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Just wondering…might it not be better to keep any adjustments to the current hierarchic system completely separate from a simple traditional arrangement editor of sorts, even with certain restrictions on flexibiltiy as suggested earlier in this thread by Frits?

Lowering the learning curve for new users is of course the aim here but outside of Frits traditional arrangement editor idea on this thread IMHO I think a new user would still have to deal with the hierarchic approach earlier than they might want to.

But the simple Tracktion approach of…

Track one> Audio or midi data>Inst. and / or >FX > Master out (flowing down) is the most simple way of getting people into Podium. darcy raised a good point about Tracktion when working with 20 or more tracks. So I think hiding collapsed tracks (which sounds imminent now) will solve that problem in Podium.

In a nutshell if the biggest problem for most people is simply“why is it not as simple as Host X” or “why does the signal flow not follow the same simple (if not as flexible) approach as host X” then to get those users to switch to Podium it will have to at least have an almost non existent learning curve like Tracktion.

Those users want and love the workflow they have because it is very easy to understand. So probably giving them exactly what they have as a separate traditional arrange editor is going to be more effective than something that mirrors it, but is still not as easy to understand as the Tracktion structure.

Of course Tracktion has had a good deal of marketing as well but well before Mackie came along (I was there) it was indeed so easy to get up and running and gathered users quickly.

As suggested by Frits earlier, a user could still switch back to the current system for more powerful and flexible routing options.

As Podium has been available for two years I think there should have been far more users of this product. Way more.The whole sequencer landscape has changed considerably since then.

I watched one of the Podium vids again today and I must say Frits does some pretty detailed hand holding. I mean it is quite difficult to actually get it wrong as a new user, if those vids are followed carefully. This leads me to to agree with Frits thoughts on the hierarchic mixing approach.

I realize that the hierarchic approach will not appeal to everyone, even if they fully understand the concept.

It’s two years now, so people have had time to read about it, (the guide is very well written with pictures e.t.c) tutorial vids are available (and have been for well over a year), the demo is updated as well.

What else…the support forum pretty much answers any questions people have about getting up and running. I have used it many times when I needed some answers. Frits response is so quick that every question to the best of my knowledge regarding Podium over the last two years has been fully answered surely.

So a lack of information is not the problem for sure. It may very well be that with so many other packages out there that mirror Tracktions workflow from left to right or Tracktion mirrors theirs, it could be that people just simply expect that kind of signal flow in a sequencer and anything else causes some head scratching. Especially after being so used to a type of workflow for so many years.

If the last two years are anything to go by, (not a short time) it’s possible that many people actually do understand the idea behind the hierarchic approach (it is not that difficult to understand really) but just prefer not to have one out of maybe two or more packages on thier hardrive being so radically different to work with. Not everyone likes change. Or too much of it.

The only thing I can suggest is to really lower the learning curve to match the very simplest of hosts out there like Trackion but of course keep the more advanced features.

A separate traditional sequencing editor may be better than a different type of hierarchic approach.

@Zynewave wrote:

Agreed. An option to hide those tracks would be very useful.

Here are some suggestions that may help…

I don’t think it has to be that customizable. I would add a ‘view’ menu button to the track inspector (similar to the view button in the mixer), with a ‘hide collapsed tracks’ option. When enabled, all tracks within collapsed group tracks would be hidden. Not just parameter tracks. The collapsing/unfolding of tracks would then behave just like e.g. browsing objects in the list boxes. You still have the ‘+’ button on the group track to indicate that there are tracks within that are hidden.

Agreed. The current view menu (in the mixer) actually works very well, so something along those lines added to the track inspector should be fine. It will keep things simple and will be a very useful addition to Podium. Keeping the ‘+’ button is a good idea as well.

but I wonder if having it selected by default is not a risk to confuse people a little more with the real signal flow ?

Maybe. Anyone else care to comment on this?

I think if it is left as is, (being set as the default behaviour) but with a short but detailed explanation in the Podium guide it should help avoid any confusion.

The new option in the mixer view is a definite improvement.

