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Feedback after working with Qtractor over weekend

Hey Rui!

1. Transport control (meaning the choice between None-Slave-Master-Full) should be on the interface somewhere, easily accessible, not far away in the menus.
When I am working in a modular setup with, say, Hydrogen, I very often need to switch Qtractor between None and Full transport modes and atm it means going to Options, making the change and then clicking OK on the dialog that says that some changes may appear only after restart (while transport changes do take effect immediately).

2. Dragging files in No Grid setting is hard. When you want to drag files just a little bit, there appears a very thick contour. That makes it difficult to put a file precisely. I tried various stuff, like holding Ctrl and pressing arrows, but it does not seem to work, it instead drags a file within a grid.

3. Backward has a shortcut - Backspc. How come Forward does not? It would be very handy.

4. Piano roll is still very dificult to work with. Several things that in my opinion would make it more convenient:
a). When you change the grid settings, change the visual grid itself. It is not clear where to put notes without it and many times you have to click them again and move over since they ended up in the wrong place. Imho, no visual grid is one of the big downsides of Qtractor's piano roll.
b). Allow dragging notes during placement vertically, between notes. Piano roll placement is not very precise at the moment - sometimes you are aiming for one place, but the note appears on the other note, but in order to drag it down you have to finish placing it, then select it (which sometimes is very difficult to do, btw) and move it down.
c). Don't ask to save midi clips. In my opinion, this only gets in the way of the workflow. While you are working you go into midi clips all the time and having this dialog really slows you and at times frustrates - "yeah, of course I want to save the changes!" - know what I mean? ;)
d). Copying is hard. You select notes, you press Ctrl-C, then you press Ctrl-V and if the group is large you can see only the end of it in front of you and you have to drag it until it is in the right place. That scheme is okay with the clips in the song editor, but not very good in a piano roll.

All in all, a good example of a very convenient to work with piano roll is an LMMS one. Did you try it?
With Qtractor's piano roll placing notes is difficult, I always find myself struggling and having to go to click beat settings all the time. So here's my final suggestion:

e). If a note is placed at Beat/2 and the current setting is Beat, quantize the note relative to its current position, so that when I try to drag it it would not snap out of its position, so that I would have to leave it, go switch Beat back to Beat/2, only then take it. Imho, this would make piano roll much easier to use. Get what I mean here? (referring to my poor phrasing)

Anyway, those are the main points.

Also a question - what's the difference between Transport mode Full and Master?

Forums: 

ps: I am now downloading svn version since maybe piano roll has gone much better %)

rncbc's picture

1. Transport control [...] should be on the interface somewhere.
Noted. Sometime soon there will be some new toolbar buttons for the switch. OTOH, the session restart question is already being dropped... now.

2. Dragging files in No Grid setting is hard.
It might be harder depending on the zoom level for the session track view (main canvas). When snap to grid is set to None, all graphical resolution unit is reduced to the pixel and that might be to rough of a grid for you to work with, specially if you're working in extreme zoom-out levels. To take finest control on where your clip is actually placed, you'll have to edit the clip start position by-hand, in the clip properties dialog -- see menu Edit/Clip/Edit... on main menu for audio clips or File/Properties... on piano-roll windows for MIDI clips.

3. Backward has a shortcut - Backspc. How come Forward does not?
That's easy indeed: have a go with Help/Shortcuts... dialog. You can set any key combination to whichever menu action there is and stay with it (it's global application configuration, not session/project scope).

4. Piano roll is still very dificult to work with.
a). When you change the grid settings, change the visual grid itself
I guess you missed that option or are using a very old Qtractor version. Have a look at View/Snap/Grid option on the piano-roll's window menu.

b). Allow dragging notes during placement vertically, between notes.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand this one. Can you try explaining it with greater detail?

c). Don't ask to save midi clips.
It is asking to save MIDI clips because those are actions that are actually destructive -- you're committing your changes to disk but there are some situations that you want to get them saved in a brand new file than the original, otherwise undo might just not help you there, so beware:). Anyway, in what situations exactly do you want to let it save changes automagically without asking any questions? maybe that can be arranged ;)

d). Copying is hard.
Do you have any suggestion in particular, specially regarding the floating copy/paste selection placemente and on how you could see this being any softer to work with? Have you tried to use keyboard arrow keys as placement helpers instead of just the mouse ?

e). If a note is placed at Beat/2 and the current setting is Beat, quantize the note relative to its current position
I beg to disagree on this one. Quantization (ie. snap) is always relative to the whole metronomic grid, never relative to any previous note position. Or so I think ;)

what's the difference between Transport mode Full and Master?
Full means that qtractor can act both as Master and Slave. A master is responsible to maintain timebase information to all other (slave) applications to which they will sync and react. Given that JACK transport design allows any client application to control the global transport state (eg. start/stop rolling) the option of Qtractor being Slave refers to the possibility of its own internal transport state being controlled by any other JACK transport client or ignore any request on that matter. For instance, if set to Master (ie. not Slave) Qtractor will not react to any transport changes requested by any other application (eg. QjackCtl, JAMin, Hydrogen, etc.).

