The Telenatorinfinitoar, let me just take on the two first points you made, as I believe that will suffice.
The ‘only One Man’ defense: I used to agree somewhat with that thinking, but recently I believe Frits has himself proved this completely false. The conversion to tablet PC would be a huge undertaking. If he can make time for this, he can instead take on — as I pointed out above — the mere 6 to 10 features the vast majority of us can agree we need. The “only One Man’ argument is a total FAIL.
The ‘users requests are all over the place’ defense. This argument, too, is a total FAIL. If you have been following the recent threads that addressed this specifically — the ‘list’ thread and the ‘poll’ thread — then you know this argument is false. The most outstanding feature of the list thread was that requests were remarkably similar. Yes, some lists were more complete than others, and as I pointed out there were a very small number of unique ones, but it is more than clear now that those users who took the time and effort to speak up were asking for almost identical features needed. I have no sympathy for users who want anything far different who did not participate, since the discussion is edging on 3 or 4 weeks now. To suddenly chime in now to negate all we’ve discussed or make a case for features far different is certainly allowable but also a bit immature. I mean, were you on a mountaintop vacation? Well, if so, make that argument. To sum up, clearly NO, we know what’s needed and 99.9% is nothing you won’t find on any other good DAW.
I’ve tried to look this matter over from every possible angle and defense before posting last night. I find that the arguments against simply don’t ‘wash’ any way you use them. I know you were playing devil’s advocate here and turned it all around at your post’s 2nd half, but I need to attack the falsehoods and logic of what you began with, because those are all anyone can try to use to nix feature improvements.
I am not a dev. I do not code. I have not seen the source code for Podium. However, if there is only one thing all those nearly useless years at the University taught me, it is how to do good research. I can give you a pretty fair estimate of what it takes to get the various jobs done. We’re not asking here for something like taking a huge pile of 32-bit software and suddenly taking it to 64. Also, note that many needed features could be added piecemeal without disrupting everything else. I’d suggest, though, that the MIDI features would be more convenient if done as a whole ‘package’ to save running over the same old ground many times. This would be a significant bit of work, yet less than piecemeal in the long run, and less work than compressing the snot out of everything to fit into a tablet existence.
I stand by the review I’ve posted and its several points, and I further suggest that anyone who wishes to take on a varying viewpoint do his research well and present facts as a defense. Personal protests consisting of emotions, whining, the ‘I wouldn’t use that, I only record church choirs or accordions live’ is simply not going to cut it here. Many of us have paid into this with not only our cash but great efforts spent in mastering this software. Either this should follow the ‘rules’ as they stand, or they need to be changed to reflect some other reality. Again, as they stand, it is:
“Software updates are released frequently with a user-driven development cycle.”
That’s the software I invested in, not Crystal or Audacity.
The TelenatorComments, anyone else? So . . . are Podium feature upgrades “user-driven”? If so, where? When? What is the nature of the relationship, if any? Examples?
The Telenator@kim: Well, “mostly” is how you put it, so I guess you’re just a matter of degrees. Furthermore, I want to do more than just “survive.” I want to have the freedom to use full creativity and not be constantly hampered by a rather large pile of lack. Perhaps you don’t wish to do much with the MIDI besides plug in and hit record. One can only guess, but it is clear there are many here who wish to use the full potential of a software they have invested so much effort in learning all the in and outs (no pun intended I believe)!
The TelenatorI also think what is adding to this growing disappointment is the fact that even far lower systems — Audacity 2.0 being a perfect example — are already equipped with such things as dithering, their own crude and odd form of time stretch, and the ability to convert audio into many other file formats and export beyond pcm WAV. And these were in place long before the new 2.0 version was released.
I am also seeing lately another similarity, in this case among many Podium users themselves: great efforts and discussions about workarounds, frustration at Podium’s limitations, and/or a slow migration out once they get past the charm of the UI and discover that things don’t work quite as they appear they should. And these shortcomings are brought here, discussed, but then left unfixed, and fixes left unscheduled, and fixes not promised, often after many and lengthy discussions.
