GuaranathI am a bit surprised by the lackadaisical attitude of the customer base here. There is plenty of software in this world that is made to suit a developers needs or is just a hobby project, much of it is free, open-source, or donation-ware and in these cases development is not “customer-driven”. This however is a paid suite of software and I think customers have every right critique and advocate for updates in the software. And it would seem on some level that Frits agrees since he has not blocked this thread, despite numerous references to and suggestions for other software.
On reading Telenator’s critique of the software, I see that it is born out of two things: frustration and an essential love for a piece of software the he would like to see improved. I do not see any whining or bemoaning… and frankly if someone was just going to complain about something why would they bother with such a detailed and in-depth review.
I am not sure how this goes in the rest of the world, but where I come from constructive criticism is very, very important in terms growth and development (in whatever area of life) and those with sufficiently thick-skin and possessed of some humility always stand to gain from a incisive, well-intentioned critique.
I can empathize with Frits not wanting to come on here and say, “I will be adding x, y or, z”. If he did people would start bothering him about when is that update coming and whining that their promised feature was not included in the latest update. However, even a simple “Thank you all for your input, Zynewave wave will be considering these feature requests for future updates” would be miles ahead of the dead air in this thread. Even the most generalized road-map could help contextualize the future, e.g. “Zynewave intends to develop Podium further as mixing and mastering environement” or “Live audio processing environment” or whatever to give folks a general idea of the future.
I am not a paying customer so I will not make requests, perhaps only suggestions; I am very appreciative of what Podium Free provides and have no right to make requests until I shell out. However, seeing hearing that this software is “customer-driven” and then seeing customers driving around in circles is a bit discouraging.
GuaranathPlayed with the Ableton Live a bit. Can see using it in a live performance context, but can’t see it driving me away from composing, mixing, etc.. in Podium. Seems a bit boiler-plate and DJ-centric. Though I haven’t dug very deep, so perhaps I am being hasty to judge.
GuaranathJust saw this sticky —
My most recent work completed in Podium:
http://soundcloud.com/guaranath/howl-of-aspark
I know some of you Souncloud regulars have already heard this since I uploaded it to Podium Poppets (and I thank you for your input and comments!)
GuaranathI just got my copy of Ableton Live Lite 8 for free via Soundcloud (who can pass up free!). If you go to the Ableton Live page in apps section of Soundcloud site and log into your account, then click the link to get the app you should not need to do the screen capture and email request thing. (I didn’t need to at least)
GuaranathAs stated elsewhere I am a new Podium Free user. Even in my first couple of months of use I too have played the Midi workaround shell game… so I am with that being the top immediately necessary area of improvement.
I have stated elsewhere my empathy for Zynewave’s entry into tablets and ios… Let me say from the outset that I would, without a doubt, upgrade to Podium Full before buying the ios app because of the undeniable limitations of audio production on a tablet or a phone. However, ios is large and quickly growing marketplace and it is not just a matter of making a toy for the kids on inferior hardware. Such a product could serve as a ‘gateway drug’ to lure in new users to the real Podium product. (Also note that, at least on ios, developers do not charge annual subscription fees; so I have questions about the long-term financial gain in this market – though it is a very large market.)
All that being said, if Podium is crippled by the lack of what you all have identified as some very basic, standard features… what is the point of luring in new users – Podium will be just another stepping stone along the way.
Also one observation… how many Podium Free users might upgrade if the top x feature requests were addressed? I know I would likely upgrade just to not play the Midi workaround game. Would other free users upgrade, even if their top requests were not immediately met, because of the show of good faith?
GuaranathOk, downloaded the file from the Soundcloud server and it sounds fine… no harmonic distortion present..
Though I am no expert, reading more about transcoding I had another thought… could the harmonic distortion have something to do with dithering?
GuaranathI have not tried downloading it yet to check but I will do so. I have heard that Soundcloud transcodes to mp3 and you make a good point that this is intended to be preview quality and intended for streaming, which Soundcloud does reliably and admirably.
