The TelenatorThese, not being my first choice for synthesis, have me unfamiliar and in the dark. I do love the name of that one, though — Soundhack.
On further reading, installing Grainz is a tad tricky. Among placing folders in various places and carefully named — or else! — one requirement is that the user must place one folder of something or the other into WindowsSystem 32 directory. I didn’t care to hear that, and Ive never come across this before, either.
Heard of this sort of thing as regards granular synths?
The TelenatorAh, Alex — you have discovered my deep dark secret to my threads and posts. You see, I have a trained monkey who has been taught to sign into the Zynewave Forum whenever he passes by a PC (can use a Mac too, and actually prefers them for who knows what reason!). Anyhow, he locates any and every thread where I have posted my recent pearls of wisdom, then clicks into the thread repeatedly to UP the the hit counter, thus making it seem as if I’ve written something extremely wise and important. Neat or What? You know, this is how some popular cult figures got their start.
Say, while I’m here I wanted to mention that we seem to have a legion of silent readers at this forum. I first noticed it perhaps 6 months ago. Nary a trace of them, never a post I’m guessing. They are the Watchers, TheyWhoShallNotPost. They Who Must Only Use the Podium Secretly Late in the Lonely Night. Only record is that they can drive up a hit meter on a new thread into the thousands in no time and with seemingly no effort. Scary!!!
You Know, I noticed right after I did my civic duty as requested here the other day that I had chosen the exact same 3 features as you listed. Saw it right away after posting. Making that third and final pick was nearly impossible, if you know what I mean. So many needed features and such our tiny lists!
Cheers!
Tele
The TelenatorWOW! You really nailed it, Alex! This is everything we talked about a few months back when reviewing all. And it’s right about the order I remember. Man, this thread is beautiful. It’s got it all!
Here’s my three only, from most wanted on down:
1.MIDI routing
2. Pre-count
7. Access to an external WAV editor (Secondary Editor)
Please everybody, whether licensed or free edition user, PLEASE SELECT YOUR THREE MOST WANTED FEATURES from the top post and enter them in this thread.
The TelenatorI like polls. It’s half because I like to check little tiny boxes.
Meanwhile, I took stock of my own needs while coming to this New Year’s morning, and I surprised myself. Aside from a project that required elaborate and difficult routing that only REAPER could handle, I’ve found a solution to almost every past challenge so as not to need to rely on another DAW to get things done. I must say, though, I really like having both REAPER and Podium up and running just the way I like them. Both are inexpensive, both can be customised, can ReWire to each other, etc.
So . . . as regards Podium, while alex is putting together our next poll, I just want to list my current Feature Request needs. These are a lot more minimal than when I began working out various issues with Podium:
1.) Pre-Count Metronome (I rarely ever run those annoying things when I’m recording tracks, but I find it very important to have 2 or 4 bars of the clickity clack before the track begins recording. Max 4 bars and then stop making that racket.
2.) I’ve got a great dither from one of the REAPER devs that he calls “Psycho Dither”, but it would be best of we had a good Dither on-board Podium. Too many things to bother with and worry about when bit-reducing and rendering tracks, that’s basically why. We need one that will do the three standard settings variations. I use some version of ‘shaped’ most often.
3.) Global Option Setting for PluginDatabase. I don’t have issues with how plugins are handled as is now, except that I waste a lot of time when I have 6 or 12 projects half-finished and then decide to add some new plugin I’ve discovered globally to all projects. It happens still more than I would have guessed — always some plugin being updated and also lots of new ones still being offered almost every day. That’s an awful lot of repetitive clicking to get a VST into every ongoing project. There ought to be a simpler way.
4.) Improved Routing Capabilities. I’ll leave this intentionally vague. REAPER seems to be the gold standard of DAW routing flexibilities. Have a gander on what it will let you do and copy some, most, or all of that.
5.) Remedy the Native Instruments Problem. I have Reaktor with a few synths and Kontakt with Abbey Road Drums and some orchestral and pop/rock instruments. Got them bundled with hardware. Refuse to buy more gadgets for either, a waste of much time and money to me, but I would like to be able to run them in Podium without any troubles. The drums are excellent, the rest I could live without. I’m no NI fanboi, that’s for certain.
HAS anyone tested, has anyone tried??? I think the best way to handle time stretching and fancier functions is that I want to just spring for Melodyne within the next year. SO, . . . does it work smoothly in Podium? Anyone test it? I need to install the demo I guess and find out. Anyone who has made it work in Podium, please post a mention of this. It’s amazing how good Melodyne is in dealing with harmony editing and such.
Personally, I have to say, that’s about the extent of it. Oh, someone mentioned allowing an external WAV editor — I’m all for that, too! Otherwise, I’ve solved or no longer need much else. There should be a virtual keyboard soon, too, even though I’ve bought a couple and don’t really need one anymore.
