Conquistador's Forum Page

Wow those “glass” faders look very stylish. You definitely have a designers touch Frits. 😀 I had always wanted to see the automation faders appear in audio track strips as well. Fantastico

@Zynewave wrote:

There is now an option to show gain faders instead of gain dials. The gain fader knobs are a little larger to distinguish them from automation faders.

I think that was a very good move indeed. Attention to detail. Superb. 🙂

The screenshot also shows how the mixer strip of parent group tracks can be minimized. It’s the existing track lane minimize option that is extended to also minimize the mixer strip.

Very slick. 🙂

A few things…

Can those mixer strips be totally hidden?

You said “the existing track lane minimize option” what is that? With a few ways to do this in Podium I just want to make sure I know exactly what you are referring to…Hide Tracks in Group?

The Hide Tracks in group option will totally hide all child tracks when used at track level in the arranger. Not even thin strips are visible. Might it be possible to totally hide any selected track in the mixer?

Did a slider for the mixer make it into your recent changes? I suggested this to avoid having to drag the mixer too far up the screen so one could use the mixer and have an almost full view of the arrangement at the same time.

Later on I’ll add an option to show extended group headers so that e.g. bus send headers will include the send dial.

Nice idea. 8)

I’m also planning to add a field above the meters showing the current dB value and a sticky clip indicator.

Good that would be quite handy. 😉

As we are talking about the mixer…what about the panner idea I posted here
http://www.zynewave.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1253

Still a consideration?

And will there be an option to have the mixer view separated?

That is a really good idea Podianer…sometimes I need to see a full mixer but not have it reflected in the arrange view as well. Sometimes less is better (hiding tracks) but also one needs to see the whole picture as well at times. I really like Podianers suggestion I hope it is possible. 🙂

@Zynewave wrote:

The “hide tracks in group” option now also hides the mixer strips. Works nicely. Provides greater consistency between the tracks region and the mixer.

Frits unless I am missing something here, can that not already be done by just right clicking on a group track in the mixer and choosing the “Hide tracks in group” option, is that not the same thing? Doing this already hides the mixer strips. It certainly minimizes them to tiny strips. If this recent implementation is different, how does it differ?

Also I just noticed something in Podium. If you select the “Hide tracks in group” option, the first time you enable it only a single group track will be visible in the arrangement view.

So all child tracks are totally hidden.

But if you click on the cross hair (on the group track) to see all the tracks again and then click on the cross hair again to hide the tracks the hidden tracks will be seen as thin strips below the group track. So in a way, only partially hidden.

Why is the hiding process different when using the the cross hair or the “hide tracks in group” options?

Cheers.

@Zynewave wrote:

Thanks for helping with the questions Conquistador.

While I am a zGrid kind of guy 🙂 I just thought it would be best to show case what the current hierarchic system can do in a few quick points. As it is still a strangely somewhat unknown aspect of Podium.

It is a matter of tuning the Podium UI so that it allows simpler manipulation of the track organization.

Exactly yes.

Over the last couple of days I’ve had some exciting ideas on how to improve the mixer. It has moved to the top of my priority list.

Sounds very interesting. 8)

@hobbes wrote:

But if i may ask a question he asked that wasnt answered……

“I sure would like to know why (in the face of this FANTASTIC GUI) the decision was make to use this heirarchy-style architecture instead of a standard architechture like most every other daw.

What advantages exactly is it supposed to allow?”

This might help answer that question…

http://www.zynewave.com/wiki/doku.php?id=tutorials:tracks:index

Also there was an epic discussion in response to some of Improvs questions…on page 2 here 😉

http://www.zynewave.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=668&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Personally while I would prefer the zGrid still the current set up still has it’s advantages…

1. Visual signal flow
The hierarchic approach really does help to *see* the signal flow much easier than any other host I have used. It is far more visual. Not to everyone’s taste but very helpful I think. The down side is the track numbers used. But the current hierarchic approach combined with the zGrid would make Podium an even more formidable host.

2. Bounce from any branch of the tree
Quick real time bounces are possible from almost any point of the tree. Because of the use of additional tracks Podium offers a unique option to bounce a version of a track at any point of the tree (pretty much anyway). For instance one could easily bounce a group track output in real-time and mute the other tracks.

If you do not like what you hear in real-time, you could easily set up another bounce track but this time at an earlier point in the chain, all of this during playback.

Of course you could bounce enable any of the child tracks with effects on them and then bounce that tracks output in real time, so that could be a version of your drum tracks or Vocals. It is highly flexible.

You could keep the flow going by adding more tracks with different FX for experimentation to the tree, (Group or Child tracks) so it is very flexible and very powerful. Of course if it all gets too busy, hide them all and use the Group panel instead. It is very slick. But again uses many tracks….but as a result offers a great deal of flexibility in return.

Of course you can also drag up the mixer (or just double click the mixer header) to see every single relationship between each tracks at a glance, clicking on the cross hair of the group track (in the mixer) will minimise all the child tracks in that group, all of this during playback.

If during all this experimentation you find a chain of FX you like, save it as a track template. (Only available in the same project as of now)

3. Project container
Because each Project is a container for multiple arrangements you could easily have another arrangement that is used as a feeder for your main arrangement.

Do all your experimentation in there and import into the main arrangement. Track templates are effectively “template arrangements” so you could even use that as a separate arrangement for various experimentation with FX chains e.t.c

4. Track output monitoring
The use of one FX per track allows one to monitor the output for instance of each FX on a track individually. Not a big deal for many but still another small benefit of the one FX per track approach.

Using the ZGrid is still my 1st choice as to my work flow preference but there are still plenty of advantages IMO in the hierarchic tree idea that I have not seen anywhere else.