When I restarted this most recent discussion of features in Podium I already knew fairly well what would be requested…. My larger goal was to encourage a reconsideration of priorities for Podium design and development during the process. While I still like the concept of Podium on a tablet PC, at the same time I rate it as a rather low priority, because I really cannot see how it would benefit any one of the currently licensed, paying users of Podium. Even more, Podium on a tablet without a truly meaningful features update sound more like insult to injury. It will only result in the ability to take our limitations with us in a more portable manner — something I don’t even want to think about.
This brings me to our final and probably most important point regarding this lack of significant improvements. While I do recall one or maybe two users desiring the Mackie control upgrade, I do not know nor have I read of as much as one person who has been pushing for the Win8 tablet idea. Where did this come from? Why were users not queried about this beforehand? Where is the poll? What gives here?
In a new thread started by infinitoar, he points out something very important taken from the basic mission statement on the Zynewave Homepage. I will quote it here:
“Software updates are released frequently with a user-driven development cycle.”
I’m sorry, but I do remember reading that assurance when deciding whether to buy Podium and invest my efforts in learning the workings of this system, and I have been around since early last December and have read extensively in this forum, even going back some to get oriented. So, could someone please tell me when any of this has happened? These user-driven updates? Unicode, was I out of town for that one too? When was that poll about the tablet PC? I’m willing to bet that not one of you have the foggiest clue what features in which decade are ever going to be added, do you? I thought so.
I’m sorry again, but I see no user-driven anything going on here or even back the several months and threads I have followed. I see no promises, assurances, suggestions of fixes being executed in any sort of scheduled manner. I do see that users have been thoroughly polite in not demanding deadlines or promises of actual dates. But would it be too much to ask if we could be informed of which season the things we have repeatedly asked for might be accomplished? If something is going to be too hard or take much time, I think an explanation would suffice. I really don’t think that would be unreasonable.
Could we also ask that things NOT WANTED by users be set aside until we see the things we really do need? I think there are between six and ten items we can all agree on, perhaps starting with that nasty MIDI business that seems to be at or near the hearts and tops of everyone’s list? In fact, how about some promise of a total MIDI package? Routing, effects, editor upgrade, virtual keyboard, etc? What else am I missing in this department, chaps?
You see, the whole tablet business was never asked for and would be extremely time-consuming and of no aid to current users for a long long time. I think it might benefit rich kids whose parents give them $300 cell phones or $800 tablets. Would anyone agree? So in this ambitious project I do see the “driven” part of Zynewave’s pledge. But I haven’t personally seen any of the “user” side of it since I arrived here, yet I do feel that we users have done our part of the work by identifying important needs. Let’s see now if we can have the “user” part put back into the “user-driven,” shall we?
Cheers!
The TelenatorPart of what has helped shape my view is my growing familiarity with Reaper, my ‘backup’ DAW. I used to joke that you could plug a toaster into it and get your breakfast while recording, but that joke is nearly true. Reaper is so flexible I can practically plug anything into anything and get acceptable sound on a track. It even has a ‘force’ option which allows a user connections and routing that ought not exist or work in the first place. If nothing else, this tells me that improvements to routing cannot be too all-consuming to add. It seems as though every DAW has radically changed them in the last year or so.
Now, clearly, Reaper is the exception, as most other DAWs do not bend over backwards like this, but my recent research shows that very many are close and some getting closer all the time. Just for example, Reaper will accept every one of the 5 or 6 virtual keyboards I tried. Yet it doesn’t need one because it has its own, like almost every other system out there, including many plugins that could use them. In Podium, it refuses all except one, but then forces me to play and record ‘blind’ — without sound, because with the keyboard in the source slot I cannot add a synth or other VSTi to hear what I am doing. Here is another potential user fix to a Podium problem that was nixed by Podium itself. It almost appears sometimes that Podium does want to be fully functioning. How could this be?!?! Efforts to use the half dozen virtual cables that are available and widely used were equally disastrous, as I explained above. With them, I could have put the keyboard on another track and used it to drive a VSTi ‘next door’ and record there perhaps — or on both tracks! What a notion! I have many plugins with multiple Ins and Out, just like touted and explained on a Podium tutorial, but they are ALL useless because Podium won’t let me connect them anywhere. What a total waste of the designer’s efforts.
