Radium – The Music Editor
users.notam02.no
users.notam02.no
Examples of what I mean:
- http://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/pictures/overview1.p...
- http://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/pictures/pluginmenu....
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=theme+site:jeskola....
More of a classical tracker than Radium, but it also has lots of unique features.
Also, the color scheme in the screenshots is really the color scheme; it's not just botched screenshots. Completely unreadable, for me, at any reasonable distance from my monitor. I mean, I understand I'm not so young and my eyesight has never been great, but I can't believe this is a comfortable level of contrast for anyone. Hopefully this is easily configurable.
It feels pretty complex, and it seems like it's heavily reliant on hotkeys to be able to do much of anything quickly/easily. I recall being very effective at getting ideas working on hotkey based trackers in the distant past, but it's been a long time, and I dunno if I have the patience to learn enough of it to be productive even approaching the level I'm productive on other tools. It almost feels like Impulse Tracker is its ideological ancestor, in its reliance on keyboard navigation. Which some folks love. I'm not necessarily in that camp these days.
But, still an interesting experiment and UI design for music.
I didn't fire it up but all I see is qt4.
This looks like it's really going the right direction.
The compressor also is worth taking a look at.
Does anybody use something like this to make music for any professional/commercial use or is it really just of academic interest and for tinkerers (no offense - there is value there to I know).
I ask because when I look at this (and I'm also an EE and a software developer) I get a headache.
The project is pretty much on hold since 2013 because the sole developer disappeared in June 2014... but the site and forums remain hosted, waiting for his return. The product looked so promising in its early 2012/2013 days but now lays dormant.
Just like modular synthesizers are the purview of the... more obsessed sort, modular editors occupy a similar more specialized niche.
Edit: not dissimilar, but still different in a bunch of ways. Seems more like an attempt to marry the more common DAW audio-clip style with the modular synth environment (just based on screenshots).
Maybe. I don't know what you're latching on to, but I know both Jeskola Buzz¹ and Renoise² (which has some connection to the Buzz community) have been used commercially. These cover the tracker style + extra learning curve + crazy piles of features + weird UI, which should cover most of the bases.
This is not so much stranger in absolute terms than the modular synths people build (and probably a bit less obsessive.)
I haven't used it, but imo if you're getting a headache that's a bad sign regardless of what it looks like. You should do most of the looking with your ears and not have to use your eyes too much. That's what I used to love about trackers, but I haven't used one seriously since Impulse Tracker.
¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeskola_Buzz#Notable_users ²http://www.renoise.com/artists
They improved the looks but there was always something that didn't work quite right. IN the 3.x series Midi was introduced, but it crashed all the time (and I've updated every time there was a new release).
Now I am using 4.x and it is dog slow for big sessions (which I originally recorded and mixed in 2.x on a much lesser PC with no problems).
I do understand their arguments. I know that they want to release something for Windows, Mac and Linux to improve their customer base (greatly). But I really hope that Ardour solidifies and they start improving the quality that it comes back to the quality of the 2.x releases.
It was totally normal that Ardour crashed at least twice in the 1 or 2 hours when we were editing drums. And the devs knew that this problem existed, but they've basically told, that it should be fixed in 4.x.
In the end, in my experience, it comes down to a few things:
- stability and available support for problems - ability to share native sessions w/ other users (as opposed to just stems) - support for hardware (audio i/o and controllers, including mixing surfaces) - ease of use - so the interface and process doesn't get in the way of the creative process
I am not necessarily a fan of ridiculous skeuomorphism in things like plugins, but at the same time a big knob or fader on the screen makes a lot more (and a lot quicker) sense to me than a little box w/ a hex value in it. I think the advent of touch screens in pro installations reinforces this - see Slate's Raven controllers, which are becoming very popular now - http://www.slateproaudio.com/products/raven-mtx/
In the end though this is just me - more power to anyone making good music anyway they can.
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An incorrect attempt is made to save/restore the by extracting the original name (e.g. "us") of the keymap layout with
${RADIUM_DIR}/bin/packages/setxkbmap/setxkbmap -query
# LAYOUT_NAME="us"
${RADIUM_DIR}/bin/packages/setxkbmap/setxkbmap -synch -layout ${LAYOUT_NAME}
As a huge fan of Sunvox, Radium looks quite appealing.
Information to warez groups: Since the source is open, it should be simple to turn the demo into a fully featured version. Please let me know of any problems. (Just compiling the source is cheating!)
First thing that looks like candidate for contributions is a build system. I tried to build a package out of it and it is a collection of Makefiles and shell scripts that for sure can be used to build the thing on a developer's machine, but not useful outside that context.
