sugesHi Frits,
I’m glad the presentation videos and documentation is your priority. I’ve read the guide–wouldn’t you say it’s more like a features overview than a manual? I think it serves more as marketing collateral, and it worked–it was viewing those pages that made me want to try Podium in the first place.
In any case, what I need in a manual or a video is the walkthrough or quick start guide. I want to know how to make a simple track from start to finish, including:
1. How to use it to play MIDI on my keyboard
2. How to use it to play VSTi’s
3. How to use it to record vocals and live instrument performances
4. How to work with pre-recorded performances (as wave files I guess)
5. How to mix and EQ my production
6. How to place and run finalizing plugins like compressors and ditherers.
7. How to bounce the whole thing down to a 2-track wave file.
I’m sure to you and all the veteran users here these are trivial questions, but I am completely baffled. I think primarily I’m used to using the Windows-standard drop-down menus to be able to work through all the features a program offers, and that’s how I learn it, but as you know the layout is unique in Zynewave. Anyways, I hope this helps you understand what educational issues need to be addressed in yoru documentation.
I’m glad you haven’t completely discounted the ReWire idea. Hopefully I’m not the only one of your users who would use it!
Suges
sugesAwesome, thanks.
sugesThis new build does appear to solve the “Could not start xxx streaming” error for my card! Well done.
sugesGreat, that cleared everything up. Thanks for the replies (both on the forum and e-mail).
As a last note, I’ve worked out exactly what’s going on with this “Could not start 44100 streaming” error message. Whenever Podium starts, it sets my FW-1884 to 96 kHz for some reason (even though it’s always set at 44.1 usually). So all I have to do is go into my control panel and set it back to 44.1 and everything starts working. I hope that helps you troubleshoot the issue, or perhaps Tascam wrote some crappy ASIO drivers? Who knows. Anyway we’ll see if your 0.92 build tackles the problem as well.
Take it easy,
Suges
sugesHi Frits thanks again for the swift replies,
Display resolution is 1024×768 running on a Radeon 9200. I think that should be more than enough graphics power, but I could be wrong. The screen wasn’t ENTIRELY black…I could see the startup wizard as well as the grey horizontal line that runs across the very top edge of the browser window. But everything else was black.
I’ll definitely download your latest build on Saturday. My Windows version is XP Pro. Yeah I’m not sure what the problem was there with the .ini file, all I know is once I deleted it everything was back to normal in Podium.
Really looking forward to those videos.
Since I haven’t gotten anywhere yet in Podium, I’m going to start again fresh right now, and type as I’m going. Hopefully this may help you to see the average user’s–or maybe just a Cubase SX user’s thought processes as he/she tries to use Podium.
Okay my goal is to start recording some MIDI piano using Hypersonic.
Starting Podium…
Oh man black screen again! What the hell is going on?? Okay when I press Ctrl+L (I was wrong before) I can see the object browser. Any node I double-click on will bring up its properties window.
Perhaps it’s my test project I saved from before that’s corrupt? I’ll send you that right now…
Okay deleting Podium.ini.
Restarting…
Studio setup has a red arrow, setting various options…
MIDI setup went smoothly.
Audio setup threw the “Couldn’t start 44100…” errors. NOW I figured it out. It doesn’t seem to be talking to my Tascam ASIO driver nice. I click on the Tascam’s control panel, notice all the settings are messed up. Put them all back to the way I have it set up in Podium, then streaming begins.
It’s not clear what a MIDI input mapping is, but pressing the red button is simple enough.
It’s not clear what hardware mappings are, either. This is probably because at this point, I haven’t seen how the sequencer works yet. Here I have to click “I do not wish to use hardware device definitions.” since I don’t know what the problem is.
Import plugins is pretty smooth, however I would request an option to import an entire directory and its subdirectories, since all of my VSTi’s are organized into directories (so that they’ll be more organized in Steinberg products).
Used the wizard to create a new arrangement.
Now creating a track…
I’m not sure why I wouldn’t want to create a master track without bounce, all projects need to go to a mixdown wave sooner or later (I think?).
Okay the wizard’s cleared. I dismiss it.
Looking at the arrange window. Trying to figure out how to add a new MIDI track…..
Right-clicked, found Insert New Track.
Don’t understand any of the options presented except for track name and the two output dB controls (which are greyed out anyway).
Clicked on newly created track. Don’t understand what to do next.
Found Input drawer. Double clicked my MIDI input. I see now. The reason I thought at first I couldn’t use these drawers is because they are greyed out, so I thought they were inactive right now.
Clicked Map. Chose Hypersonic 1+2. A red exclamation mark showed up. An error message about missing parent track mappings to handle audio which means nothing to me right now…
Didn’t know what to do with Preset and Param.
Went back to Map and right-clicked Hypersonic to get the properties. Clicked Device is an instrument. Clicked Stereo from source and traget channels drop-downs.
Stuck.
Anyways, I’ll probably figure it out when I get some more time. I hope that “user case scenario” helped you a bit (I had to learn to document the UI experience when I went to software design school) for when you write the manual. Anyways, thanks again for all the help!
Suges
Jens,
hahah you’ve never heard that before? I always hear people calling sleek interfaces “sexy” so I went with it. As for the streaming issue, I have both Podium and my Tascam set to 44100. Thanks for your help!
Suges
sugesIt crashed AFTER saving complete setup. It took a couple seconds to save, then on the next click (whatever it is that you click on, doesn’t matter), it crashes. It’s happened twice so I just don’t use that menu item anymore hahah.
The entire main browser window is black indeed, Ctrl+L is black (invisible) as well.
Thanks for the path to the setup files, I deleted the .ini file as you said and everything’s working again!
I still am getting this weird “Could not start streaming at 44100 Hz” error message…my earlier workaround method doesn’t seem to work. I basically just have to keep fiddling and changing the drivers back and forth from MME to ASIO until it gets it the message goes away!
Yes I think you should just search the registry. Even though it’s probably more clean and smooth to know all the driver details ahead of time, it isn’t really necessary since most people stick to only one driver anyway once they’ve made their initial choice.
I can definitely say so far the interface is sexy. Is there any Quick Start guides or anything? I’m having a hard time figuring this all out, coming from Cubase SX.
Thanks for your assistance!
Suges