It is not too much to state that MIDI capabilities need drastic yet basic improvements. Currently, I am doing the same as some of you — dragging and copying my files back and forth between two hosts — and wasting an awful lot of time and energy in the process. This is my only option right now, aside from either accepting the limitations of Podium and therefore to my musical creativity, or throwing my hands up in the air in frustration and moving on to a more completely equipped system, like some have already and some have vowed to now or soon. I know there are some users who switch their DAW every time they find one tiny thing wrong with any of them, but I assure you that is not the case here. This is about getting work done — and hopefully with a degree of efficiency. Not long ago at all, the market was in a state where there were many features missing from many DAWs, but that time is now passed. Almost all systems come with a standard list of features that I believe most of you could rattle off from memory. Naturally, this is a big reason that so many of our recent feature lists were very similar!
The Telenator[Believe it or not, I am about to get to this lack of a road map, as I wrote all this earlier. I still believe in polling, too — see main lead paragraph. I need to enter the rest of this but feel free to add to or clarify any of my points.]
The reasoning that MIDI must be addressed, and fixed, and soon, is obvious: There is currently NO MIDI routing on Podium. MIDI can’t come in from any source, can’t be sent out to any receiving software (aside from Reaper perhaps, but some other DAWs do not take to ReWire very well or at all yet, besides it is rather tricky opening each host correctly to set this up, a second screen almost a requirement). Add to this perhaps the biggest insult to MIDI, that it is marooned and isolated within Podium — can’t do a darn thing but render it and call it a day. Can’t tell what effects added to the track will sound like until bounce is done, and if unhappy with basic bounce track under the effect, have to GO BACK re-record or re-assign new VSTi, do it all over again, hope your second bet was wiser than your first. This is grinding me right to a pulp. I spend more time ‘fiddling’ with things than I ever do getting WORK done. I am a worker, not a fiddler at heart.
With MIDI routing and MIDI effects we users could then solve some of Podium’s other MIDI issues. As is now, it won’t allow anything new or novel. Runs fine with almost all plugins, except the ones that would liberate it from its straight jacket. I’ve spent a week total trying to set up my own MIDI virtual keyboard. Podium won’t have anything to do with it — it even changes its own rules when I get inventive. Won’t take MIDI IN where it asks for MIDI IN, It won’t let me run virtual cables, even uninstalled them just to show me how much it doesn’t like the idea! I believe in playing by the rules, but weirdly Podium either does not or changes them with each new attempt. ‘Source’ should be an input for any, but it’s not even an input half the time. It offers to send ‘MIDI Out’ but then won’t when I try it. It not only needs MIDI routing added; it needs the whole In/Out affair overhauled. Yes, stuff flows up from bottom to top –except when it doesn’t. All of this only adds to the lack and wasted efforts. This is perhaps the Number One thing improvements to Podium need to be about — MIDI connectivity.
Instead of spending all this effort trying to run cables and so on, this energy should be spent creating. Meanwhile and during, I ought to be able to run MIDI and audio where I dang please. Heck with the filing system, at least they go where they’re told — and they actually ARE a system. MIDI is not.
Look, if all of you are hearing about MIDI needs in Podium from me, a dinosaur rocker who swore he would never touch MIDI in recording a mere two years ago, then I think you can understand how important these MIDI feature improvements to Podium truly are. MIDI is extremely important these days in so many genres, even old-style blues, and it needs to be brought up to par so it can get full use.
