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Subject: Some very pointed questions about sequencing


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Original Message                 Date: 12-Nov-08  @  07:13 PM   -   Some very pointed questions about...Cubase?

buggo

Posts: 8

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Well hell. It's been ten years. Hello again! This thing has really blown the fuck up. Congrats Kilo and way to stick around!

So technology has come a long way. Duh. I've been using hardware forever, first a Kawai Q80+akai s20+Juno 106, then ditched the q80 for an MPC60, which died after a few years and got replaced by an mpc1000 (thanks dave) and my kit for the last few years has been MPC1k+TX81z+EH Bass microsynth stompbox, with a little controller and some effects, doing recording and vocals on an old PC with Audition. I did two records, a handful of remixes and a bunch of work with bands with this stuff, learned how to wrestle the sounds I needed out of it and became very attached to the MPC's sequencer, especially the step edit and its cool easily editable list format, the song mode where you can flexibly chain sequences together, the intuitive recording, the ability to make the samples gated instead of just triggered, etc. This year, my MPC finally shit the bed for good and when I was looking around for a replacement I decided it was finally time to make the software plunge. I got a nice Mac and Reason 4, with a novation knob box. I've been with the new rig for about a month and the synths and samplers are rad, the sound quality impeccable, etc. But the sequencer sucks for someone who likes to work like I do. I knew this from dicking around with the demo; i figured I'd be rewiring it to something else but didn't really think about what that would be. Live doesn't do what I want although it's slightly better as a MIDI sequencer than Reason, and it has a lot of shit I don't need/don't want to pay for. If I'm going to work with audio, I'll pretty much put it in a sampler. I'm leaning towards Cubase but since there are no demo versions out there, all I've got is a couple of screenshots, some reviews and some vague manufacturer's claims and comparison charts. Since I primarily want to use it as a MIDI sequencer through Rewire, I don't need all the instruments and vast audio tools of the full version. Essentials looks like a good (and cheap) bet but it's hard to see if it's workable with no way to try it out.

So I guess this goes at Cubase users:
--Step editing
I've seen screenshots of a list-format MIDI event editor, which looks a lot like the MPC style step editor. I love that shit, especially because i'm particular about my drums, and I always go in and tweak velocity, note length etc and it's great to be able to do this numerically instead of dragging shit around. (A lot of these sequencers with great graphics seem like they were designed by total non-musicians; all the shit they show you in the videos and demos seem like great features until you actually try to create or edit something. I've been with the 96-tick formula for so long that the 24/48/72 and all the divisions between come very naturally, but seeing things on a grid, especially with always having to zoom around to get enough detail to make sense of it, is a pain in the ass. Does this type of editor really exist in Cubase, and does it work like one would expect? And what is the "in-place MIDI editor" that is absent on Essentials but present in Studio and the full version? Web site details are vague.)

--Clip-based editing/composing
Live has got a reasonably good approach to this but i still find it cumbersome. I like to make complete MIDI chunks (1 bar, 4 bars, whatever) with all the tracks playing, then be able to copy the entire chunk to create, for example, a new, identical 4 bar loop, but with a drop out/fill/transition piece in bar 4. Put one after the other and there's an 8 bar section with a transition at the end. Blah blah, fairly simple shit, but surprisingly hard to find a soft sequencer that will let me do this easily without making me record a linear arrangement of it. My songs are usually composed of 50 to 100 short phrases, arranged in a long-ass list. Another thing that is essential with this is the ability to switch between clips on the fly to audition changes and see how parts fit together. My tracks tend to make a lot of sudden u-turns so this is essential. (And very easy on an MPC; flip the wheel to "next sequence" and it will change over seamlessly at the end of the current sequence. Live does this, but not in a way I find helpful.)

I know there's other stuff that I can't think of right now. If any experienced Cubase users have anything to say about this...thanks.

BUG




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Message 11/12             28-Jan-09  @  12:26 PM   -   RE: Some very pointed questions about sequencing

k

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dude, we're on 8.02 already, lol.... mebbe thats the cause? but yeah it's always gonna be that way i spose. My mac pro has locked up twice since i had it... so hard re-booting isnt just a windows thing In fact, windows at least does quit a programme if you force quit... osx leopard seems to not be able to. The force quit doesnt always work, but with windows i dont think that's been the case since win-98.. i'm trying to remember, but i 'm pretty sure the force quit always works in XP

i havent tried rewiring yet. I've only got REASON 2.5 and i dunno if it'll work with Leopard even. tbh, i have had this apogee duet here for 2 months and havent had time to unbox it even!

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I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!



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Message 12/12             01-Feb-09  @  01:52 AM     Edit: 01-Feb-09  |  07:34 AM   -   RE: Some very pointed questions about sequencing

buggo

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Yeh, I know 8.02 was out, I just couldn't get the machine I was using to an internet connection for a while...all set up now! It remembers my Reason instruments now, and everythings all set up in a purty little template.

Funny you say that about the force quits; I said exactly the opposite when I got my mac: force quit would always sort of sit there and think about it on my PC; on the mac it quits RIGHT NOW. maybe it's just because it's about ten years newer.

So with each problem fixed comes another one. This one seems minor, but it's a real bitch, and it's not fixed by 8.02.....Logic plays great with reason, mostly. MIDI gets through, audio gets back, everything's tight and peachy. But there is a demon in the MIDI machine. When I start playback, it will stutter, hem and haw, play a few random MIDI "ons" without the corresponding offs (stuck notes) and will reel about a bit for about four bars, at which point it comes together. Four fucking bars is a long time. It's the kind of thing where every time I hit stop, i know I'll be waiting another four chaotic bars for my tracks to come together. It's not a processing issue, it's in the MIDI. The Logic MIDI data meters on the tracks are going in time to the sequence (i.e. they THINK they're doing the right thing) but Reason isn't hearing these notes. The problem is definitely in Logic. (I would suspect the Rewire protocol, but this works fine in Cubase...) And once I hit stop, a few seconds later it will trigger a D on whatever track is selected. (doesn't show in the logic MIDI monitor, very fishy..)

I've thought maybe there were some weird feedback loops I hadn't considered so I disconnected all my control surfaces, keyboard etc to make sure it wasn't sending double hits or something. It's fucking flabbergasting.

I suspect this is a problem others have had, since it seems to be a MIDI issue with logic itself, as opposed to a weird isolated rewire thing (that, and again, the fact that Cubase does this fine.) In Cubase, I'd have to give a bar's delay at the beginning of every track, because it didn't like to start on 1. That's fine, especially because I could start playback anywhere else in the track with no problem. Logic's got that issue everywhere, and it seems like a sort of MIDI overload thing because the amount of buggery decreases with the number of MIDI tracks I mute (if I only play one track, it will skip a little on start but not be so bad. If i've got five tracks playing it will be a nightmare.) And these are all tracks with no automation, no continuous controllers, no complicated shit. Just notes.

I'm gonna feel like a prince when I get this working. I think they do it to keep the faint of heart out of the production racket.

EDIT: weird shit. There's a lot going on here...I just noticed that when I plug/unplug a cable from the headphone jack while Logic is playing, the sequence will restart from its last start point, with all the attendant MIDI hangups and bullshit. Why on earth should this be the case? It doesn't do this in any other applications. (I'm using the built-in Core Audio and the 1/8" i/o jacks; it's fine for what I'm doing since everything gets bounced to disk anyway...i haven't gotten an external audio interface because it seems superfluous with what I'm up to....yo K, wanna send me that Apogee?)



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