LinuxMusicians

I didn't know about that triplets option under the time sig properties until you pointed it out but that doesn't change anything, now that I've tried it out. Trackion always seems to snap to a smaller division than I usually need so I seem to be spending a bit too much time zooming, jiggling notes into position and worrying if they're slightly off when editing MIDI.

I'got this reply from James at Tracktion:

"Yeh, at the moment there is a single global snap type that updates with the zoom level but I think it would be relatively straightforward to add a ‘MIDI Snap Resolution’ property to the MIDI note editor overlay.

I’ll have to check what this may impact on (it could mess up all sorts of alignments if there are two snap types in play) but we should be able to do this."

I also asked how many full time developers are working on Tracktion these days and James replied:

"We have 4 guys dedicated on the main Tracktion codebase - but 25 total engineers working on everything from Fx, VI’s and hardware

Lots of cool stuff coming "

@danboid - Just a note of thanks for keeping us up on what's happening with Tracktion. I haven't the time to get into a fourth of the interesting stuff around me, it's good to get the straight shot from other users.

Really great times for Linux music makers !

Best,

dp

...and thanks to you for doing the same Mr P! I've still not even downloaded Bitwig or tried a fraction of the apps you've reported on over the years - certainly in the area of csound and friends anyway.

Linux is certainly getting some real 'Tracktion' these days (sorry! )

danboid wrote:Linux is certainly getting some real 'Tracktion' these days (sorry! )

Pretty good, I got a laugh out of it.

Finished a very long article on BW yesterday, gotta put screenshots and URLs together for it, then off to the printer. Two months, many hours every day with BW, and I'm still finding neat stuff to do with it. I can't see it replacing Ardour for me, but it has some neat features for the experimentalist in me.

Best,

dp

Just noticed they finally updated the linux part of the website.

Finished a very long article on BW yesterday, gotta put screenshots and URLs together for it, then off to the printer. Two months, many hours every day with BW, and I'm still finding neat stuff to do with it. I can't see it replacing Ardour for me, but it has some neat features for the experimentalist in me.

I haven't checked it out yet, but it seems promising. After reading feature sets and seeing a ton of features listed as(coming in 2.0), makes me wonder a couple of things. Is it worth $400 to buy a license if Ardour is already capable of most of it's components and does more in other areas? Will there be a free upgrade to 2.0 if I buy 1.0? It is very nice to see commercial DAW's making their way to linux. Think we might ever see Pro Tools over here? Honestly I can't believe we never have. I had heard years ago it was some agreement with microsoft to not make a linux port, but I can't imagine if it were even true that it would still be in effect. That's just wishful thinking, but I'll try the demo of bitwig one of these days soon. As for Tracktion. I don't really see any advantage(on paper) to even trying it. Another generic DAW.

i2productions wrote:Ardour is already capable of most of it's components and does more in other areas

I can't imagine you do much in the way of electronic music if you think this.

i2productions wrote:As for Tracktion. I don't really see any advantage(on paper) to even trying it. Another generic DAW.

You should give it a try and explore what it can actually do, there are lots of amazing features that are not available in most Linux daws right now.

I don't do as much pure electronic music anymore. But I use a lot of synths, samples, and other midi gear just fine with Ardour. I only know about Bitwig what I've read in it's notes, same of Tracktion. There are just WAY too many DAW's out there these day. Compitition is good, it breeds inovation. But, too much choice can be bad. Every company remotely associated with audio in the last 20 years has been bringing out a DAW. I've tried a good chunk, enough to know I want to use a Pro Tools style DAW. Ardour is that for linux. Everyone's got their medium of making music. However you make music is your own personal choice, but I'm getting sick of a new DAW I feel like I have to try every few months. I'm sure if I tried them all I might find something better than the Pro Tools/Ardour style of workflow, but with so many coming out I'd never get any projects done, cause I'd spent my entire life learning DAWs!

I can understand that. I used Ableton Live for about 10 years or something on Windows and when I came to linux and decided to not bother pursuing Ableton in Wine I was severely disappointed with what linux had to offer. Either the daws were lacking something for me (the capabilities of midi, or lack of, in Ardour, not able to reverse audio in Qtractor) or had some horribly awkward ways of working (trying to automate a lot of things in Ardour or Qtractor comes to mind, as well as not being able to automate fx on sends in Qtractor). Nothing ever felt complete enough for me to be able to work with without long workarounds or a tediously long workflow. That's why I was so impressed with Tracktion and think it offers something refreshing and not previously available in linux...simple automation, just press record and move a parameter, no enabling the parameter and changing the read/write status of each parameter...easy parallel processing of fx without having to create buses. Those two things alone make it very powerful for me and are two things that drove me crazy with pretty much every other daw in linux, especially the automation seeing as I make dub influenced electronic music, lots of automation is necessary.

