The Telenator's Forum Page

It took me a couple of days to think this one over. I didn’t want another 4 gigs of loops, as I have more than I’ll ever use in that dept. and samples already. I suppose I could have simply deleted the Loopology bits after. I do like some of the WAV editor features of Audition, no question, and don’t care if its MIDI handling sucks. I like Podium’s MIDI editor just fine and REAPER’s is almost as good.

I just decided I’m good enough with Audacity and Wavosaur for my external editor needs. Sort of sentimentally attached to them, too, since it was where I started.

I’ve got plenty of space to add more software, but lately I’ve stopped adding. Even with plugins, I’m at a point where I’ve groomed my assortment, and taking on anything new automatically makes me scan for one I might delete. I’ve released that this software ‘heaven’ we are currently experiencing can become too much of a distraction and, at the very least, eats up too much of my time. I’m holding one future exception. That will most likely be for Melodyne, as for editors I see that as the direction we’ll all be heading before long anyway.

I said elsewhere that I’m actually glad Native Instruments has issues with Podium. The news has 3 or 4 new add-on instruments to their interface released almost daily now, and since my NI stuff was a free bundle I don’t worry that I’m missing out by not checking each new offering. I can gladly do without having to audition a few new instruments every time I check the latest news.

Whatever their reasons and motives were at Adobe, I agree it is nice they are offering all their legacy software. It might have served me better a couple of years ago, but I’m beyond all that now. I used to use InDesign when I was still in publishing, very effective stuff, but I’m retired from print media now — and glad of it!

Enjoy your Adobe ‘freeware’ (haha) and I hope it serves you well!

Cheers!

Ah, figured it out. Didn’t want to download wrong or needless items.

Go to KVR forums if you want to follow the whole sickening story.

In a nutshell, either Adobe outright lied and/or this is some weird publicity stunt (not unknown for arrogant Adobe Corp. to be dishonest and apt to mislead on purpose), or some underling screwed up massively (also possible), or some superior changed his mind during the lunch hour (cf. back to the arrogant, dishonest bit).

It is what it is . . . which in this case, it AIN’T.

[Edit: Oh, uh, did I mention? These are the same people who have been promising to release a 64-bit version of FLASH player for almost 20 years now, but haven’t. Thus any 64-bit browsers are seriously crippled and not worth using.]

Yes, you bring up the one sticky point — “Talking about it does not necessarily make it so.”

Somehow, through all of this, I feel like it would be irresponsible to simply let the issue die and go on my merry way (the kind of behaviour you see endemic in our Western culture today).

But lets look very briefly at what we have here. Setting all personal bias and connection aside, we have here a DAW that could still be capable of kicking major butt when put up against all but a few leading 3 or 4, and those start at $500 USD now and up from there.

It’s a solid platform, track based (which many of us will always prefer), has a fine MIDI editor, takes plugins much better than several I can name (cripes, some of the top DAWs won’t take any of your favourite plugs!), and more, and for icing on the cake Podium rates still possibly Number 1 as the best-looking DAW (I don’t know about you, but I can’t stare at ugly all night long).

As a “labour of love,” Frits has plenty to be pleased with. After all these several years, some DAW makers are still lacking for other, really horrible reasons — because they have taken faulty paths, made foolish bad-business choices, alienated most of their customers, grossly overcharged, or have somehow just plain got there heads lodged up their butts.

NONE of these apply in Podium’s case. I think Frits should be quite proud of Podium, even if it does qualify as a ‘stealth’ or ‘mystery’ DAW for the time being. Although I can’t prove discussing needed features directly results in any, you have to admit that you can’t prove that not discussing them serves any purpose, either! (Hehe!)

Cheers!
Tele

Although I’m seeing this rule broken an awful lot lately, particularly in the low-mid to mid-priced range of monitors, it is supposed to go like this: Monitors are supposed to sound TRUE, not GOOD. If they begin to sound good, it will only be because the music being fed through them sounds good.

Theory aside, few of even the best monitors are completely flat. We don’t sit around partying to a 1kHz pure sine waves. We don’t check our nominal levels between each song in the queue when trying to enjoy music for music’s sake.

I think the biggest factor in searching for a new set of monitors is that I would have to know what set(s) you have been using steadily for a while. The lower in price we go, the more every model has a distinctive ‘voice’. Some believe these various voices fall into types or groups. I tend to agree.

