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(re)discovering Qtractor
Hi !
Before starting I must confess I gave more attention to Ardour 3 than Qtractor lately...
Months (years ?) have passed and I now am happily rediscovering Qtractor... which has made impressive progresses !
Maybe what I was waiting to happen in Ardour has already happened in Qtractor.
Now it seems I have to catch up for lost time. Better late than never !
I've found the GUI to be intuitive enough to find most of the functionality I was looking for. However I have some unanswered questions (after googling and searching the doc) so either I missed something, either I will have to make some feature requests ;) :
Automation and midi CC
I successfully found how to automate effects and synths parameters with automation curves (even if I would love to be able to display more than one at a time like.. in Ardour ;) ).
I successfully found how to link effects and synths parameters to midi CC -> real time fun here ;)
But I wonder if there is a way to record automation curves from midi CC ?
Background sequence
I haven't found a way to display a background sequence like in seq24. You know, this is when you want to have another track grayed out and overlaid to the current track. Something like this : http://d3vvl31cy8gagb.cloudfront.net/qt_041_3tools/ghost_channels.jpg
Key and Scale
On midi tracks there are two drop-down-lists for selecting both Key and Scale. Whatever I choose, it doesn't seem to change anything !?
I thought it would be the equivalent of Seq24 or Rosegarden functionality to change the "key signature" for a region. In which case the layout of the midi editor changes so that key that are note in the scale are grayed out, which is very helpful when composing.
Your feedback will be much appreciated :)
DoosC
re. (re)discovering Qtractor
welcome back :)
Automation and midi CC
automation and midi controller assignment (aka. midi learn) are two distinct feature functions that just happen to have the same item subjects (eg. plugin parameters); but if you select automation for an item that is also assigned to some midi controller then you can record (live) all the midi controller gestures into the automation curve--the automation data points are just added on-the-fly while you turn the controller knob (or slider) or even if the controller events are produced by another sequencer, application or elsewhere.
Background sequence
nope. this is certainly a feature request for the midi clip editor i guess.
Key and Scale
the key/scale are just entry input filters like snap-to-grid (which now turns as snap-to-scale) when entering, editing or moving up or down selected note events; perhaps to change existing selected events into a given key/scale is what (from menu) Tools/Quantize/Key, Scale does instead.
hth.
cheers
(re)discovering Qtractor
Hi Ruy !
Wow, this is first hand informations from THE Qtractor guy itself :)
Thank you for your quick answer, I didn't see it immediately because I haven't received any notification from the forum (neither I found an option to change that !?).
Automation and midi CC
I tried again and it works as advertised :) I just missed the record option the first time ... (sorry)
Background sequence / Key and Scale
OK, so where is the best place to make feature requests ? Do you prefer to discuss them here in the forum or at the sourceforge project page ?
Donation
On the project page you can "flattr" the project and at sourceforge you can only make a one time donation. You probably should add paypal on the project page too so that more people can see it. Also could you add a paypal recurring donation option ? (I don't know how it is possible but I've seen it elsewhere so it must possible).
Thank you very much for your time and your great softwares !
DoosC
re. (re)discovering Qtractor
re. where is the best place to make feature requests ?
either is ok. but sourceforge.net/p/qtractor/tickets is the official place, for the record anyway.
re. donations...
yeah, sourceforge.net/p/qtractor/donate is still the one-time method (via paypal.com); and again, flattr.com is the only option left if you're to have a subscription more on the micro-donation type.
ps. tbh. i'm way more deeply interested in ways to improve things into a well defined but still general purpose state of the appliance than, *cough*, interested in the money, if you know what i mean. iow. i'm not selling out my stuff. never was. and it sure isn't as of this writing. if i find something that gets to a (true) win-win situation, believe me, i'll do it. not saying the otherwise is false. this is not plain 1st order logic anyway. again, i hope/assume you know what i mean ;)
there's no place for bartering here either. on my stance, you can have it your way as long it's good for both of us. yeah. libertarian bs. but this time, trust me, it's real, not utopia :)
cheers.
(re)discovering Qtractor
Hello again !
OK I'll go for sourceforge for feature requests then !
About donation, no offense, I wasn't bartering anything, don't worry ^_^
It is just that I don't want open source to die, I know that some really need the donations to keep going. We all have to make a living, at the end of the day, one way or another ;)
Let's see you soon on sourceforge then :)
Qtractor and other Audio/MIDIsequencing software
Guys, this is a really interesting dialogue. Well, I like qtractor because of its simplicity and ease of use. My favourite audio/midi software of all time was emagic LOGIC. simply because of the screens, event lists, and pluggable instruments that reflected the real world in a studio. I even used it once to record a 26 episode animation tv series with vocal tracks of 20 actors and hundreds of characters. But music production was my main game. Ardour is cumbersome and almost bloated, reminding me of ProTools. OK, i appreciate a lot needs to get done in a studio, but sometimes simplicity is the best approach. So many things need to be working together that it needs to be easy to troubleshoot, especially when studio time is costing money. Emagic got bought over by apple and Steinberg have gone their own way, but ease of use and linking to devices in a more graphical way using virtual instruments that have some connection with the real world makes life easier for engineers who have to do retakes, drop-ins, edits, and easily find files, clips and pieces in a heated, speeded-up environment with no daylight, lots of insulation (for sound spill) and possibly working in tropical places like India, for example, where I once did a job. Think about how real people might use the software in real life situations and can't spend hours trying to work out what the developers mean when they name a function or tool or assign it to a less-than-logical drop-down menu. GNU/Linux offers a lot of alternatives to many people and has the potential of being at the forefront of innovation, just try to think of the tired burnt out audio professionals who might want to use your software.
re. Qtractor and other Audio/MIDIsequencing software
thanks John.
qtractor was originally thought out as to follow Cakewalk's Pro Audio series back from the 90s née of Sonar, then Roland's, now Gibson's. world is round indeed.
do you have any point in particular you appreciate for discussion, about qtractor that is?
cheers
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