Hey Rui!
Let me comment on your comments ;) If I do not comment on something, means I understood and have nothing to say.

3. Backward has a shortcut - Backspc. How come Forward does not?
That's easy indeed: have a go with Help/Shortcuts... dialog. You can set any key combination to whichever menu action there is and stay with it (it's global application configuration, not session/project scope).

Saw that but imho it is logical to have a shorcut by default. This is not critical of course I am just wondering why Backwards does have a default shortcut and Forward does not? They are both important.

a). When you change the grid settings, change the visual grid itself
I guess you missed that option or are using a very old Qtractor version. Have a look at View/Snap/Grid option on the piano-roll's window menu.

Missed it, sorry! Why not have it ON by default?

b). Allow dragging notes during placement vertically, between notes.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand this one. Can you try explaining it with greater detail?

Okay, this will be a long comment due to the fact that now new piano roll (latest svn) has this paint mode.
Let me first explain the situation BEFORE paint mode was introduced.

1. You place a note and yet do not let go off the mouse button - it is still pressed but you can already see the note painted on the piano roll, in a semi-transparent mode. If previewing notes is on, you hear it is not the note you want, so you want to drag it to a note lower or higher and you try to drag mouse vertically, say, lower, but nothing happens. Note is stuck to it's position - you can drag it forward or backward but not up and down. So my request was to let it go up and down WHILE you are still holding the mouse button.
2. Now this paint mode. I tried it and my thoughts would be these:
There are two things to this mode - horizontal drag and vertical drag.
Before paint, horizontal drag just dragged the note, now it draws it - imho, a very nice touch. This part I very much liked.
Before paint, vertical drag, as I pointed out above, did nothing. Now it creates new notes. This part I did not like, at least not as default mode and here is why: mouse is always difficult to handle with precision. Your cursor never travels a truly horizontal path. Thus, you will often sidetrack into other notes and create chaos. After current paint mode I spend more time cleaning up after myself than I used to input same sequence with older method.
My suggestion would be to make vertical drag not draw notes, but instead move the existing note under the cursor to another note. It will not create a mess since the user will drop the note only when he is sure it is the right one, whereas with the existing method the note is just created.

It is asking to save MIDI clips because those are actions that are actually destructive -- you're committing your changes to disk but there are some situations that you want to get them saved in a brand new file than the original, otherwise undo might just not help you there, so beware:). Anyway, in what situations exactly do you want to let it save changes automagically without asking any questions? maybe that can be arranged ;)

What you say is true, but every other DAW out there allows this and nobody complains. In my view, midi changes are too easy to copy and backup in another clip and at the same time rarely you would do a change and not be able to revert it if you want it. I guess what I am trying to say is that often midi changes are small, you write a theme and then you go back to it and move notes around and you don't want to save it everytime but you don't want the window to be kept open too. Maybe if the midi editing would be merged into the general undo scheme this would be possible. I am sorry to refer to LMMS again, but in there you have the same situation but it does not ask you about saving each time - and it seems perfectly fine.

To answer your question, I would say that at least once the clip IS created already, any changes I do to it I'd like to be silent. Or at least have an option in Qtractor for silent midi changes. Smth like that.

Do you have any suggestion in particular, specially regarding the floating copy/paste selection placemente and on how you could see this being any softer to work with?

Tried arrows. Not bad actually, though not an optimal solution, in my humble view at least.
I would have two other/additional ways one could do it.
1. Ctrl-C Ctrl-V creates a copy of notes on top of the existing ones. So now all you have to do is drag the selected copy.
2. Select the desired note group, hold Ctrl and drag. This copies the selection. This, actually, would be very cool and this works across many DAWs out there.

I beg to disagree on this one. Quantization (ie. snap) is always relative to the whole metronomic grid, never relative to any previous note position. Or so I think ;)

Let me show you the downside of this. Go to piano roll, choose snap Beat/4 and place a note not in the beginning, but say, 2/4 of a note. Then change the grid to Beat and now drag the note you placed. What happens is that it gets snapped to the current snap. If you have a complex melody, this simply ruins it. So atm, to start working with a complex melody, you have to look through it, find the smallest note and then adjust the grid accordingly and only then copy or move it.
This and also that I see no benefits to having notes relative to the whole metronomic grid. Really, not even one. To me a snap setting in piano roll is like periods in which notes can move. If a note is already "offset", it should not snap to the new grid setting but instead move as if it has an invisible beginning at the grid setting. At least, Qtractor piano roll is the first piano roll I am using that does not do this.

