Thoughts on Tracktion?

Ben wrote on 4/7/2004, 5:23 AM

I thought I'd paste this post I made which got lost at the bottom of another thread. Just some of my random thoughts about Tracktion after someone else mentioned it . I'd love to know what others think.

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Had a very brief look at the Tracktion demo a few weeks ago and I have to say there were parts that really impressed me. Clearly the programmer has nicked a lot of SoFo ideas - the very intuitive UI, lots of timeline and editing similarites etc. Tracktion doesn't do it as near as elegantly, bits look clumsy, though I didn't really put it through it's paces. Oh, and the interface is damn ugly. But...

The midi implemenation looked very smart - neatly stolen from Pro Tools as far as I can see; the way the piano roll editing is directly on the timeline. If some newbie software company with no heritage can put together midi implementation like that, I wish to hell that Sony would! Blows the socks out of Acid's. Ideally I would love midi in Vegas.

I won't be jumping to Tracktion any time soon - am too used to working with midi in Sonar - but it just made me question why Vegas is so lacking 'musically' (yep, that again). Have been working on my first big music project for a while - mixing, arranging and assembling in Vegas. Have to say I was screaming for things as basic as proper track grouping functionionality and, dare I say, a 'proper' vertical mixing layout. When you're running 40+ tracks and a lot of plugs it just gets very unwieldy.

Ben

Comments

Rednroll wrote on 4/8/2004, 9:50 AM

"the very intuitive UI"

You are kidding me right? This is NOT very unintuitve to me. It took me quite awhile before I could figure out how to select my inputs, to even be able to record. Then when I did select them, I couldn't figure out how to "disarm" a track for recording. It took me quite awhile to figure the dragging of the inputs on the left to arm/disarm a track for recording. Not quite as intuitive as Vegas of hitting the arm track record button, like every other recorder has ever done in on the planet. Then I tried one of my most common edit features, which it says it does..."Slip editing". Just can't get it to do that. Read the quickstart, read the online help, read the online FAQ section. I Still have no idea of how to do a slip edit. Wait, I just figured it out. So if I split an event, instead of performing the slip edit at my edit point, I have to scroll to the end of the clip and use the far arrow to do a slip edit. Now that's very unintuitive. Try doing a slip edit in the middle of a song, and see how difficult this becomes. Unlike Vegas, where you can slip edit right where the edit point is. Where's the buses? No buses? The combo track fader/pan control is a mess, unless you want to have to select each track individually and go to the bottom of the screen everytime you want to make a volume or pan adjustment. How, do I change the track name? Oh there it is, I have to select the track and then goto the bottom of the screen again and change the name, unlike Vegas where I just click on the name in the scribble strip, where I'm looking. That's pretty intuative huh? NOT!! Why is all the track controls located on the right, instead of on the left like every other multitrack program. I read left to right, using this program I feel like I have to be dislexic to understand everything. This program does almost the exact opposite of what people are most familiar with in a recording studio and they call it "more intuitive". How can it be intuitive if it goes against familiarity?

Tracktion is a joke compared to Vegas, even at the price point of $80. Cooledit Pro was originally free and then $50 and it blows this program away, even in it's early versions.

Ben wrote on 4/8/2004, 10:49 AM

Ok Red, I said very brief and I meant very brief! I certainly didn't delve as much as it seems you have. Agree with much of what you've said.

My main point was about the midi in Tracktion - on the surface it looks quite nice, certainly more usable than Acid's.

Ben

PipelineAudio wrote on 4/8/2004, 11:34 AM

if that damn app could only sync :(

I never took acid in my whiole life, but I bet if I did I would see something very similar to traktion

Rednroll wrote on 4/8/2004, 11:43 AM

Actually, I spent only about 30 minutes looking at it the first time and got that out of it. I'm still wondering how to reverse an audio event, haven't been able to figure that out yet.....but ok, let's talk midi.

I'm spoiled by Opcode's Vision midi abilities, which has been discontinued for over 4 years now, so I look down on something that can't even meet 4 year old discontinued technology. Here's some basic midi editing functions to try in Tracktion. I can't comment how the functionality is in Acid, because I'm not that familiar with it.

Let's say, I go to the midi editor view, How do I select every note that is on C-3? From what I see, I have to hit Cntrl-left click and select every individual note. It doesn't even abide by Windows standard to be able to do a select the first note, then doing a Shift+left click to select everything inbetween. I have to manually, go through the entire song and click on every note or I have to be careful enough to use their lasu function to make a lasu from the beginning of the track to the end. You know how I do this in Vision? I goto the far left of the screen where the piano is and click on C-3 and every note in the entire track that is on C-3 get's selected. So what takes me 1 click in Vision could take me over 100 clicks in Tracktion. This is useful in many ways for me. Let's say that C-3 is a snare drum, I have another snare on C#-3 and I decide I rather use that snare instead of the one on C-3. That becomes a pretty hard task in Tracktion and would take me 1 click and drag everything up 1 note in Vision. Or along the same lines, let's say I wanted to trigger both snares, so I need to copy all the C-3 notes and paste them onto C#-3. So that would be 1 click>Copy>Paste in Vision. I can't even figure out how to do that in Tracktion.

Here's another. Try extending the duration of a note. You have to click on that note, then again goto the bottom of the screen and manually change the "End time". In vision I goto the edge of the note and drag it to where I want it to stop on the timeline. Acid, has this also in the Piano roll editor

How about a "list editor". There is no way that I can see to change the Attack and Release values of a note....only the Velocity. So if I want to make certain notes have accents by increasing the Attack value, I can't edit that value to make the perfect performance. I have to go back and play it. This, I know you can do in Acid, and I know I can do it in Vision.

How about a "Step Record" function. In Vision I can create an INTRO sequence-A, a VERSE Seqeunce-B, a CHORUS Sequence-C and a BRIDGE Sequence-D, and an OUTRO sequence-E. So now I want to quickly assemble those seperate sequences into a song. What I do in Vision is record enable a track and put it in "Step Record" mode, then I press the keys>ABCBCDCE. My song is complete ala (Intro>Verse>Chorus>Verse>Chorus>Bridge>Chorus>Outro). You'll still be editing a week later in Tracktion trying to do the samething.

Tracktion sucks!!!!

heinz3110 wrote on 4/8/2004, 1:10 PM

Second impression....

I allready tried tracktion awhile ago:(as can be read on another tread here..)
>>>...I tried it,and tried to like it.I found it a mere combination of Acid and Vegas,but just not enough to be convinced.I tried it for midi and I missed some rudimentary functions to make it happen for me.Same on the audio-side. I reckon other people had more succes and patience with it,but for compared intuitivity(??) with Vegas I lost my patience and de-installed it. Probably a jack of all trades, king of none.Maybe other folks here have another (more positive)opinion about Tracktion and I'm missing something essential about it.The price is(was) good,though.<<<

Just gave it a another try last week:
Again,I was not impressed.Tried to import a multipart midi file and couldn't find a way to assign dedicated midichannels to the tracks.Midi editing is awkward...not that bad but not that handy either(especially compared to my jurassic midisequencer,still in use).
Editing buttons(say "quantize","note length" etc,etc) are on "the wrong place" ..."To much movement with the mouse"...

.I really believe they really tried to make a clean,uncluttered interface and all,but I still find it messy. "Goodbye, learning curve. Hello Tracktion." -as they stated on their website- is simply not true compared to vegas.

Another big no-no is that midi/mtc sync is missing t And yes,the interface itself I find butt-ugly.

Gerard

Gerard