I probably would've stuck it out with Ardour if it weren't for the fact that midi instruments consistently crash the program for me. I actually use Renoise most of the time, I think it's the unsung hero of linux daws, but the more I learn about and play with Tracktion the more I am impressed. It may not offer all the things that something like Ardour does but for me it offers more where it is needed.

i2productions wrote:

... on BW ...

I haven't checked it out yet, but it seems promising. After reading feature sets and seeing a ton of features listed as(coming in 2.0), makes me wonder a couple of things. Is it worth $400 to buy a license if Ardour is already capable of most of it's components and does more in other areas?

The more I work with BW the more I'm inclined towards the notion that there is a deep design difference. Ardour is more in the Pro Tools arena, more of a pumped-up HDR. Certain tasks are easier in one or the other, but the design considerations are very different. BW's clip launcher and beat matching are a live performer's dream, and trying to replicate their functions in Ardour would likely be a nightmare. OTOH, Ardour's mixing capabilities are what I love about it, it makes fewer assumptions about how I want to organize my material.

Will there be a free upgrade to 2.0 if I buy 1.0?

Sorry, I don't know.

It is very nice to see commercial DAW's making their way to linux. Think we might ever see Pro Tools over here? Honestly I can't believe we never have. I had heard years ago it was some agreement with microsoft to not make a linux port, but I can't imagine if it were even true that it would still be in effect. That's just wishful thinking...

Funny thing: Back in the late 1980s it was common wisdom that no-one used a PC for serious music production and that no-one ever would. The Atari, Amiga, and Mac just seemed to have it all sewn up. Funny thing, hmm ?

So never say never. Given enough market drive even Pro Tools could show up here.

...I'll try the demo of bitwig one of these days soon.

Good, please let us know what you think of it. Its flexibility isn't at first apparent, it's obviously geared to the EDM/EBM crowd, but that's just the surface shine, there's real substance in the thing.

As for Tracktion. I don't really see any advantage(on paper) to even trying it. Another generic DAW.

It doesn't seem like that to me, but Dan's the one putting time into it, he'll have more to say. Tracktion's UI put me off at first, a little more familiarity started to get me interested in what's under the hood. Alas, as Chaucer put it, "The life so short, the craft so long to learn" and I barely have time to learn how to get the most from BW.

In truth, these days I'm far more fascinated by OpenMusic than by any DAW.

Best,

dp

Tracktion 5.3.6 has been released!

5.3.6
- Enabled colour editor
- fix for new marker clip type on track pop-up menu
- fix for recording MIDI in merge mode not updating immediately
- fix for rendering racks with no audio inputs
- fix for track meters on external MCU devices
- fix for ReWire output channels not updating
- improved controller mappings editor text colour

Under Windows and OSX,I think its a fair comment to say there are too many DAWs as there are there's generally not much to distinguish one from another. There certainly isn't anywhere near as much choice for Linux users and some would argue its only recently that Linux has gained any serious DAWs for those who need both audio and MIDI. As for commercial DAWs, Linux users have the choice of Tracktion, Bitwig, Mixbus, Renoise and EnergyXT - that's hardly an overwhelming glut of options. KVR lists almost 300 hosts for Windows so I can see how you could feel overwhelmed with choice as a Windows user. If you insist on open source you have a similar number of options as it usually comes down to Ardour, qtractor, Muse and non (I deem LMMS and Rosegarden to be sequencers more than DAWs due to their limited audio support). Again, I'd hardly say that 5 options is too much to cope with checking out and deciding between.

I'm very happy we have Tracktion for Linux as I feel we finally have a free (if not open) Linux DAW that is both powerful / stable enough and easy enough to learn and use to keep most people (who are willing to give it a serious chance) happy. I really, really wanted to run a 100% open source music production system so I also feel kinda sad that I've 'sold out'. Maybe in a few years I will be able to switch back to qtractor or Ardour once they're more fully featured and stable but the fact of the matter is they still don't offer key features that people expect in a DAW and after 18 years of waiting I've had enough! You can't say I wasn't patient enough or didn't give them a real good go. I have much respect for what Rui, Paul Davis and friends are doing and I still keep close tabs on the open source alternatives but until they meet my requirements I'm going to be using Tracktion.

Is there a list of dependencies anywhere? I'm having a problem with flac files not playing or previewing.

I presume from your sig that you're runnning it under Manjaro? I'm running it under buntu 12.04 and I have the same problem here, which I didn't notice until you highlighted it.

I can only see a list of hardware requirements on their site and ldd has this to say:
I doubt there is much we can do to get FLAC working other than report it as a bug.