However, I am still left with the feeling that there is something beyond transcoding going on; when I transcoded the track to mp3 (with Audacity) I could not here the harmonic distortion present in the Soundcloud version… so… they are probably normalizing… audio compression too?
In the end, you are right… those who like what they hear will download or seek out the ‘real’ version… I will post again regarding whether my download sounds like my original upload. Thanks for your input.
GuaranathAwesome thanks for the great suggestions all!
I had come across the Scala resources and that repository of tunings is just amazing… 4000 scales! And the Scala editor is very useful, really has an amazing depth of tools for scale exploration.
BR808 looks like a beast! My jaw dropped when I saw the huge list of features then noticed there were three more tabs with more features, yet more features, etc… Not sure what I will do with 8 of everything (8 LFOs!), but I am looking forward to finding out!
I have been playing with a microtonal synth called Xenoharmonic. It is a frequency modulation/ring modulation synth that uses algorithms to match the FM/RM to the tuning. I have only recently wrapped my head around the science of FM and RM, so understanding exactly what is going on a bit of a challenge – but I do know that Xenoharmonic sounds amazing! And it loads Midi tuning files which I can make in the Scala editor.
Definitely trying to avoid tuning each intervals, but if it comes to it and I am stuck on a soundfont I will try Shortcircuit or give in and use Safwan Matni’s Intercontinental despite its workflow annoyances.
Another cool tool I stumbled across for the interval calculation aspect is:
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-centsratio.htm
….which has a bunch of frequency/cents/interval convertors.
I also found a tool called Microtuner which you put as a Midi controller on your instrument and allows you to load up Scala files. Searching through the forums I found an old post about Wusik and other VST-Host VSTs. So I tried it. Unfortunately, Microtuner did not work; but I learned how to chain an arpeggiator! On that same site I also came acrross something called Quickeys which allows you to use your computer keyboard as a controller. I only tried it briefly on two VSTs, it worked well in one VST, not so good in another… However, only strangely limited set of keys were available for use – but enough to span an chromatic octave and a bit, and it was fast & responsive. If you didn’t find something that works Telenator you might check that one out at:
http://www.tobybear.de/p_midibag.html
Anyways, thank you both for the suggestions. Greatly appreciate it!
Guaranath[Cut]… [Paste]…
Thank you again for your as always helpful suggestions Telenator. I am actually using Windows 7 on a 64-bit machine. I am only an apple customer insofar as I have and use an iPad. I have always been an ‘acoustic’ musician (Hindustani Classical singing for 8 years, Gamelan orchestras, Tuvan throat singing, guitar, cello, etc…). So getting into using my computer to make music has been a leap – skipping over analog straight to digital, you might say. As a result, I have no Midi keyboards, controllers, etc that others have likely amassed over their involvement with music. Thus I have been using my iPad as a Midi controller (and I use a couple of the Ios synth apps that sound good to me). I guess we all find a way to compose and create with what we have at hand, if we are determined to make music. And thank god an hallelujah for Podium free… been a great introduction for moving me along into the digital arena…
Again, thank you for your helpful suggestions!
Off-base VST question for you or anyone: One of my interests is microtonal music (especially just intonation based). I have found a couple of VST instruments that are useable for microtonal music, most notably Xenoharmonic synth and ZynAddSubFX, but I am curious if anyone knows of any good microtonal capable soundfont players. I tried Intercontinental, but it has some very annoying aspects (makes you rename your soundfont file sharki.sf2 as that is the only sf2 file it will load, and some other stuff). And actually, would love to hear about it if anyone knows of any other microtonal capable VSTs.
GuaranathSpring cleaning is always so refreshing Makes me think of this quote:
Perfection is not achieved when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
— Antoine de St. Exupery
I am still in that early phase of trying a bunch of new plugins, how does this sound, how does that sound. I will have to look through the old forum posts for these plugin suggestions you mentioned. Anyways, enjoy your freshly-cleaned audio environs!