The Telenator[Thanks for filling in some facts there for me and catching a couple of points I missed all together. Win8 has a UI that is essentially designed for illiterates and phone junkies. Although I do think it will ultimately be successful, please note the detractors you mentioned. Also, as Microsoft does almost every time (try to take over the world), as always it makes one wrong move inevitably and shoots itself in the foot. Please see Windows Live, Live Mail (still has the jitters in most browsers after 4 years and still doesn’t run well in its own IE9 browser!), the IE9 browser is bad in 32-bit and a total disaster in 64-bit, can’t use its stupid Silverwhatever flash copy to view some national news pages, they just cut back users of its Skywhatever Cloud system from 100 gigs to a mere 7 gigs storage, and it takes ALL DAY to upload to it — and now not only a ‘better’ tablet with a new OS that gets a lukewarm rating from everyone in the know. The EU and Opera browser is going to sue the pants off them again for browser anti-trust issue, same as a few years ago. I think the mngmt. is all on drugs. If I was MS I’d probably have to step in front of a fast city bus and end my own lack of foresight and save you all major suffering. Get back to ya on this. Got to finish posting . . . ]
There are other issues I discovered regarding Win8, as I have become more familiar with that OS, that will affect everyone’s use of Podium on Win8. The most important one is the requirements for running Win8 on any computing device. The rock bottom system requirements for running the OS alone — before any consideration of DAW or DAW-related software — is 4 gigs of RAM and CPU strength of 1.5 gigs. Again, this is rock bottom, meaning that Microsoft would rather the user have something beyond these limits. Now, I think most of us can cover the 4 gigs for memory. That’s common these days. For CPU, I know for a fact that many users would be hard-pressed to make this amount available mainly for the OS. What this means is that many PC owners will need to purchase a new machine when (or before) they start running Win8. Suddenly, we are talking about a year or two before everyone has a PC powerful enough to run the new OS comfortably with all their favourite audio goodies. My own PC would be able to run Win8 and then probably have enough left over so as not to max out over the full digital audio chores and have no problems, yet I am close enough to worry and to know that this PC will not be running Win8 under any circumstances. I would hit the ceiling on very large projects most likely. This is yet another very good reason Podium on Win8 should be put off for at least another year, since virtually none of us will be able to use it. And let’s face it, we all know quite a group of DAW-users (several here) who still love their Windows Vista and will not be leaving that OS unless absolutely forced, and you and I need to respect that choice.
Meanwhile, it would be to Zynewave’s advantage to attend to its own product, remove the several shortcomings and become better prepared to play with the ‘big boys’. I will be very blunt here by saying it won’t matter to me or any serious musician or recording tech which gadget it runs on if it can’t handle what I consider certain basic chores, namely MIDI foremost in the various features needed under this subject. There are a couple of other features, too, that I hope to get covered here.
Some of you may recall me asking not very long ago, “MIDI improvements? Which ones? And why?” Since then, I’ve had ample time to follow up on this and understand the many requests for better MIDI features. Aside from, I believe, ‘timestretching’, MIDI features were the overwhelming top requests and the major subject on our many lists. Yes, and although someone wanted a slightly improved MIDI editor or piano roll, and a few of us really need a virtual MIDI keyboard added, the MIDI requests truly boil down to two ultimately important features that are needed right now and not sometime later next year: MIDI routing and MIDI effects.
The TelenatorAside from our lists and discussions, a few items recently ‘shocked me back to reality’. One was the few problems that ensued after the Unicode update, but more important was that I suddenly realised that I was familiar enough with the MIDI issues regarding Podium, and I noticed I was spending entirely too much time building workarounds and band-aid fixes for a DAW that really should have these missing capabilities native in the first place. What really summed it all up for me was adimatis’ recent comment (paraphrased here) that he ‘did not want to be forced into using Podium AND yet another DAW merely to take care of regular business’. This is precisely where I stand in looking over the current abilities of Podium. I am in the position of having to use Reaper before or after Podium in order to get basic recording and editing chores taken care of. I can even go as far as to say I could survive with only Reaper (or perhaps some other DAW), but I could not survive with only Podium. Let me stress that I am doing no unusual work that might require a multi-station arrangement, even though I have tried that setup. Instead, all I am really attempting is to take care of regular audio and MIDI tasks, and I feel that having to rely on a second DAW is unacceptable when we look at the current state of the art regarding this type of software.
Setting aside features that I might like to see added — personal whims, nice touches, and other fancy bells and whistles — I think we need to focus on the features Podium really must have to be a professional contender, and which of these it really should have NOW.