[Edit to add] I’m sure I can think of something else eventually, maybe better MIDI usage all around? I don’t know. Otherwise I have never liked those DAWs much that are bloated with a load of puff and things that clutter the work area up, but I’m sure there’s one or more I’m forgetting right now.
Cheers! And a Happy 2013 (we hope)!
The TelenatorAwesome, alex!
I’ve been guessing it was about 6. Haven’t researched or compiled anything since those discussions back then.
Why don’t you make some kind of poll out of it? Is there any way people can vote 1 thru 6, 1 being most needed, or are polls just ‘choose One only’? Anything you can do with the info would be cool. At the very least, you could just post your findings. Thanks, and Happy New Year back to you!
The Telenatorsobaka,
I believe you will get a chorus of agreement on your comments above. I saw your one feature request in the thread next to this one — “YOUR FEATURE REQUESTS”. If you have other ideas, I’m sure we would all like to see them.
At this point, there appears to be at least six items everybody wants, starting from simple things, such as a metronome pre-count for recording, and an on-board integrated dither, to more complicated items. How about building a nice TIME STRETCHING package that would integrate with Podium?
How is your winter this year? All my friends from State of NY up through Toronto are getting slammed now with snow — about half a meter in parts of NY.
The TelenatorNow that you mention it . . .
I was saying how cute that Cubasis is on an iPad, and I probably should have mentioned that it seemed like there was a lot of ‘stuff’ missing — knobs and buttons — compared to what I remember from Cubase. No wonder they are calling it something different.
I hadn’t thought about it too much but some. I can’t actually prove my vision has got worse in the last couple of years of lengthy staring into a DAW, but it certainly hasn’t got any better. So, what I’m saying is I don’t actually think I can function visually with anything less than a 15.5″ laptop screen. I did think it was cute, what I saw, but doubt I could do serious work on one for more than a few minutes.
One of several reasons I’m planning to go back to a desktop sometime next year is that I crave having a couple of larger screens. I spent all this time collecting the grooviest synths, effects and DAWs, now I’d like to not have them constantly crammed altogether onscreen.
I really don’t know how they are going to fit everything, like you were saying with some kind of universal design. Podium seems more ‘wide-open’ to me and might make a better candidate. Some DAWs have extremely small buttons and delicate features even at full size. I think the main thing I’ll get out of all this is seeing what all these audio/MIDI apps end up looking like on pad PCs (with my reading glasses on, of course).
The TelenatorThat Elektrostudio site finally got an overhaul. It was ‘under construction’ for more than a year I think. He has a new Minimoog listed now. The new one is called the ‘Model Mini’:
http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2012/12/30/model-mini-by-elektrostudio/
Gone is an older deluxe version I liked. I even forget what it was called, though. I first heard about this site from the cheesy string synth, back when I was looking for one of those:
http://elektrostudio.ovh.org/index.php?go=esline
There’s been a lot of free stuff coming out for Kontakt and Reaktor. I’m sort of glad these don’t work with Podium all that well, or I’d be wasting a lot of time trying all the new stuff.
The coolest plugin I’ve run into lately, one that seems very promising, is the MIDI Guitar standalone and VST plugin. I’ve tried the 32-bit version in REAPER. It crashed it a couple of times but generally works. The cool bit about this plugin is that it can do polyphonic notes when running a guitar into it. In fact, it’s rather accurate (may take a touch of adjusting to get a solid signal). The standalone version I tried in 64-bit — that worked, too.
http://www.jamorigin.com/site/products/midi-guitar/
It’s in beta 0.5.2 when I tried it. Quite interesting. Demo plays for 5-10 minutes before it freezes on a note, requiring a reset. Guitar players at least ought to have a listen to this. I put a couple of Alchemy presets on first. It was cool to hear them being produced by a regular electric guitar. I think this plugin has a little ways to go, but this appears to be the future of guitar synthesis for those who won’t be using hex pickups on a guitar or using any of the guitar-like controllers that are starting to appear lately.
The TelenatorTo be clear, this is Cubasis I was talking about. It is cute but very tiny. And that is a very valid point you bring up as regards Steinberg and the decisions they make. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen them make a major gaff in all the time they have been around. People may take issue from time to time with the quality or design of certain individual products, but their overall direction shows very careful deliberation. I expect this to continue and possibly even be enhanced with Yamaha ultimately in control now. I could say all the same for them in product design, quality and wisdom. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Yamaha regarding their music products. So, I suppose the conclusion is, if Steinberg thinks there is a healthy market and it’s worth their efforts, then indeed it is.
First and foremost, though, I should have mentioned my appreciation for your assurances in your post above. I think many of us have felt left in the dark to a large degree lately. I still have some concern, because I wonder how features currently needed in Podium now will be received when some form of this DAW is launched on tablet. I’m all too aware of how fussy and demanding the consumer is these days. Although there is currently a dearth of apps and third-party software for a Microsoft tablet, one has to expect that the competition will become fierce before very long. This is, of course, assuming the survival of the platform.
