Alphatrack and Pro Channel not an Eharmony success story!

cakewalk broke the mapping of their own VS700 by the changes in X1. I can't see a 3rd party company coming to the rescue even to fix there own SONAR Plugin. It was cakewalk that borke it.
Not that I've got any use out of X1 yet as it doesn't work on my machine. i've moved away from cakewalk's plugins for a long time now so I'm not sure that once X1b is out of I'll even use the ProChannel. I hope to still be able to use the alphathrack with SONAR as it's become indispensible to me. guess I'll see sometime this month.
Meanwhile it still works perfectly well with 8.5.3 which is what I'm still using as far as SONAR is concerned.

Wow, guys! My level of frustration is getting higher everyday!

So Frontier is selling hardware that is only compatible with old obsolete versions of DAW software? And they do not even bother to upgrade their software?

Hmmm... Guess I never buy something from them in that case..

I'm selling my Alphatrack because of crap like this. The forum over there is a joke.

I can sympathize with companies like Frontier, Presonus (FaderPort) and so forth trying to keep up with a moving target like the DAW software world, but it seems that they aren't even trying.

They probably have AlphaTrack 2 in the wings which they will gladly sell you.

It seems the only control surfaces that are "somewhat" version proof are those using Mackie or HUI protocol and even those require some tweaking.

AlphaTrack a few months old in box with CD and cable.

$100.00...PM me.

That's funny, I'm still quite happy with the Alphatrack and am considering abandoning Sonar because of 'crap like this'. Even though up to 8.5 they were basically a marriage made in heaven - as far as I could tell the best, most thorough implementation. Which is why I'm still using it. 

I can't say for certian but I think our issues with control surfaces and the PC have been addressed to some degree in the coming patch-eroo.

Well ya'll can have my Alphatrack for $100...free shipping....
PM me.

Before it hits ebay..

pinguinotuerto

wormser


Well ya'll can have my Alphatrack for $100...free shipping....
PM me.

Before it hits ebay..

Worm,
You can still do a lot with it. It's just the Pro Channel you can't control completely.  I think I read on the forum that a couple of bands on the EQ respond to it.  Anyway, I wouldn't give up on it yet.  Although I use it less now that I got this mouse.
 

Yea that mouse is all over the boards!

Looks sweet!

Still to anyone who wants an Alphatrack, $100 shipped to your door.
It goes on ebay 2mrrw.

P.S I have an alesis which works fine with Sonar.

snookerc


The biggest thing I miss is using the 3 top knobs to control EQ.  

I was looking for a new programming challenge.  Hmmm... wonder how hard it would be??

Please do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

snookerc


This is probably a dumb question, but could ACT help us out?  I haven't used ACT so I'm a complete newbie in this respect.

Thoughts??

I've never used it either!

Off the top of my head, my understanding is that ACT is still generally not bi-directional (they seem to have worked around this in the V-700 and V-100, but in terms of the setup interface that is given to end-users) - so you could probably set up the Alphatrack to control the EQ and to be a multi-purpose ACT controller, as far as that goes, but you would lose the display feedback and, more importantly, the motor fader - which is kind of the main attraction anyway - and possibly other functionality that may or may not still be there with X1. Seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me. 

Anyone with better/contradictory information, feel free to correct me - this is just as far as I understand it. 

snookerc


  Frontier has a decent publication on its MIDI implementation, so now I'm just trying to figure out the best way to have it talk to Cakewalk.  

You go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

subtlearts,
 
In an earlier post, you mentioned you were considering the other DAW that starts with "R". I demo'ed that for a while, and one of the reasons I abandoned it was it's limited support for my Alphatrack.
 
Another major reason was that it had no staff view whatsoever.
 
In regard to Alphatrack support, I'm just guessing, but it may be difficult (or even impossible?) for improvement in that area. That daw seems to treat a lot of things as objects with no inherent distinctions between them. That can be very powerful in some ways, but in the case of the Alphatrack it backfires.
 
The mode buttons (pan, send, eq, plug-in, auto) don't work at all because the daw doesn't tell it "this object is an eq", or "this object is a plug-in" or "this object is a bus send". So as far as controlling those kinds of things, all the Alphatrack can do is scroll through all parameters in all objects on a track with one of the encoders, and change the value of the current parameter with another encoder. If all you had on a track was one send, or maybe even one simple eq, you might be able to live with it. But it's pretty normal to have a lot more than that on a track, and I didn't think I could live with that continual scrolling through dozens of parameters trying to find the one I wanted to change at the moment. It would be similar to using a single ACT setup to control all sends/eqs/plug-ins on a track at the same time.
 
I'm not trying to dissuade you from testing other DAWs; like a lot of people I did the same. But so far, I have concluded that while other DAWs look very appealing at first, once you take the time to do the research and actually use them, they're not really better, just different. You have to decide whether the overall differences suit your personal use/preferences or not.
 
As I think you said, Alphatrack integration is probably strongest with Sonar, and that is very important to me. I'm hoping that Cakewalk and/or Frontier can work out control of the ProChannel.

What I really like about the Alphatrack versus the mouse is that I can sit back in my chair at the optimum listening position, and not have to stare at the computer screen, maybe even close my eyes, while mixing. I feel much more "musical" when doing that than when I'm clicking and moving  the mouse around on the screen.

I know what you mean about the "R" business and development model, it nearly sold me. But then I had a third "major" issue with it. As much as the object architecture lets you do just about anything with anything, for some reason, you cannot add a bus to the master output.

I do this in Sonar so I can insert IK ARC (which I also heartily recommend) to treat just the sound going to my monitors, while not affecting bounces/exports. Sure, there's a work around in "R", but I finally remembered that I don't have any of these issues with Sonar.

In fact, dare I say, Sonar has always done everything I need and been very stable for me. It was only all the negativity about X1 that made me start wondering if the grass really was greener on some other side.

I also demo'ed Studio One Pro, and at first thought it might be the way to go. But then it worked poorly with Alphatrack, would not work at all with my Emulator X VSTi, didn't have midi instrument definitions, a staff or event view, etc.

So for the foreseeable future, I'm sticking with Sonar. I currently use 8.5.3, but I think I will eventually get X1, or maybe hold out for X2.

Yes, I think we have similar perspectives as well as gear. I see you have an E-mu 1616m, I have the older 1820m.
 
As far as Studio One, my experience was that Alphatrack worked "best" using the MCU emulation, and Tranzport worked "best" using the HUI emulation. Even under these supposedly industry standard emulations, there was only about 50% functionality, so it wasn't enough to make me happy. I didn't mind the look of the interface, but overall I did not find the program as intuitive as so many people said it was.
 
Thanks for the info on Isone, I'll have to look into it. I usually do initial mixing with headphones.