GuaranathAwesome thank you for the ideas Telenator! I uploaded a 16-bit version and am still hearing some of the buzzing/distortion, but it seems a bit less so.. though hard to say for sure because I didn’t do a side-by-side (now that I think about it, I should have uploaded the 16-bit version separately so I could do a side-by-side). I transcoded my own mp3 version to see if it was just a digital compression thing, but was not getting the same buzzing/distortion.
Looking at your your discussion regarding depth or ‘breath’ loss with the transcoding, it makes me wonder if that may be a factor, because I used a spatial enhancer to expand the depth of the sound. So maybe it is just bounce it flat, because it is better to be flat and clean than deep and distorted (well, not always, but for this piece of music at least).
I was also reading that Soundcloud does some audio compression and normalizing as well, so not sure if these may be factors. Anyways, thank you for the tips and I will keep playing around with different versions to see if I can find something clean enough to make me happy.
GuaranathThank you Zynewave, I will give that a try!
druid – I had an iPhone for a while before getting an iPad; the bigger screen of the iPad is what really what got me into using it for music making. Well, that and finding out there were some good apps for composing microtonal music that looked playable and expressive. That said, there are definitely severe limitations at this point with processing power, ease of workflow and I don’t think real, well-produced music is anywhere close to being completely untethered from the desktop/laptop computers.
I am afraid I may come across as unpopular saying this, because I suspect the majority of you want Zynewave’s efforts focused on the traditional computer platform. But any developer that doesn’t at least seriously consider getting a product out for ios is a fool. Do you know Apple sold more iPads last year than any model of desktop or laptop computer? Now, I know that there is a novelty factor and those sales may even out with time, but that is a lot of new tablets in a lot of new hands. The software in ios is easy for anyone to load and use, all bought in one central store with payment out of one account. Software installation and implementation is very plug-and-play, so it is easy for anyone to try making music in a DAW (or whatever application). For the developer there is less piracy and a chance at vast exposure via the iTunes store, which can get new users to consider a developer’s PC/Mac software once they realize they need more processing power and broader tools.
At any rate, I see it as a great opportunity for developers. I mean, don’t you all want the developer to be able quit his day job […should he so desire], have the chance to focus in on just software development, possibly hire a staff and just direct things while sipping on [insert devs favorite beverage] and eating [insert unnecessary and overpriced food item]??
GuaranathYah, I did not mean to imply that you could use actual VSTs in ios. I meant that any native ios apps that adopt the Audiobus standard and embed will be able to be used in a VST-like fashion, in the sense that you will be able to record the audio of one app in another app. In addition, many apps (well, the good quality ones anyways) already include virtual Midi, sometimes with Midi clock functions. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that these apps will be able to act like plugins.
There are of course limitations; I doubt you would be able to get away with simultaneous audio from more that three or four apps. And the apps won’t superimpose like desktop plugins, so you will have to pull them up from the background (a two-gesture process).
GuaranathYah, I take the WOT ratings with a grain of salt and mostly get concerned when I see page upon page of negative individual reviews. I have seen some sites that I know for a fact are safe with yellow ratings.
This particular case made me shudder a little bit, not because of the Nichols site, but because of the site you get re-directed to for the download. Individual reviewers were complaining that the site should not have a green rating and is essentially a front for klik team.
So I understand getting used to the landscape and getting a feel over time for who to trust, but when you guys are going somewhere new do you trust any of these site-review agencies? Just trust in your good quality anti-virus to catch any malicious files? Upload to a file checker (Comodo, Virus Total…)?
Thanks again for your tips on what to watch out for Telenator, much appreciated.
GuaranathAwesome! I will look around for that!
It really is hard to know what to trust out there on the internet, and I am perhaps overly cautious and skeptical. But it is good to know that folks are safely using the plugin, so I will go forth to with confidence!