I also intend to add a view option for hiding tracks in a collapsed group track. That is the tracks that currently are drawn as very thin bars. When you have a lot of automation tracks, even collapsing the group still occupies a lot of space.

Agreed. An option to hide those tracks would be very useful.

Here are some suggestions that may help…

1. You could have a simple H button (for hide) right next to the SMR trio of buttons that reside just under the Param area (far left of Podiums arrange page). This could hide any tracks in an already collapsed group track. The H button could be a quick way to also restore hidden tracks quickly by simply clicking it again to disable it which will restore any hidden collapsed tracks to view again.

2. An option could be added to the Track properties option (available when right clicking on a track). I think as the hiding of tracks is related to the layout of a project a “Hide tracks when collapsed” option could be added here under Layout.

Once that box is ticked as soon as you collapse tracks within a group they will automatically be hidden. An option could be added to the right click menu for tracks that might say “reveal hidden tracks”. That way you set the option once in Track properties to hide collapsed tracks automatically and simply right click on a track to select the “reveal hidden tracks” to open them again.

3. Another option that is similar to the first is to add a H button to the track itself again next to the SMR buttons. Again, just as in option one enabling this button will hide collapsed group tracks and disabling it will reveal them again.

4. Another option could be to simply add an option to the track right click menu to hide collapsed tracks, and then of course this menu will offer the reveal hidden tracks option mentioned earlier, when a user wants to view his hidden collapsed tracks again.

How might these tracks be represented at track level?

1. All hidden tracks could be represented by a single block with the word Hidden on it.

2. Another option is to do away with a block representation and just use the word Hidden to give the user a constant visual reminder that there are hidden collapsed tracks there.

3. Dedicated track type for hidden tracks. When creating a track via the right click Add track route or even copying a track there could be an option to create a Holder track (hidden track lane). This would be no different to a normal track visually apart from being thinner and only being used to hold or store collapsed tracks.

Of course a holder track lane or track type could automatically be created when using any of first 4 suggestions raised earlier in this post. So for instance hitting the H button would automatically create a Holder track (for hidden tracks) anyway.

Hope this helps.

I’m not moving focus away from providing a professional host, but I think providing example projects that play straight out of the box are important. I have gotten a lot of feedback from people that have not managed to create sound in Podium, before giving up. One user even misunderstood the need for installing the freeware plugins in the freebees example project.

I agree with Frits here. THE biggest single problem from my own experience and others trying out Podium is getting any sound out of it. I had to pretty much forget about it for about a year because I just could not work out how to get a simple beep out of Podium!

Most people who try Podium have certainly used other hosts and cannot understand how it can be so complex that even the demo projects cannot provide any sound, or at least there does not appear to be an easy way to do so…yet.

It would be great if other areas of Podium were developed of course, I have my own favourites like midi export (maybe Podium already has this), dither, and rewire but the reality is that Frits has to consider not just existing users but new users as well.

Somehow the process of getting the demo projects to work easier and quicker has to be addressed if new users are to come onboard.

The market for Sequencers is very busy already…certainly around Podiums price point.

Energy XT (very popular) is £27 and has PDC and dual core support. It can be used as a VSTi, VST FX or as a standalone host. It also has it’s own built in sampler. Version 2 coming soon (early 2006) will be free.

Sonar home studio is around the £100 mark and of course has Cakewalks marketing muscle behind it.

Cubase SE £100 now with Yamaha’s deep pockets funding the marketing machine for that.

Tracktion now around £100.

I think whichever way you look at it the development of Zynewave plugs may very well mean we do not get the features we want as fast as we would like (Frits is one developer after all) but for Podium to grow more users have to come onboard. That simple.

Once the key weakness of a product has been identified by a developer it would be strange to not try to address it.

Many have tried and struggled to get a sound out of Podium. These very same people may pay less or even more for another host if it can get a demo project playing first time every time. It is simply something that you really do not think will ever be a problem when trying out a sequencer for the first time.

How (or *if* a demo project plays at all in the case of Podium) clearly is a deal make or breaker for many.

