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Hello
I just discovered Qtractor last night in the Ubuntu repositories, and I must say that it's a dream come true for me, as my audio production software is the only thing I still need Windows for. I went ahead and donated $100 through sourceforge/paypal, and if it will help you continue development on your wonderful project, I'm willing to donate much more over the coming months and years.
After spending some time with Qtractor, I would like to make a few small requests and suggestions:
1. A faster, more efficient workflow, including the use of standard hotkeys. I want to be able to work quickly by doing normal editing tasks in as few clicks/keystrokes as possible. Some specific examples are:
a. CTRL+Left-click and drag a audio or MIDI item to copy it.
b. An option or a key combination(like alt+left-click and drag) to loop a MIDI or audio item instead of just making it longer.
c. The ability to move the playback cursor by clicking on the time-ruler on the main window, instead of having to left-click and drag
d. Less tool bars and right-click context menus common tasks, and more UI buttons and hotkeys
2. A more detailed user manual. Of course, I do understand that Qtractor is still in alpha stage, and that it is difficult to write documentation for something that is constantly changing.
3. Include some plugin instruments with Qtractor. I'm sure there are plenty of GPL licensed plugins that could be included. It would be helpful for someone like myself who is experienced in making music on Windows, but has never used Qtractor before. I still haven't been able to get Qtractor to recognize any plugins since I first started last night.
4. Support for Ubuntu, and precompiled .deb installers on your sourceforge downloads page. I installed some LADSPA plugins from the Ubuntu repositories, but Qtractor is not picking them up automatically. I tried Rosegarden, and it seems to be able to find those same plugins fine. I also tried compiling your source tar.gz file, but I couldn't get it to work.
Re: Hello
thanks for your support and generosity. your donation is by now confirmed.
re. 1. A faster, more efficient workflow
a. CTRL+Left-click and drag a audio or MIDI item to copy it.
once selected, one or more audio and midi clips maybe moved by just left-click+draggig or copied through usual clipboard operation, like ctrl+c (Edit/Copy) and ctrl+v (Edit/Paste); when pasting you can use the mouse (dragging+left-click) or the keyboard (arrow-keys+enter); have you missed it or am i missing your point?
b. An option or a key combination(like alt+left-click and drag) to loop a MIDI or audio item instead of just making it longer.
try pointing to any clip and invoke Clip/Loop Set menu; voilá; note that you can (re)assign any custom keyboard key combination to any menu item as a hot-key shortcut (see Help/Shortcuts... menu).
c. The ability to move the playback cursor by clicking on the time-ruler on the main window, instead of having to left-click and drag
try shift/ctrl+left-click on time ruler; it's exactly what you ask. i hope :)
d. Less tool bars and right-click context menus common tasks, and more UI buttons and hotkeys
there's many common tasks which their ui can be improved no doubt; i tended to keep on toolbar only the most fundamental ones; otoh. hotkeys are called shortcuts (see above on Help/Shortcuts... menu)
re. 2. A more detailed user manual.
that's where you can help a lot. the user manual has been the work of some brave souls, all volunteer effort. we all know it's now terribly outdated and incomplete. have a note that the original volunteers authors were only experienced with audio stuff so that there's this almost complete lack of mention regarding midi part of things. even though they have done a remarkable job nevertheless. however, their lives have long gone their ways, on their own personal agenda which doesn't have slightest bit related to qtractor development.
all that to say that i'll be receptive to all proposals and contributions regarding the user manual improvement. i'll even dare to consider donations being fully channeled into that task, if you don't mind of course.
re. 3. Include some plugin instruments with Qtractor.
no. i not keen to do that just yet. read more below...
re 4. Support for Ubuntu, and precompiled .deb installers on your sourceforge downloads page.
i've used to do that but left the idea because it was too much of a burden on me. major reason being i don't use ubuntu in none of its incarnations anymore (i was doing it in some virtualbox'es just for that purpose, now gone).
for all ubuntu and debian'ese things, i'll point you to the great kxstudio project and damn good repo's which caters to be in the bleeding edge on all things related to linux-audio, including qtractor and plugins and what not ;)
cheers
Thank you for taking the time
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Now that I've spent a bit more time with Qtractor, I can clarify some of my positions:
1. A faster, more efficient workflow...
I must admit, I did miss the "shortcuts" menu, I was looking for the word "key" in there, like "hotkeys" or "keyboard shortcuts". That does address many of my concerns with editing, however, I still think that the workflow for editing MIDI could be made more efficient. For example, it would be nice to be able to draw a MIDI clip with the mouse, and not have to give it a name in a dialog window(perhaps just a generic name, which I could re-name later if I need to). The same applies to the dialog for merging clips, I think it should just be given a generic default name and not show a dialog window. Also, I feel it's preferable to be able to loop a MIDI item most of the time, rather than having to create many copies of it.
2. A more detailed user manual.
I'd be happy to contribute whatever I can to improving the manual :) I'll make my own copy of the .odt manual, and once I feel I've made some useful additions to it, I'll send it to you to review.
As far as the donation goes, that is for the work you've already done, I'm not asking anything specific in return for it. Any future donations I make will depend entirely on how Qtractor is progressing in overall features, stability and quality, sort of a "pay for performance" arrangement if you will...
3/4. plugins and ubuntu support
It turns out that Ubuntu (and probably most distros) just put the plugins in /usr/lib/vst, /usr/lib/ladspa, etc... So it's just a matter of entering those as plugin paths. IMHO, it might be a good idea to include those paths by default for each plugin type.
Overall though, I think Qtractor is a very nice DAW already, and it has a lot of potential to be even better.
Thanks,
Jeff
Re: Thank you for taking the time
re. 1. A faster, more efficient workflow...
...draw a MIDI clip with the mouse, and not have to give it a name in a dialog window
- you can set initial midi clip extents from the edit-head and tail cursors positions (the left and right blue lines).
- the name you're asked when creating a new midi clip is in fact the session name, which is only asked once on a untitled session (or project, or song, w/e you may call it).
- when merging, you're asked for midi file-name (and/or path), which is to hold the merged data, again not quite the name of the merge clip; yes, there's room for some default file-naming here, as is in fact already suggested by the file-name that appears on the file requester dialog--this must to be guaranteed to be a brand new file-name, so that it doesn't replace any existing one.
(perhaps just a generic name, which I could re-name later if I need to). The same applies to the dialog for merging clips, I think it should just be given a generic default name and not show a dialog window. Also, I feel it's preferable to be able to loop a MIDI item most of the time, rather than having to create many copies of it.
re. 2. A more detailed user manual.
...I'd be happy to contribute
- double thanks then :)
re. 3/4. plugins and ubuntu support
...plugins in /usr/lib/vst, /usr/lib/ladspa, etc...
- and that is the case on qtractor too. that is, the default plugin search paths are as follows:
/usr/local/lib/ladspa,/usr/lib/ladspa(32bit systems)/usr/local/lib64/ladspa,/usr/lib64/ladspa(64bit systems)/usr/local/lib/dssi,/usr/lib/dssi(32bit systems)/usr/local/lib64/dssi,/usr/lib64/dssi(64bit systems)/usr/local/lib/vst,/usr/lib/vst(32bit systems)/usr/local/lib64/vst,/usr/lib64/vst(64bit systems)/usr/local/lib/lv2,/usr/lib/lv2(32bit systems)/usr/local/lib64/lv2,/usr/lib64/lv2(64bit systems)hth.
cheers
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