thcilnnahoj's Forum Page

Yay, this looks great! 🙂
The only thing missing is some kind of visual clue that there are things still further up the chain. You could potentially wonder for ages where that reverb sound comes from, only to realize there was a send mapping on the track all along, just not visible. Like on the old track headers, the box around the signal chain would drop a shadow when there were hidden parent tracks. Sadly I’m fresh out of ideas for this right now.

Edit: Ooh, there’s drag-and drop rearranging of effects on the track header! If possible, pop-up help should close as soon as you start to click-drag an effect track, otherwise you can’t see where you’re dropping it.

Two wholly cosmetic observations:

1. There’s a definite 1 pixel space between the new buttons that is only really noticable with dark color schemes, it seems. I wonder if it wouldn’t look nicer if the buttons were actually joined (but still separated by a line). I don’t think there’d be much of a concern about it being just one button that way.
Extreme example:

2. I can’t help but to think those shadows look a little exaggerated on brightly colored backgrounds, like the default blue for selections on Vista. I don’t know about your UI rendering engine, of course, but is there any way you could try something similar to rendering shadows with a different blend mode? You know, Like in image editors – multiply, screen, overlay… A “simple matter of programming”, surely. 😉

Edit: Also, I believe the letters S & M aren’t centered on the new bigger version of the track header buttons! Unbelievable! 😛

And something a little off-topic. I recently wiped the dust off an old laptop computer; it has a native screen resolution of 1400×1050… on a measly 14″ screen. 🙄
Text in Podium is awfully small that way, and changing DPI settings in Windows doesn’t help. This is no request – I’m just curious – have you ever thought about changing Podium’s font for a heavier one, or using the system’s font?

@LiquidProj3ct wrote:

@thcilnnahoj wrote:

To be fair, this is not entirely true, maybe simply due to a bug: If I keep adding effects, at a certain amount the new effect tracks will not be added into the chain correctly. It’s best to try and see for yourself what happens. 😛

You were really bored! 😛

😆 Couldn’t hurt to test my claim! I had to wait for Windows to install on my new (old) laptop anyway.
But regarding what comes out at the end of a 30-effect chain, hmm… Merzbow? :-k

And whether Frits is furiously coding or taking a week off, considering we always get something great in the end, I don’t mind the wait much.

I really don’t want you to think I’m trying to prove you wrong, or fight you! ❗ Nobody here hates you for stating your opinions.
Just trying to explain that some things are quite different (and maybe less easy for some, but more flexible for others) in Podium for a reason.

So, about the screenshot (Samplitude 11) – are you only talking about the design? As far as functionality is concerned, you’d have the same if you full-screened Podium’s mixer. I don’t see how you would get rid of having to scroll up to see effects in either of them.

I think it should be clear by now that things like effect slots or having all sends at the top (for example) is not very likely to work for Podium.

In most sequencers, the number of effects you can place on a track is limited (think FL’s mixer – 8 slots, was it?). Podium lets you have pretty much an unlimited number of effect tracks! If you want 8 effects, just add them… there’s no need for empty slots – isn’t it quick enough to do especially in 223, with the new “add effect” button?

As for sends, they can be placed anywhere in the signal chain. Other sequencers allow you to send the signal to a bus track only after it’s run through the track’s whole effect chain. From the look of the screenshot, it seems that Samplitude works this way (but I could of course be mistaken).

Hmm, it’s working fine for me in 222 and 223. Are you sure you’ve set the in/out marker(s) correctly? The option is also greyed out if bounce playback is activated on the track.

@Zynewave wrote:

Another button bites the dust. The select and menu buttons are now combined into one. Clicking the button will select the track. Clicking the button when the track is selected will open the menu.

I’m not sure this is helping the cause of making it less confusing… I think after an unsuspecting user has seen what the button does (selecting a track), it’s not very obvious to click on the button a second time.

@Zynewave wrote:

The “add effect” selector is now a simple “+” button. It can be hidden with the “show new effect buttons” option in the inspector options menu.

It’s more discernable now, but I’d say the behaviour of the empty selector was more comfortable. Now you have to first add an empty track and then put an effect on it in a separate step. Oh, and if you keep it, please try to use the nice heavy font like on the SMREX buttons. O:)

@LiquidProj3ct wrote:

You could change mute button and do it a knob and then you should remove the send faders. This knob would be a Volume knob for instrument, a Dry/Wet knob for insert effects, and a Send Gain for send effects. If the knob is zero then the effect is bypassed. If you right click in the knob you alternate it between its original value and zero.

This sound pretty good, too. May be worth a try to save space and revive some of the dials. (Give them a new look :wink:)

@Zynewave wrote:

Beta3:

The selector buttons now turn into editor buttons once a plugin is assigned. That gets rid of the separate editor buttons. Good riddance, I say. When you alt+click the selector button, the effect is removed, and the effect selector menu reappears.

Is there anything assigned to right-clicking it, other than selecting the track? You could use it to bring up the replace/unassign device menu, otherwise people who don’t like keyboard shortcuts may have a hard time with it. 😛

Also just noticed something a little strange: if you quit Podium while its main window is minimized, it will start in minimized state on the next run, too!

@kyran wrote:

Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the new effect slot at the end of the signal chain (where you’re most likely to add a new effect)?

I concur. Another suggestion would be to use just a round button with a + sign, or something, instead of the full lenght bar btutton for better visual separation. At a glance, it looks like there’s already an empty track present.

@Zynewave wrote:

Besides the redesign of the group panel, the following is also implemented in beta1:

• Improved stability of plugin multiprocessing.

This involved a change to the way that the plugin processing is distributed to the available cores, so I would appreciate if you could try the beta1 and let me know if you notice any change for the worse in plugin CPU usage. Especially if you’re on XP. My XP machine is not running a multi-core CPU.

Okay, this may not be a very scientific test, but judging from the graphs in Windows task manager, CPU usage is more evenly distributed between my two cores in a CPU-munching project compared to 222. It seems I’m also getting a lot less red flashing in the CPU indicator at low latencies (Vista 32-bit). Could this be due to this change, or must there be something else at work? 😳