Zynewave's Forum Page

Traditionally most hardware (and software) mixer faders will allow you to boost the level of a track with up to +6, +10, +12 or +18 dB. This is necessary because on many mixers the faders are the only means to boost a signal on a track. I chose a different approach in Podium by implementing a gain setting for the track and let level automation be an attenuation of this gain setting.

I am pleased with how this split into a gain setting and level automation has turned out. You can adjust the gain setting on audio tracks and avoid creating a level track if you don’t want to automate the level. And for tracks with level automation, you can adjust the gain setting to ‘offset’ the entire level automation on the track.

So if you want to boost an audio track with +6dB at some point, you need to set the gain of the track to +6dB, and then start the level automation at -6dB. I’m going to improve the curve editor soon, so that it will be possible to see dB values for the curve points.

If it turns out to be a huge demand that level automation tracks should be offset with +6dB, one way of supporting this would be to define a new ‘+6dBFS Level’ parameter type in the Parameter properties dialog. Existing projects would then not be affected.

Also, I have been in the habit of making most tracks have audio mixing, so I can adjust the levels all the way through the signal chain. Is there much of a processing leap in doing this, or is the only code added in the form of signal==signal*gain;? (I realise that it increases the graphical overhead too..)

Every track that you audio enable will get an extra sub-mixer at that track. Meaning that there will be a buffer used for collecting the audio of subtracks, to calculate the meter values and to apply pan and level changes (if set differently from defaults). Tracks that have e.g. plugins assigned will already have the sub-mixer created, so audio enabling those tracks to get the gain setting will not add overhead to the audio processing.

Finally… If a track overloads, does Podium clip, or just pass the overloaded signal down the chain to be attenuated later? I’ve noticed that if (for example) I have a snare hit that goes red in it’s channel, the parent track goes less red, and the master channel stays green; and all of them have 0dB gain…

Podium does not apply clipping, until it has to output the floating point audio to fixed point buffers in audio interfaces or recording to fixed point sound files. Some plugins can handle that you put an overloaded signal through them, others will create digital garbage. So generally you should keep the meters out of the red zone before applying effects.

If your track gains are all set to 0dB the signal is routed unaltered up the track hierarchy, unless your audio source is mono and thus is applied the chosen panning law.

That was some tough questions considering you were just strolling around in town 😉
Frits

You could email me your project file (.pod). I can then verify that your project is configured correctly.

High on my list is support for dragging wave files directly onto tracks. Judging from the feedback of several users, one of the biggest obstacles is how to put premade sound files onto tracks. It’s not obvious that you have to import wav files into Podium, open an object list window and drag the sound objects onto tracks. This browser would hopefully improve on the workflow of this.

..I also wanted to comment and say that I produce using multiple computers (laptop for on the go) and would like to be able to export everything to one file and copy that to my laptop for further editing.

Good point, I’ve added the archive feature to the future list.

as an aside to this, in the short term could there be an option to output a file containing all the links to files, both those added by the user as sounds, and those maintained by Podium.

Spoken like a true developer :wink:. I would much rather do it the right way from the start; I had planned to make a simple media browser window that would enable you to preview wave files and drag them onto tracks.

This media browser could be made useful for many tasks; A way to mark all files referenced by a project. The media browser would have New Folder and Delete buttons, which you could use to delete files not referenced by your project. The media browser would probably be the right place to add functions for archive/restore projects to zip files, and renaming/moving sound files so that the new sound file names/locations automatically would be stored in the project file as well.

I was planning to work on the VST GUIless editor windows next, but if you think this media browser is important, then I could start on it as the next thing?

I finally managed to download the latest Kontakt Demo (1.1). When importing it into Podium 1.01 (which supports native VST parameters), there are no VST parameters reported. Maybe it’s a demo limitation, but if not, then I guess you’re supposed to automate Kontakt using MIDI CC’s.

What probably is missing in your setup are MIDI CC parameter objects. When importing a Softsynth into Podium, only Pitch-Bend and Modulation (CC1) are created automatically. If you use the browser to locate the folder with the Kontakt parameters, you could copy and paste the Modulation object, and change the name and CC numbers in the properties dialog for the copied objects. I noticed that Kontakt allows to assign CC’s in the range of 0 to 121. I know it’s a tiresome job to create 120 parameter objects manually 😥 . In the future there will be a plugin definition file for Kontakt in the Podium library, with all these parameter objects preconfigured. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Frits

Be sure to take a backup of the Podium.ini file 🙂

That sounds like a cool setup. I would love to see some screenshots, with meters blazing etc. Any chance you can put these on the internet? They don’t have to be fullsize, maybe just 50%. You could perhaps start a topic in the general chat forum called ‘Podium Screens’.

although I really wish I could configure the track header, workspace areas (i.e. area that contains sequences) and panel colours as different colours.

In the Project properties dialog you can load a bitmap for the background in the arrangement editor. If you just want a different color, use Microsoft Paint to create a small square and fill it with a color.

Excellent bug reporting, Sardaukar

Fix will be available in 1.02