OT: are you ever online, like in a messenger or irc? would be nice to chat with you in real time ;)

rncbc's picture

b). Allow dragging notes during placement vertically, between notes.
hmmm... I guess what you're asking is to retain the previous non-painting mode but drag the new notes vertically if you find the initial point is perhaps wrong. Unfortunately that old edit mode has been completely subverted by this new freehand/painting one. Maybe it's too late, but I can try to make the old non-painting mode available as an option and featuring "your" vertical drag correction... just can't promise you any implementation time frame ;)

every other DAW out there allows this [silent saving MIDI clips] and nobody complains.
Well, as I often say, Qtractor is not any other DAW. It's just a toddler in the DAW playground. While in this age I certainly prefer for it to nag me everytime when it's about doing something permanent than not.

As far as Qtractor deals with MIDI files, each clip is considered an independent object or document by design. The piano-roll is in fact an independent MIDI file editor as you might already notice, independent from the main session editor. You may find that quite different approach than any other DAWs, but then again, Qtractor was/is primarily designed as a sequencer/arranger of external audio/MIDI media, a bit far or different direction than the all-in-one-integrated-environment that you may brag in LMMS for example.

Please note this, to make things a little bit straight: Qtractor piano-roll is in fact a windowed MIDI file (SMF) content editor. OTOH, a MIDI clip is a virtual window into that MIDI file and the latter is what gets actually linked into the main session arrangement. Qtractor sessions doesn't integrate any media content whatsoever, being just a collection of indirect references along with some parameters to external filesystem paths (think of links).

[UPDATE: last minute commit to svn trunk (qtractor-0.4.5.1560+) has some (hopefully good) news about this issue :-- the MIDI clip editor (aka piano-roll) is now a lot more quiet about saving its own dirty content, delegating all salvage questions to main session control (EXPERIMENTAL).]

I would say that at least once the clip IS created already, any changes I do to it I'd like to be silent. Or at least have an option in Qtractor for silent midi changes.
Nevertheless, there's still plenty of bugs or just annoying imperfections lurking in there, but I'll try to mitigate this salvage paranoia as much as I can. BTW, the latest SVN trunk might have something in this regard or even worsen damn than last release (have a look at the ChangeLog;). One option goes like not asking to save when you close the piano-roll window (aka MIDI clip editor) but save it unconditionally. That might be an improvement on your direction, what you think?

1. Ctrl-C Ctrl-V creates a copy of notes on top of the existing ones. So now all you have to do is drag the selected copy.
Might try reverting to this. Currently the floating copy selection will appear anchored to the mouse pointer instead of the exact original position. I say revert because long ago it was exactly as you say but I found it somewhat confusing. I see now that what's nice for some it's annoying for some others :) Maybe having this as an user option will do the truce ;)

2. Select the desired note group, hold Ctrl and drag. This copies the selection.
Ctrl is already being in use for extended multi-selection toggling, like a boolean/logical XOR, ya know? Shift goes like AND, but that you probably know. So, this one won't get my vote, for now :)

Re. Snap/Quantization to metronomic grid, not local relative:
Qtractor piano roll is the first piano roll I am using that does not do this.
You must be joking, right? In all MIDI sequencers that I've seen,quantization always refers to the musical metrics of the song, on beats and bars (quarter-notes and whole notes, etc. directly related to the current score's time signature, nothing else). Though, it is now my turn to pull the tie:) I never seen anything similar as you're asking either, so next question is which sequencer piano-roll are you having as reference? I might be surprised :)

OT: are you ever online, like in a messenger or irc? would be nice to chat with you in real time ;)
Sometimes, in the evening and through late at night (UTC), you can find me on irc.freenode.net, #lad, #jack and guess what, on #qtractor too ;)

Cheers

Hey Rui! I will try the EXPERIMENTAL midi clip editor thing, sounds interesting.

As for the behaviour of various piano rolls, I rechecked now - both Rosegarden and LMMS piano rolls behave in a way I described. You can fire them up and see for yourself.

