Danny Danzi

Mod Bod


Looks like a beginners Reaper skin.

LOL! That's exactly what I said when I first saw it. That's one cool thing about Reaper though that I wish we had in Sonar...you can go from their ugly beginner look to this: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/Rconsole.JPG and it totally changes your console experience. LOL! :)
 
-Danny

That is better.......

Danny Danzi

Mod Bod


Looks like a beginners Reaper skin.

LOL! That's exactly what I said when I first saw it. That's one cool thing about Reaper though that I wish we had in Sonar...you can go from their ugly beginner look to this: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/Rconsole.JPG and it totally changes your console experience. LOL! :)
 
-Danny

That's really cool. I hope (rhetorical) Cakewalk implements something like that!

the cakewalk GUI makes me happy when I see it. itworks so much better than five years ago. I am emotionally attached, like I am to my guitars. probably more to do with the music I make with my friends, but cake definitely benefits from that association in my opinion.

CakeAlexS


Scalable mixer equals ugly vector based mixer. Next time you see a real mixer try to squash it with your bare hands.

1. Why does it automatically have to be ugly?

2. What's more important anyway? How pretty the mixer looks, or how easy it is to mix with it? 

The HUGE mixer in X1 and beyond is a terrible use of screen real estate. It's too big, doesn't give me anywhere near as much information I want. 

Because it doesn't scale, it constantly cuts off necessary portions of the channel strip (which is ridiculous since it's docked most of the time).  Right now it's horrible since I can't even see the full range of the volume fader when docked at the bottom, let alone also see the pan settings, mute/solo buttons, or FX bins. It's essential that these are visible at all times, no matter how large the open mixer dock is. 
 
My guess is that Cubase developed the scalable mixer, so that they can implement window docking in the next release. Whereas Cakewalk essentially said, "let's put this GIANT console screen, and allow users to dock it into into a window a third the size." That doesn't make much sense unless you're comfotable seeing only a third of the mixer, or having to constantly switch between views: which entirely defeats the purpose of docking in the first place.
A scalable mixer with better use of screen real estate will really tie in the whole Sonar X2 workflow.

So yeah...give me vector graphics any day of the week if it fixes the above problems. 

In addition: if I am going to have to switch views, why not also give me the full screen mixer. Love that idea.

CakeAlexS


Scalable mixer equals ugly vector based mixer. Next time you see a real mixer try to squash it with your bare hands.

Next time you have to work w/ a real mixer, try putting a cardboard box over your hear w/ a hole the size of a penny to see though and then try to interact w/ the board using a mouse... ;)


I never thought of Sonar's own mixer - or any other for that matter - as particularly beautiful. Though some are uglier than others. 


Logic's own mixer isn't particularly sexy, but I'll take that amount of visual feedback at a glance any time over something which may look like the real thing but requires me to scroll though inserts and sends all the time.


A quick exemple I just put together on my 13 inch MacBook Pro. Granted, working on such a computer isn't exactly ideal, but for the 18 months we've just spent on the road, it's exactly what I had to do. And Logic certainly made it a whole lot easier.

Acid has had a scalable mixer since forever. 

Acid's mouse and cursor handling is still unmatched, old as it is. I wonder why some of the other DAWs don't comp ideas from it.

Acid needs a serious feature update - but for GUI navigation, it's still years ahead of many. I use its cousin, Vegas. Mouse handling is like a musketeer with a rapier.

Have a close look at the Cubase mixer. I can see an issue already. Notice how the borders between the channel strips are not that clear. With all this effort to look cool with the dark look and all there is always the possibility that something will be made harder as a result.

When you work with a normal analog mixer you usually don't have problems defining where the channel strips actually are and the same should be for well designed software GUI. The Logic example above is a good example of it and Studio One is the same, it is clear.

If you have to look down even once to see if you are on the correct channel strip or not then they have failed in my opinion. Because you will be doing that a lot in Cubase now and it will add up and it may end up using time and energy checking something else rather than the real musical job at hand.

