case of the Group panel evolving into the original idea for the ZGrid X*Y panel but without parallel processing. Is that correct?

I would also suggest that with more emphasis on the Group panel you incude a slider or scroll bar to it. Many times when I raise the mixer I sometimes have to bring it back down to get back to the group panel if 3 or more plugs are visible inside the Group panel.

Also the group panel without a scroll bar makes it difficult to access other panels beneath it when more than 3 or so plugs are visible in the Group panel. I would really like to use it more but I end up having to close it most times to access other panels.

My aim is to make this just as convenient as having them chained inside a zGrid plugin.

If you can pull this off that would be very impressive. 😉

So although zGrid is still on the plan, I’m trying to take as much of the functionality and integrating it in Podium. This is a better approach imo

.

Maybe…
IIRC the Z Grid initially was not going to support global (multi output) plugins. The Group panel though can be used to manage multi output plugs already.

I think parallel processing is the feature the Z grid would offer outside of the changes you are suggesting…but…

Quick scenario (track counts in the arranger)

If I have one track with for instance Pentagon VSTi on it routed (streaming up) to 3 FX tracks will the changes you are making now result in only one track in the arrange view?

@Zynewave wrote:

Yes, provided that the track lanes for the 3 fx tracks are hidden (which they are by default if you created the track by dragging an fx mapping).

Sounds good! Look forward to seeing the latest changes. 😉

Any plans to officially support Vista by 2.0? I use Podium on Vista. I cannot tell the difference between XP or Vista usage. Podium is just as reliable in Vista. Everything seems quicker as well. So any idea when you will offer support for Vista officially?

Also (Rewire) are Propellerhead still slilent?

@Zynewave wrote:

When I get a Vista PC to test with. If you say that Podium is working on Vista, I am in no hurry to upgrade my current XP PC.

Working yes but not officially advertised as such. Pretty much every other host has Vista support (advertised). It’s just something that will likely pop up more often on this forum. But by all means focus on your current and other future to do’s in the best way that suits your workflow.

You have done a great job so far. 🙂

In any case it would be misleading to advertise support for it if you are not actually using it yourself. You would of course not be able to troubleshoot Vista related problems. It’s not at the very top of my list anyway.

I haven’t tried contacting them lately. I still have a lot to do before I’ll look at Rewire.

Just a reminder really. Not actually a key feature for me but I would guess there are many Reason, Live and P5 users that would need this feature big time before considering Podium.

Hopefully the Props will not keep you waiting much longer and once other areas have been seen to in your development schedule, perhaps this can be looked into. It is quite low on my personal FR list…

…but likely very high for many potential users of Hosts that can operate as Rewire slaves.

Please if possible, give some consideration to that Group Panel scroll bar idea to solve the two problems I mentioned earlier in this thread. Especially with an increased focus on using the Group Panel for track management in 1.94. Thanks.

1.94 looks like it will really improve track management. Looking forward to it. 😉

Just a quick shout for any users of Podium as a demo (and of course as before, any other current users of the full unlimited version), feel free to share your views on what you might like to see in Podium 2.0…key feature, must have, possible host switching combo of features for demo users ??? 🙂

One of my new key FR’s for v.2

I think after a few recent bouts of issues with Podium 1.98 I think I would have to include versioning and auto backups without a doubt as one of the three key features I would like to see in v.2.

If I save my work in Podium and it crashes at some point afterwards, Podium will not actually save that project and all changes are totally lost. Very frustrating indeed. I need to be able to trust Podium to restore the last saved state of my project once it has been restarted.

The only way I know to get around this issue is to close Podium at some point during my workflow and then restart it. Then it appears to save all my changes properly. Of course that is not the way to work in any host creatively and clearly is far from any kind of useful workflow. I would have to close and restart Podium several times to during the day to avoid losing work. That is not a realistic option.

But if a crash occurs while using Podium all changes are lost. That is my experience with 1.98.

Other hosts like ACID Pro and Sonar will attempt to re load the project and recover any work done once the host is restarted, if there is a crash, I think Ableton Live does this as well.

Really useful feature. Logic and Sonar both have a versioning feature that allows for snapshots of a project if you will, to be taken at certain intervals.

You can choose how many you want in Logic for instance 2, 4, e.t.c.

Something like Bioencoders idea here but Podium would need to be able to recall the last saved state before a crash (once it has been restarted) for it to really be effective.

rinxai had a similar idea here.

@ frits.
I think you said something about modifying the cache file format to facilitate Crash recovery at some point. I think it really is a necessity to have some kind of back up / versioning function in Podium especially as of v.2

My key 3 Fr’s are…

1.Plugin handling
2.Crash recovery
3.Auto saving imported audio files to the project folder.
Or at least a prompt asking a user to choose if they should copy an imported file to the project folder or not.

I like Tracktions approach here…something along these lines in Podium would be extremely helpful. One could simply use the list view to browse for files and not have to worry about forgetting to save every imported file into the project directory (to avoid missing files if the project location is moved).

4. I would add a simple collection of global SMR buttons as well.

Cheers! 🙂