Add new comment

Thanks Lexridge,

The above wishlist is highly welcome, and you know what? there are many of those wishes already granted OOTB :) I'll try to give you some comments on each of the major topics. Please, feel free to correct or make things a bit clearer on your part.

• Object editing

  I guess most of editing in qtractor follows the non-linear, non-destructive model way as you suggest. The data that is pictured in the time line, in the form of clips, are parametric pointer references to audio or MIDI data files. When you change any of those segments, you're actually changing the clip parameters, not the underneath data file contents. You can have any number of clips that point to the same data file, also referring to the same or different locations or regions.

  Each track should be able to contain unlimited OBJECTS - Tracks can have any number of clips. The clips can even overlap each other (no auto-crossfades yet:)

  Each OBJECT should also support Linux plugins - Plugins are inserted at the track which a clip (aka object) belongs to. So there's no support for dedicated clip plugins, but only for tracks and buses. However, clip plugins might be an interesting feature, nevertheless.

  Each indivual OBJECT can also be altkey dragged to another track, or shift-altkey drag copied to another track - Each clip can be selected, dragged, dropped, moved, resized, cutted, copied, pasted, deleted, and all these operations have full undo/redo support as you might expect on a modern non-destructive editor. You can drag and move the selected regions either with the mouse or the keyboard (arrow keys). One additional clip property, which has been recently implemented, was time-stretching, very experimental though. Pitch-shifting is not currently available, you'll have to live with some track wide plugin for just that, sorry.

• Track section (audio)

  A track/wav editor - To be honest, an audio sample editor is not very high placed in my TODO list :) but it's not forgoten either. I believe that is a perfect example sub-project for have it out-source, don't you think?

  Splitting a track - Splitting clips is indeed a minor pain. There's no single operation to split a clip at a given location. You can always select, cut and paste as workarounds :) The split operation is however very easy to get implemented. Noted.

  Rubber Band (or envelope) editing - What you call rubber-band editing is here assumed to be mapped as envelope automation of control parameters, or whatever we agree to call it. It's in the major plan, yes. The way I'm planning it is having any track control parameter, and that includes any plugin control parameter too, to be the subjects of dynamic envelop curves. That curves will show up on the track timeline and editable and recorded as usual. I guess this will happen sometime in the new year ;)

• Mixer section

  Built in basic effects - I confess that built-in effects are not in the horizon. At least until this moment :) As you said, you can almost do anything with the available LADSPA plugins. However, yet again, if someone ever volunteers with some high quality (SSE2 optimized) DSP code for those standard effects, I'll be all for it :P

  Mixer Snapshots with quick retrieve buttons. 8 should be plenty - That's an good idea. What about named presets, similar with what you already have on plugins?

  Master Mono/Stereo switch - Right. But is this really strictly necessary? Unless you give a very good reason, I'm failing to put this one any higher from the bottom of the list ;)

  Phase reversal switch (could be a track option instead) - Any pointers on what this actually means? Is it turning upside-down the signal, positive being negative and vice-versa (ie. 180º phase-shift) ? In what situations could that be an option? I'm ignorant but I'm all ears :)

  Master Compressor/Limitor on Main outs, or bypassable with user plugins - Yes, plugins seems to be the way. And if you're thinking about mastering, you can always have JAMin plugged on the master outputs and bounced back.

  All knobs (pan, eq, reverb, etc) should be easily reset (centered) with a double click - Chalked. Just one middle-button click away, not a right-button double-click.

  At leaset 8 AUX sends and returns - This is also in the TODO list, but I'm thinking on a special pseudo-plugin that exposes track send outputs and return inputs as JACK audio ports, which will let you do whatever you want with the signal externally and then inject the result back in qtractor track output bus for mix-down. Does it seem reasonable?

• MIDI support

  Does Qtractor support JACK MIDI? No, not yet. ALSA sequencer only.

  External Controllers. Currently, only MMC is supported for the most transport controls (rew, play, stop, ffwd, rec) and track switches (rec, mute, solo). Continuous controls (MIDI CC#s) are certainly a must have feature and is thought to be integrated when the envelop/automation batch gets it's due.

  Advanced quantization or midi tracks or ranges - Don't know whether it's advanced enough for you, but the MIDI clip editor already has this special batch tools that you can apply to selected MIDI events: quantize, transpose, normalize, randomize and resize. What's still lacking is something that I also care about which is a swing- or groove-quantize tool and also still in the TODO list.

• Audio metronome
  This has been the subject for its own topic here. As there said, it will get its due implementation whenever out-of-session audio file preview/audition gets to the top of the backlog.

  Tempo Maps. This is certainly a current major design shortcoming. There's no support for tempo nor key signature map, and that will last for quite a while, I'm afraid.

• Keyboard commands
  The Home key already does the track-view to reset position at the beginning of session. It does not affect the play-head, that's true. What about Shift+Home for just that?

  Regarding Numeric Keys 0-9: that will have it's right place when location markers gets real, which are also in the mighty TODO list.

  A Key: Brings up Mixer is indeed a very good thought. Will try to remember that next time I deal some code from the deck :)

....more one this later.
Keep'em coming :))

Cheers
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela