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Questions and Wishes
Hello Rui,
we have been playing around with qtractor for some days. Our goal is to create our own music under linux. Before we tried qtractor, we used the musicmaker from magix under microsoft windows (we know that qtractor is totally different to the musicmaker!!!). We like to play around with samples and loops, maybe with midi and externel synths and samplers, put them together and listen what happens.
We have some questions and wishes about qtractor and it's functions:
1.Are there plans to implement a filebrowser? It's very hard to put our samples step by step into qtractor.
2.Is there the possibility to use more than 16 midichannels? We don't know much about the functions of qsampler, but we have seen that a samlpe can insert with 99 different ports and each port has 16 midi-channels. We think that this means, that we can use 99 different samples as replacement of an instrument, so we can max. use 99 instruments at the same time. Are we right? Is it possible to call the samples in qsampler from qtractor over these ports?
3.Is it possible to set the loop-markers for looping automatically to the end of our song, to hear the whole song again and again? Everytime we click the right mousebutton to open the context menu then directly the right loop maker is set.
4.Is it hard to implement icons for each track?
5.Are there gui's for an effect-rack and the mastering-section?
6.If we input a sample ,with for example 110 bpm and the song is about 140 bpm, is it possible that qtractor does an automatic timeshifting. When not, is it hard to implement that feature?
7.Can we edit the track-name without open the proper window??? Moreover can we insert a plugin directly by using a button (and do not have to open the same window we asked about in the question before).
8.We like to use a virtuel keyboard to test the virtuel instruments and sounds without opening the piano roll.
We know that we have a lot questions and wishes. But we didn't find any better software under linux than qtractor to make music. Moreover we hope you will understand our broken english. We are only stupid guys from Germany.
Best regards,
Samy and Gerd
Re: Questions and Wishes
woohoo! welcome!
questions will be answered in no time, wishes may take longer... ;)
1.Are there plans to implement a filebrowser?...
you can drag and drop freely, didn't you know? that working to and from your desktop environment, at will; use your own preferred file-browser, no matter whether it's gnome (aargh), kde or whatelse:)
2.Is there the possibility to use more than 16 midichannels?...
go to View/Buses... and create a new MIDI bus; that's it, each MIDI bus is functionally equivalent to what you call a 16-channel MIDI port; next... :)
3.Is it possible to set the loop-markers for looping automatically...?
loop markers are currently set on a time-line range basis; you loop on a whole time-interval and not in a pattern-wise fashion as in abbleton live, whatever:(
4.Is it hard to implement icons for each track?
what for? aren't colors enough? :) qtractor-is-not-garage-band :)) however, i really don't find it a heresy, but let's put it this way: you don't need that and that won't make your music any prettier--it's just noob eye-candy, ain't it? once you get it to the tool, working as it should, you'll suddenly realize that those icons are just consuming screen real-state for no real benefit. trust me ;)
5.Are there gui's for an effect-rack and the mastering-section?
eh, no? qtractor is sort of designed to be part of an eco-system, not that it's the whole of it--it's kind of a hybrid. not quite a monolith (as magix-mm and the likes surely are) nor completely pure-modular (like some linux sects do often preach), but something in between... anyway, effects are done through plugins and/or jack interconnected stand-alone client applications, relying on their own guis, and there's the where the beauty of open-source freedom gets in real shiness ;)
6.If we input a sample ,..., is it possible ... an automatic timeshifting?
you call timeshift for what i call timestretch. yes it is possible but not that so automagically. best way (imo) is deciding which is your song tempo from the start up, and then adapt imported audio clips to precise bar/beat boundaries, taking hand and visual snapping while shift-dragging clip edges to their correct tempo-wise positions. once that, audio clips will be time-stretched and fit to desired tempo. you have control :)
7.Can we edit the track-name without open the proper window?...
sorry, not yet :( but, it's that really important?
8.We like to use a virtuel keyboard to test the virtuel instruments and sounds without opening the piano roll.
there's always vkeybd and vmpk for the rescue, but i'll recommend you to use a real MIDI keyboard controller for anything really serious ;)
Cheers
Re: Re: Questions and Wishes
Hello Rui,
thanks for your fast answer. Some of the things we asked for are really only for eye-candy and for comfortable. Thats all not really necessary. Maybe it would be nice for better looking. But as i said not necessary.
>> 1 . Are there plans to implement a filebrowser?...
> you can drag and drop freely, didn't you know? that working to and from your desktop environment, at will;
> use your own preferred file-browser, no matter whether it's gnome (aargh), kde or whatelse:)
yes, the drag and drop works, but only with marked files, not with directory’s. If i want drag and drop an directory with sub directories, nothing happens. If i drag and drop many files it works. We have over 10 gb free loop samples sorted in directories with sub directories, it would be need weeks to create the groups and subgroups and sort in all the loopfiles. sorry, is it impossible to implement for drag and drop the autocreate of groups and subgroups from the directory-list? or a function to import a directory-list?