For the record, I have no issues with the Yamahas but then I’m biased to much of their product line (with the exception of Steinberg). Many years ago, a Yamaha rep saved my band from losing a few important gigs. I’m not entirely keen on Yamaha’s guitar amp line, but I was that week! More important, I approve of their business ethic and the hard work they throw into it. I’ve seen that they have started cleaning house at Steinberg, and I believe you can expect more improvements there. Their whole approach to the public has changed there.

Getting off-topic here, but they do make lots of great musical stuff with integrity. I linked an M-Audio pair and the Rokkits. Everybody is talking about every model of the Rokkits, and the M-Audios are just an example of ‘affordable sturdy.’

I don’t know who is running Kurzweil anymore or what they make. I did know its namesake sold out and went off to be a genius inventor somewhere else.

Finally, someone has admitted mixing/recording with nEars and has given a thumbs up to them. Still, some will always consider that sacrilege!

Sure are an awful lot of choices in lower price point speakers these days!

Alex wrote:

1030 views – 6 responses. I really don’t believe this!

Well, there’s just no accounting for taste, is there? I often attempt to work into my thread posts some cheeky, secondary entertainment value. Failing that, I can sometimes seem agitated and annoying, This, I suspect has been some of the reason for massive hit counts — They come seeking what it is everyone else has their knickers all in a bunch about, but then flee in near terror, seeing that certain ones such as myself are ‘at it again’. Of course, we could speculate all day long, so I won’t.

I’ve mentioned it, yet unsure if anyone has noticed, but my own Feature Requests have dwindled considerably. There are various causes for this, but it is not as some will suggest, because I’ve ‘learned to put up with it’ — being Podium’s lack of several features. I’ve gone about ‘fixing things’ in several ways, not the least of which being the purchase of a couple of smashing keyboard controllers, eliminating my peronal need for a virtual one in Podium.

Skipping ahead now, there have been a couple of items I’ve pushed for, more as a PR goal as much as badly needed, dithering falling squarely among them, although it saves trouble having one, and I will point out again that even freeware Audacity has its own professional quality dither and has for almost 4 years now. And any self-respecting DAW such too.

I have no hesitation to admit that there have been some features I’ve dutifully listed each time because I know their importance for Podium’s image sake and even more because I’ve known for a very long time how much dedicated Podium owners want them. More good PR in the end if implemented!

I’ll now skip right to my last point, comments of shock and awe (that entertainment value) regarding the large and most difficult feature of all — Time Stretching. And here you will be shocked to know the following; first, yes, even Audacity and Wavosaur have a bit of this. More importantly, many, many DAWs today have it, too. But here’s the shocker — it is a near-disaster in function on many or most of them. Here goes:

Studio One 2 was perhaps smartest of all and comes with Melodyne’s cheaper package bundled to it. I’d buy Studio One just to have the Melodyne, except that Studio One is butt-ugly, the colour I call ‘corpse gray’, their terminogy of engineering is half whacked, and I don’t care for any of the other plugins or other helps. Both Ableton and Bitwig cannot seem to get their respective acts together for long enough to release their next editions, so just forget them.

FL Studio (the people too embarrassed to refer to their DAW as ‘Fruit Loops’) has stretching, but sync’ed or no, look out!!! If you happen to insert or perhaps already have placed a tempo change within any region that is being stretched, your project will proceed to go haywire and come unravelled, and its almost certain you will never be able to pull it back together again.

Now, it matters none to me and many others what Reason has, because Reason is the DAW and Propellerhead the system that makes you buy all your plugins twice and won’t accept any freeware, since it will only take plugins that fit into Reason’s stupid ‘rack’ system. So forget them as well.

And who cares what Pro Tools uses. You can’t afford it anyway.

Now, some, including REAPER, have turned to using one or more types of elastique, which is licensed from Vielklang, the company that has become the very poor man’s answer to some Melodyne abilities and at roughly half the price. In my whole last year of owning REAPER alongside Podium have yet to use it even once. I tend to think about Time Stretching only when I’m reading about yet another REAPER owner who is having some kind of troubles with it. And the story carries on from about there.

Would I use it if it worked well in Podium? Why not? Do I want it in Podium? Who knows? Do I know how much more maths, coding, compiling, testing, and time and money this one feature would need to create it? You guessed correctly. Yet I will continue to list it on FR lists, because several want it badly, technically it could be done, and it is almost standard issue as of 2013. Personally, it is not within my recording style. I have other ways of ‘fixing things’ and creating bizarre sound events that relate back to songs such as “I Am the Walrus”. I would rather purchase a Melodyne Assistant or Editor package if I were to use those capabilities very much.

Sorry for such great length!
Cheers!
Tele