"The linux binaries have only existed a few months, and I've got requests to add a "make install" option to the makefile for a couple of years, so that it would be easier to package. And I've refused to to it for the same reasons as above. So this has got very little to do with "selling builds".
Of course, I can't deny anyone to make custom radium packages, but I hope they won't. It's simpler and safer if everyone uses the official package, which I also know is packaged (fairly) properly."
The developer says: "Pd should be included in both windows and osx as soon as I convert Radium to use the new multi-dsp system in Pd that Miller made last year."
It contains such diverse tools as:
REAPER and Ardour and ProTools - Multitrack recording tools, used for recording live performances, with some basic MIDI capabilities built up over the years.
Cubase and Logic - MIDI sequencers, with multitrack capabilities accreted over many years to the point where multitrack recording (in the same contexts as the above category) is not unheard of, though the UI focus is different.
Fruity Loops and Ableton Live - Loop composition tools (for lack of a better description). Both are designed around loops as the basic building block of sound. While they have limited recording and MIDI capabilities, one likely wouldn't use FL or Ableton to make a symphonic soundtrack for a film, and certainly wouldn't use either to record a full band of performing musicians.
Renoise and apparently Radium - Trackers for the current century. These evolved out of the old Soundtracker style music programs (including Protracker, MED, etc. on the Amiga and then onto FT and Impulse Tracker on early PCs). They've acquired most of the functionality one expects from sequencers and loop based music programs, but don't usually have any multi-track recording facilities.
All are called DAWs by their developers and users, and yet how one uses them is pretty different. I pretty regularly use Ardour and REAPER for multitrack recording. And, I occasionally use Fruity Loops and LMMS for tinkering with remixes. And, I occasionally use Renoise for making electronic music.
I'd like it if there were separate terms for each of these concepts, as it would give folks a good language for talking about what each of these types of tools do. It would also rule out a lot of the stupid confrontational crap that often comes up ("Your program sucks because I can't do X, Y and Z, and I only ever use this other program!" where X, Y, and Z are functions specific to one of the above types of DAW...like "I can't easily do loop-based remixes in ProTools. ProTools sucks!").
And, the tools that pros use for specific tasks can also be indicative. You won't be surprised to find ProTools in a high end recording studio, and you won't be surprised to find a film soundtrack composer using Logic or Cubase. Likewise, you won't be surprised to find an EDM producer using Ableton. There's less overlap in what pros use than in what the tools are capable of in the hands of someone really good with that specific tool.
Anyway, doesn't matter. My point is that there are several different categories of program called DAW. The way they display and receive data varies wildly, and the use cases for them is pretty diverse, and I think it's weird to call them all the same name.
Ableton is literally a sequencer (and much more) and probably belongs in your MIDI sequencer category.
See what I mean? It's a DAW, but not like these other DAWs. It's a real DAW, you know?
Point stands: "DAW" means too many things to mean anything.
And if you're going to eschew the term and use descriptions instead, then it's important to get the descriptions right and not arrange them just so your favorites are up top next to ProTools even though they don't belong there.
Better categories: Professional DAWs - these do everything well: ProTools, Logic, (maybe) Cubase. Consumer DAWs - these aim to do most things well: Reaper, Ardour, GarageBand. Sequencers - geared for hip-hop and electronic music: Ableton Live (yes, it's awesome and will probably become full-featured), Fruity Loops. Trackers....
My point is being fussy about the term DAW derailed GP's question, when they asked if it's a DAW they're asking if it's a general purpose or specialty platform which is frankly a good question.
You're agreeing with me.
I said not all of these things should be called "DAW", but they are all called DAW by many people. I'm saying that is confusing terminology and I wish we could settle on calling some of these things something else. I don't care which things get called "DAW" and which ones get called crows or other types of corvid.
But, the term "DAW" is overloaded, and one of the negative side effects of that overloading is that whenever the discussion comes up somebody has to argue that a bunch of these things that people call "DAW" are stupid and we should hate them because they aren't good for X, Y, and Z. As you have eloquently demonstrated.
Were you trying to demonstrate that fact?
Also, I not only had no intention of derailing OP's question, I answered it by explaining that Radium is in the "modern tracker" category.
Rereading your post I see you did put Radium under your 'modern tracker' category, I think I was so appalled at how you described the other products that I didn't pay attention to where you put it because at that point you had already demonstrated the depth of your knowledge.
I worked as a recording engineer for 7 years before becoming a programmer, and I've seen top engineers doing things that I thought was a horrible idea, but they would end up with amazing sounds.
Otherwise, I agree with the other stuff you're saying, just felt like nitpicking about that.