> 5. Are there gui's for an effect-rack and the mastering-section?
> eh, no? qtractor is sort of designed to be part of an eco-system, not that it's the whole of it--it's kind of a hybrid. not quite a monolith
> (as magix-mm and the likes surely are) nor completely pure-modular (like some linux sects do often preach), but something in between...
> anyway, effects are done through plugins and/or jack interconnected stand-alone client applications, relying on their own guis,
> and there's the where the beauty of open-source freedom gets in real shiness ;)
ok, can i use more then one plugins? maybe for guitars (first for example, guitarx -> reverb-plugin -> compressor -> and so on...)? i dont understand the routing the people always talk about. is jack the thing i must use to route or should i use that intern in qtractor? in our church we have a mixer with inserts, but i never used it? the people always talk to use this for effects, and not only for one, maybe for two or so on. this point is not so important.
As i said, the most of our wishes is only for eye-candy. But the most important point is the import of our samples. Thank you for your great work with qtractor and the other projects (we want use in future qsynth and qsampler).
best regards, Gerhard
PS: For what are the functions "instruments" and "controlers"? I dont understand these things.
PPS: Some day i want to use tractor fro our live worship in church, so i can use loops, samples or drumparts and so on...
Controllers
The "Controllers" option is to map the functions of a midi keyboard to control the parameters of each track (gain, panning, mute, solo and record). I had the same doubt, check this thread and you'll probably be mapping your keyboard right away!
http://www.rncbc.org/drupal/node/224
Sorry for answering on Rui's behalf ; )
Re^2: Questions and Wishes
1. re. file-browser
well, i guess you do have your audio file collection already very well organized on the file-system side of things. so why do you want to make it all duplicated on the lousy qtractor files pane? think of this latter gadget as a mini, local dedicated organizer for one session, song, project, piece, whatever focused idea :)
you already have it right. don't ask for making it any less than that :)
5. re. can i use more then one plugin?
sure you can. plugins are serialized on per track or bus basis, meaning that are chained one after another. ain't that enough?
re. Instruments
you must know that qtractor has no sound generation capabilities per se.
all goes through either external or internal plugin instruments. those are commonly driven and indirectly selected by MIDI bank-select/program-change messages as to select a proper and specific sound timbre aka instrument.
well, MIDI banks and programs are anonymous numbers and doesn't tell you a thing which kind of sound a synth or sampler will reproduce. there's where those cakewalk instrument definition files come into the rescue and make those numbers human readable and useable ;)
byee
Re: Questions and Wishes
Hello Rui,
> 6. If we input a sample ,..., is it possible ... an automatic timeshifting?
> you call timeshift for what i call timestretch. yes it is possible but not that so automagically. best way (imo) is deciding which is your song
> tempo from the start up, and then adapt imported audio clips to precise bar/beat boundaries, taking hand and visual snapping while shift-
> dragging clip edges to their correct tempo-wise positions. once that, audio clips will be time-stretched and fit to desired tempo. you have
> control :)
whao, now i know what you mean. If i insert a soundclip, press shift and hold mouse-left at the end then i can strech to the lengh/beat i need. great, wonderfull. That's what i need. Thank you very much.
> 1. re. file-browser
> well, i guess you do have your audio file collection already very well organized on the file-system side of things. so why do you want to
> make it all duplicated on the lousy qtractor files pane? think of this latter gadget as a mini, local dedicated organizer for one session, song,
> project, piece, whatever focused idea :)
>
> you already have it right. don't ask for making it any less than that :)
Sorry, but the problem is, that i have the clips sorted on filesystem, but i want to prelistening the clips before i put it in the tracks. i can only prelistening and search for a best clip, when i have it in the filewidget of qtractor. i use kde, the dolphin starts every time i want to listen a file a extra programm like vlc or something else. But all other externel player dont work, when jackd is running. and it is uncomfortable to start jackd and stop jackd to look thru my files. my next step is that i try to search for a jack-player, but best way it would if i can prelistening directly in qtractor. for that i would be nice to have the same structure in the filesystem as in the filewidget of qtractor.
i will ask a friend, if he can develop me a phytonscript to extract the directory-structure and make it to a qtractor-"default".qtr. that would be a good workaround for me.
thank you for your great work and help.
best regards, gerhard
timestretch
> whao, now i know what you mean. If i insert a soundclip, press shift and hold mouse-left at the end then i can strech to the lengh/beat i need. great, wonderfull. That's what i need. Thank you very much.
I'm sorry, I don't understand, what exactly should I do to make a piece of audio slow down if I slow the tempo down ?
Re: timestretch
there's this global option: check View/Options.../Audio/Automatic time-stretching.
when turned on, all audio clips will be automatically time-stretched in direct proportion to the session tempo (bpm) change, either slower or faster.
use with extreme care :) do not expect it to work correctly or even precisely, in succession or for rogue tempo changes.
cheers
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