You see, it won’t matter at all if Podium works on your fancy Win8-equipped phone or tablet if it cannot work as a completely professional piece of software. It instead will only pass as yet another curious app available on a tablet, for kids to sing into, add effects to their personal noises, and so on. And although I do believe having it able to function on a Win8 tablet is a wonderful notion, I see no real need for it or for any hurry. Even Microsoft seems more interested in other things lately — selling books and other media after its huge acquisition of part of the Barnes and Noble bookstores chain, more than it does in having a heavy-duty computing tablet. Expect to see something better than Nook and more like iTunes and Kindle on a Win8 tablet in about a year. And I can guarantee that this is where the lion’s share of their efforts are now and will be for a while. Much of what they will be looking at for quite some time will be putting their product in a position to take on Apple and Amazon.
The TelenatorIf you investigate Ian and his whole approach more thoroughly, you will discover that he is of your inclinations regarding compression; HOWEVER, he has entered the realm of mastering engineer in the last few years and is subject to the egos and demands of the artists who say, “make it louder, much louder, we’re paying you” and etc.
I’ve been in this dodgy bind, tho I don’t master (not yet anyway!), just mix for others on a select basis (read: only when artist is good friend, I need the money, someone in bad shape musically needs help, somebody got a bad job at the referred place, etc.)
I hope you understand that compression — when subtle and used sparingly — can actually help your music to breathe. It is very misunderstood. It is NOT just to control clipping/levels or make overall project louder as most think.
Every comp has a sound of its own, too. I have just reviewed some dozen of them and put 2/3 of them in my shredder. But the ones I kept? Ooooh! Sound to die for.
Finally, at least a touch of comp (multi flavoured is the only way to go in mastering), is almost a requirement to glue a whole CD of tunes together, keep levels and feel the same throughout all, and more. Brick wall limiting is practically a must, too. I never go above 1dB headroom on peak (This leaves space for the inevitable intersample clipping that WILL occur.) Next, I maintain a minimum of 6dB of dynamic range. An unfortunate exception as an example that I made to that is my friend Joe wanted his vocals in your face and pushed for a DR of about 3, and he paid the price (this should be the last tune I posted in Tunes here on forum I believe — listen for the squash and the small but audible distortion on it. I have since repaired it some but still sucks IYAM.) Anyway, 6 is well away from the ‘loudness wars’ but a good 6 or so shy of classical music dynamics. But I do rock and rock blues, so I rarely have such pianissimo passages — i.e., I try to rock (even at my age, laddies). Ian goes for 8dB, unless someone has a gun to his head, which is more often than you might imagine.
Whatever your thoughts, don’t sell compression short. It definitely has its place per channel some, at the mix, and multi-comp at mastering time. (And thank yourself you didn’t go to one of those magazine ad sound eng. schools, infinitoar! Few are taught by the real masters; most are a bunch of kids teaching how to squeeze the life out and take you to the war — and perhaps 1.5dB dynamic range, which is no dynamics at all really.)
All the best to you in your decisions, infinitoar. If it makes you feel any better, Podium just ate one of my projects whole when I went to switch ASIOs in order to test a theory. Fortunately, it was my MIDI test field tracks, and wouldn’t you know it but I saved another version of it a couple weeks ago by mistake!!! Oh, BTW, I am about to post a rather long review of Podium and some important issues that need facing. It is all written before our evening dinner, so I just need to enter it shortly. I think you may find it of interest. Cheers!
The TelenatorFunny you should mention that particular keyboard, because it is the only one I’ve found of the 4 or 5 I’ve tried that will work in Podium without freezing or crashing the host. The only problem with it is that I can’t attach an instrument to the track to hear the MIDI I’m recording! If I define it as an effect (VST), then that’s no good because Podium does not accept effects added to MIDI during recording; it only allows for them after the track has been bounced. If I leave it as a VST instrument (VSTi, as it originally installs), then I can use it on a track to record MIDI, just as I mentioned, but then it hogs the instrument slot on the track and no ‘sound-rendering’ VSTi can be used, thus I must record ‘blind,’ which is utter nonsense and totally unacceptable.