I don't agree with backwoods either below re the Nuendo mixer. It has the same undefined channel strip look as does Cubase. If you could alter the contrast there then that would be cool but it does not look like you can. The features in the channel strip are good though. It could be likely that more older people could be using Nuendo that are wearing glasses and any help in the GUI is always welcome.

Good point below about mixers highlighting the selected track. But what about a situation where you are on the mixer page altering a track that is not selected. Then the track of interest is going to be just that little harder to see now. I am rarely adjusting the selected track.  If you are moving fast on the mixer page all over tracks then you do not want to have to select the tracks of interest. But you do need to be able to identify channel strips, and clearly and with very little thought involved.

I don't even use mixer view in Sonar- pro-channel in inspector has obviated the need. 

I am in the minority but I think the new cubendo looks spiffing. 

look at the Cubase mixer. I can see an issue already. Notice how the borders between the channel strips are not that clear. With all this effort to look cool with the dark look and all there is always the possibility that something will be made harder as a result.

Rain

CakeAlexS


Scalable mixer equals ugly vector based mixer. Next time you see a real mixer try to squash it with your bare hands.

Next time you have to work w/ a real mixer, try putting a cardboard box over your hear w/ a hole the size of a penny to see though and then try to interact w/ the board using a mouse... ;)


I never thought of Sonar's own mixer - or any other for that matter - as particularly beautiful. Though some are uglier than others. 


Logic's own mixer isn't particularly sexy, but I'll take that amount of visual feedback at a glance any time over something which may look like the real thing but requires me to scroll though inserts and sends all the time.


A quick exemple I just put together on my 13 inch MacBook Pro. Granted, working on such a computer isn't exactly ideal, but for the 18 months we've just spent on the road, it's exactly what I had to do. And Logic certainly made it a whole lot easier.

I mixed a friend's album on a laptop running Logic (in a less then ideal monitoring environment no less - one speaker with a blown tweeter - too close to walls, not my best mix a but a huge improvement for him - anyway...) and that Logic mixer was an absolute joy to work in. I had never used Logic on a Mac before and the navigation and workflow was great.


Sonar could learn a lot from Logic IMO. Some examples off the top of my head:


1. How to do comping right
2. How to make best use of a mixer
3. How to navigate form plugin to plugin (there's a plugin menu that lets you open other plugin GUI's from that of the open plugin - all in one window)

IMHO in regards to the mixer UI be it SONAR Cubese, Reefer, Pfffttools, whatevertools, they're all UGLY as hell. 

I hate software (UI) mixers because it's sorta like looking at a restricted view port with one eye whilst the one-arm/finger pointer salute'er painstakingly teeters with a mouse; one slider/dial at a time.... oh what joy, oh what fun,  


But of course a surface (mixer) controller helps and better still if money can afford a much much larger 128 chn {dream on} but anyway.... 


I mix as I work (track) and usually know where levels need to be, in fact I spend most of my time in track view + inspector. 

I much prefer hardware mixers and most likely because I started out using them when I was very young.   I would take them apart to customized them and put them together again, literally learned from inside and out; getting the most use out of of them.  Over the decades I became so fond of hardware mixers possibly to the point of developing a fetish like kinky relationship with hardware mixers but with therapy and medication I have it all under control!! {I think} anyway... 

I had a careful look at the new Cubese 7, and yes it's ugly as a starving dawg on heat; 

. the mixer does hightlight (shade lighter) for the strip you are working on as most daws do, 

. and the actual tools available at hand are all very nice but...

. what I see as a problem is the gradient gray background; as it gets darker it gets harder to read the black text.   

. Overall, one of the main things I hate about software mixers are; lots and lots of tiny it'sy bit'sy little fonts and dials 

There are some very nice features in C7 but some of those features had already long been available in other dawgs although I'm sure Cubese users will welcome the new dawg whereas I don't give a rats patoooteee about it... the darn mixer.   But to be fair; I would most probably like the chn strip, user-setups/save and search functions. 

Now about those intelligent Chord and Harmonizer features. I think those features might be very useful for some who welcome writing assistance of that form and it might also ease writers block.