However, now you seem to be making it clear that development on the desktop version will go hand-in-hand with the tablet version, that the two will complement each other — also assuring.
Aside from the fact that a number of Podium users are requesting many of the same features, I’ve also been promoting these to improve Podium’s standing among DAWs. Of these, it just seems to me there are a few that are critically needed — some that won’t require many days to build in — in order for Podium to be taken more seriously within our population.
The TelenatorSo cool and glad not to be stuck on REAPER doing this. So, of all the plugins I collected that supposedly will do guitar audio-to-MIDI, half of them don’t work really at all and another quarter of them don’t work well enough or leave glitches and lots of trouble behind. But a couple of them are just marvelous. One of them produces decent synth audio while it’s laying down the MIDI track. This lets me understand how it’s going to play out when I drop in a better synth on the finished recording pass. Even though I’ve got my keyboard skills back after many years of no use, I can still do parts faster with guitar, and the guitar styles of playing sound incredible when converted to full synth later. It really sets things apart and adds a unique flavour to the lines. I should have set this up long ago — too much fun.
Thanks again, chaps. You found the one issue I’d overlooked.
The TelenatorBelieve it or not, after long consideration, I’m going back to Windows 7 on a desktop setup next year. I never thought I would go this way after I bought a heavy duty laptop, but I am. I want a larger screen for one. Another reason is the parts — I can switch them out myself, they are about half the price of good laptop equivalents. Those huge towers that we always used to trip over and were a hassle to store under the desk are becoming a thing of the past. Some I’ve been looking at are more like indestructible metal cubes, about the size of a small monitor speaker. More and more over the last two years I’ve found I just don’t have to be all that mobile. People wanting work recorded are coming to me more than begging me to pack up and go to their practice location. I’ll keep the laptop for live stuff, but I don’t really like doing it anymore. I am usually at the mercy of whoever is running the board that night.
I’m fairly certain I’m sticking with Win 7. I’ve compared the two a lot, meanwhile picking up all the software to create a classic Start Page on 8 and other 7 features if needed. Any improvement in boot speed or anything else on 8 I’ve already got beat by tweaking 7 (which I already know far better).
I don’t know if you saw my other thread — maybe read up in some PC blogs and mags — the nerds are suddenly saying that the MS Surface tablet you’re wanting is possibly a dead duck already. It’s not just one mag saying it, either. I found it while searching for other info and it blew me away. If it was just one lonely nerd outfit saying that I’d dismiss it out of hand. I really don’t quite understand what’s going on, but if you find out, do enlighten us.
I was looking at Cubase 7 on an iPad yesterday — very, very tiny and small enough to make me ruin my eyesight. That’s something you might want to check out, too, so you can get an idea of how itty bitty Podium is going to look on a screen that size.
The TelenatorWow, and I see Podolski got a handsome face lift and new presets! I have the original version off the German Keyboard mag and it is somewhat u-he-gly. Sweet little thing nonetheless — Poldolski is to Filterscape VA what Zebralette is to Zebra 2.
The TelenatorThanks, both of you — that was the solution. Actually funny that in all the various instructions from the different plugin makers, talk about how various DAWs either won’t do it or at best do it differently, and all my attempts at routing things and workarounds, and looking high and low that I never saw that little checkmark next to ‘hide track’! I don’t think there was much said directly in the Guide either. In any case, its fixed now! And now begins the endless struggle for proper sensitivity and tracking! Yea!
Oh, and most of the plugins will run their own parallel synth-filtered track, so I will have a pretty good idea of how a different synth will phrase and play when plugged in to the MIDI track later.
The TelenatorWhoa! So your saying I’ve got a track hiding there that I’ve never been aware of?! I’ve got to go check this out! Thanks!
(Funny if true — because I’ve been trying all this elaborate stuff with zero visible results!)
The TelenatorWOW! Looks like you haven’t passed by here yet, but WOW! You did it, AXP — the plugin is now flawless! No clicking, popping, noises. It works great. No negative effects on the DAW or touchy old Cantabile 1.0 either. Not a flicker on either and that incredible for 1.0. This is going to be a main overdrive plugin for me. I tried it on a few clean wave types on a synth this afternoon and it sounds truly deluxe. Really have to hand it to you and now looking forward to your next creation. Will mail you.
Tele
[For anyone following his plugin development, this one is in top shape now and ready to go — a genuine tube(s) sim boost/overdrive plugin that beats the pants off of the Tube Screamer clones and so on. Links are below. You want the latest revision, the 1.04. It’s really cool. I’ve never seen an OD plugin like this one!]
KVR product page: http://www.kvraudio.com/product/softamp-3od-by-axp
Again, you will want the v1.04.
SoftAmp download page: https://sites.google.com/site/thesoftamp/