There are other keyboards, most notable of the lot being VirtualMidiKeyboard3 and Bome’s, but Podium won’t have any of it. Most of them are a better designs than the one we mentioned above. I ran Little Piano 32 into Podium a couple of times via MidiYoke long ago, but if I recall that had the same ‘blind’ issue or else some other problem that put me off it.
Regarding Phrazor, it is about as ‘finished’ as we might call any audio software. He was planning further updates just like any mindful dev, but there was nothing wrong with it as is. The release of the beta Preview 7 came because SonicBytes was closing it down, so they dumped it on the market. Perhaps it didn’t sell — I can only guess about the reasoning. The only thing slated as the next update to it was to be an extra ‘manager’ function, which has had me puzzled as to what it might manage and why it might be included. As it is, Phrazor seems completely bug-free throughout, at least as I am still able to use it in the standalone mode, and it does all the things it needs to do.
I wasn’t suggesting Zynewave make any special accommodations for this or ANY ONE plugin. By no means. But what I am saying plainly — or at least was trying to say — is that I have been attempting to build workarounds for several of Podium’s missing features, the keyboard being only one of them, and it is beginning to appear AT EVERY TURN that Podium is pitching a fit with all of these efforts. This is rather frustrating.
One thing that could be straightened out is this ‘source’ concept on the tracks. Look, MIDI comes in or MIDI goes out. I’m afraid that all there is to it in the working world of audio. Now, let’s get that proper AND let it happen. THEN, we ought to be able to employ any of the half dozen virtual cables out there, both free and paid-for variety. At that point, no one here would be harping about MIDI routing because we’d all be able to do our own, like the rest of the real world. My goodness, it could be just like in the real world! Tell my why I can’t MIDI cable out of one track and then plug into another. Tell me why I can’t easily cable into Podium from any other decent software. ‘Source’ is a misnomer — it should say in that box slot, “Plug in a hardware keyboard right here or hit the highway, buddy.”
I finally found my notes on my former trials with Phrazor. It turns out that I didn’t bother to try it with REAPER (probably because that DAW already contains all those features), but instead used it with a Cubase 4 and my son’s system.
Finally, and since I mentioned Cubase, it took Steinberg a year and demanding too much money for bug-filled upgrades and some truly nasty customer relations on their and their forum’s part before I told them where they could place their product, so my concern today with Podium will in no way send me bailing.
But I am seriously beginning to question all this talk of pie-in-the-sky compatibility with tablet computers or any further large projects when there is so much work left undone in bringing this software ‘up to snuff’ with what’s standard now on practically all the others (and I have been researching this issue lately).
The TelenatorOh yes! Glad you mentioned that, kim! In fact, I believe they vow to keep those on their disk forever. Sadly, that mag is much lessor known and read in the States. I can’t even find a copy in shops.
The TelenatorSorry, adimatis. My BAD. If it was said to me in the conversation then I didn’t hear it. I didn’t know it was a standalone deal. I only had time to briefly scan the page and grab it.
I may fool with it some anyway, but, same here, it’s not what we are really wanting. I’d much prefer something that sits in the host, if not native to it in the first place.
The TelenatorOn second thought . . . seems to me I saw something that somehow incorporates non-European scales that are selectable or can be set by user. Had some of the more well-known microtonal ones. It caught my attention that day; will have to try to recall where that was . . .
The TelenatorMicrotonal AND a soundfont player? Nnot a lot of integrated pitch control on plugins. The few that are, are set it, leave it, not an active performance function. I’m guessing it’s partly because so many musicians can hardly keep their act in perfect tune in first place! He he!
My current online project, passing me thru here tonight, is collecting virtual keyboards that will run and record MIDI tracks in Podium. It does not have one yet. I think I found the right ones to test now. Reaper has a keyboard. Otherwise, I have to borrow a keyboard controller. Borrowing no fun.
The TelenatorThat quote is on the mark: “. . . nothing left to take away.” That’s exactly what I saw, looking at my VSTPlugins file on Sunday afternoon.