A demo project is a developers big chance to show exactly what it can do, at least the key features. To be faced with silence when hitting the play button gives the impression that the product is rushed, bugged or incompatible with standard asio drivers. This is sooooooo far from the truth as Podium for me is bug free, extremely stable and has a realtime audio engine like Live 5.

People need to get to the other side of this demo wall of silence quickly. Podium is definitely unique enough to fare very well against the competition. No question. Also based on a certain KVR thread many like the idea but simply cannot get in.

The whole sequencer market moves incredibly fast, I think *if* any sacrifices have to made in terms of waiting a little longer for features we want, so that new users can get up to speed far quicker with demo projects as a result of Zynewave plugs, I will gladly wait.

Every Podium user stands to gain from a larger community. More users means more investment in Podium which leads to more development and of course much wider feedback for it’s future development.

There is no easy way around it. Podium I think needs Zynewave plugs although the Supercrunchy idea of bundling freebies is quicker for now but I would still want Zynewave plugs instead as they would be developed from the ground up by Frits.

I would be much happier using Frits plugs than 3rd party options. I would pay more to use them as well.

Here is an idea Frits. How about a stripped down version of your FX and Synth plugs that will work out of the box?

The more fully featured ones could then be sold separately with more presets, and other additional features.

Another idea is to disable preset saving with any plugs that ship with Podium. They could be fully functional (so that demo projects will play correctly) but Podium will not allow any parameter adjustments to be saved.

Or even a time limited demo of the plugs with a clear indication to the trial user that it will expire within a certain amount of time. I think older demos of Podium may have had something similar built in possibly.

Again, this would allow the user to play Podiums demo projects perfectly well and give enough time to evaluate Podium properly.

At least Podium will finally be as simple to get into as a majority of the competition is already in comparison. It’s easy when you know how in Podium.

But I too gave up on Podium and left it for 12 months before having another try. I think it was Super Crunchy’s tutorial that helped me to scale the wall of silence finally. I was still baffled as to how to bring up FX or synth Gui’s and clicked here and there before starting the audio engine first. Sometimes it’s the little things.

Many others may never bother looking at it again. Some potential customers are like that. “oh I could not get any sound out of it, forget that” of course other developers have worked out that possibly the most crucial part of the buying process for a sequencer is how easy it is to get up and running. Frits know this. This was the key reason for Tracktions initial success.

Live 5 also has tutorials built right into the session view with an additional info box that provides info on just about any thing you touch in Live. The success of Live is not all about the feature set. It’s also how easy it is to simply get started.

Podium also has pop up help and a similar info line that mirrors Tracktions. Every little bit helps.

Frits has to try and bring in new users. I think Podium users have few if any complaints, only feature requests. But those trying the demo have been struggling to get started. There are many other options available out there. Sometimes you do not get that many chances to break into a market as competitive as it is right now.

Adding new Zynewave plugs will take time. But I think it is the best way forward IMHO.

@super_crunchy wrote:

once a bounce track has finished recording (ie stop is pressed after recording) make the bounce track automatically turn off “Enable audio bouncing” and make the tracks beneath in the group “Unload plugins” by default. Seems to be a few extra steps every time you bounce when realistically after you bounce, you’d only want to play the bounced audio. Well, this is the case for me, to save CPU cycles

Agreed. That is a very good idea that will make a very useful new feature even easier to use.

@Zynewave wrote:

What was your track count for the project?

~140, including automation tracks.

Impressive.

@Zynewave wrote:

Finally… I get this rather annoying silence every so often. If I can only fina a way of getting rid of that. 😉 😉

That sounds like a serious bug. I’ll fix it for you for 90US$ 😉

Frits

That was funny. Very funny. 🙂

I tried Jamstix in Podium recently and I had spikes when looping over 4 bars, the CPU meter was constantly red or tinted.

I was having spikes with FL5 as well.

I was going to post my problems to this forum but decided to at least restart Podium as it is very reliable. So after restarting Podium the spikes in FL5 and Jamstix vanished.