Also, both Rosegarden and LMMS have the drawing method I was refering to - vertical movement drag notes along the keyboard, horizontal resizes them. I think it is a reasonable method.
Having had more experience with the new painting method, I can only speak for myself, but I end up creating notes by accident all the time.

rncbc's picture

There's more news over the SVN trunk arena:

A new non-painting editing sub-mode has been introduced on the MIDI clip editor's piano-roll and is now set on by default -- hopefully it behaves exactly as suggested, that being all vertical movement will drag new notes along the pitch scale instead of creating new note events at will. Drawback is that you can only create one note event at a time. The freehand/painting mode may now be turned back on through the new Edit/Select Mode/Edit Draw menu option (qtractor-0.4.5.1563+).

[UPDATE: this piano-roll draw edit mode got a new toolbar icon button as well (qtractor-0.4.5.1564+)]

Cheers.

Rui, hey!

Checked the new version and in my opinion it is very good.

Piano roll.
Great stuff. I think now editing melodies is much more fluent. I really am grateful to you that you decided to try this out and I honestly think that now midi clip editor is top grade.
Just one lil thing there to consider - when you drag the note backwards, perhaps it is not a bad idea to let the note move backwards when it has reached the grid limit. So if the note cannot shrink anymore, since it reached it's smallest setting, instead of shrinking it further to an almost invisible line, like now, the note can move backwards one step. That would allow to fix note position if you placed it in a wrong step.

Also, I see that you've changed cursor behaviour on copy paste. Now the group pastes in such a way that the beginning of the pasted group matches the cursor. That, in my opinion, totally solves copying problem and I have nothing else I would need here - the Ctrl-Shift shortcuts I suggested before are not necessary. In fact, I like this paste method more than what they have in LMMS, so thank you a lot! This is great functionality.

The grid thing - I see that when you copy a group of notes, their positions are preserved relative to each other. I think this is a new thing? Before I remember copying a group of notes would screw things up if some notes were off the grid. So this is good!
But when you move or copy just one note, it still snaps to the main grid. Do you think this can also be corrected?

Also noticed the silent midi clips exiting. When you move it it asks if you want to save it and, as far as I understand, it would save all changed clips if you just save the whole song. Imho, this is a nice solution.
I was thinking - maybe somehow it is possible to mark "dirty" midi clips visually? I do not know how and if it is necessary, but it might be interesting to try out.
But anyway, the way it is now - I think it is pretty much ok.

rncbc's picture

Great stuff.
thanks a lot.

When you drag the note backwards, perhaps it is not a bad idea to let the note move backwards
I've been struggling with this idea too but somehow I failed to make it good enough. My idea was not moving the note but extending or resizing the note in the opposite direction. Anyway I did not had success in making it consistent and stable yet. But I'm trying still :)

I see that you've changed cursor behaviour on copy paste.
I don't remember doing that lately :) Perhaps you feel it a little different each time you try, because the anchor event is usually the first one you select in a group and the pasting/floating selection always refers to this anchor when moving and placing the whole group. Usually the so-called anchor event is the top-left-most event in a rectangular group selection, but that can change if you build the group in some other composite esoteric manners ;)

When you copy a group of notes, their positions are preserved relative to each other.
This was in fact corrected since some previous release I believe, but I was almost sure it was already fixed in this last one (release 0.4.5).

But when you move or copy just one note, it still snaps to the main grid.
Uhoh. Again, I don't think this is subject for correction... From my POV it is WAD (working as designed:). Look, in the group selection scenario, the so-called anchor event is the one which gets snapped quite exactly as you were about to moving it alone.

Is it possible to mark "dirty" midi clips visually?
Indirectly this is already featured, the editor window will still say "modified" on its title even though you may close or open it several times until you either save the clip or the whole session (song).

The way it is now - I think it is pretty much ok.
Good. But please (there's always a but isn't it?), do not hold yourself about testing this huge behavorial change thouroughly. I know, I'm sure there's a nasty catch lurking in there, I just know :)

Cheers && thanks for the awesome feedback!

Okie, I'll keep testing...

As for the anchor thing, I got that. Would be nice to have the anchor always at the first note of the group, no matter from which side you select it. M?

Hello again Rui,

I'm having such a lot of productive fun with your wonderful Qtractor app that I don't really want to criticise anything about it - it's that good! Even some of the 'quirks' (features?) can produce brilliant results (f'rinstance, recording the audio output whilst 'fast-scrolling' backwards in play mode ;-)

I am not a coder, neither do I have sufficient knowledge to get involved in SVN's or producing PPA's, so could you tell me when this new version will be turning up in Synaptic or a PPA for UbuntuStudio, please?

Where you say:-

"A new non-painting editing sub-mode has been introduced on the MIDI clip editor's piano-roll and is now set on by default"

...does this also alter the behaviour of the piano-roll editor when removing notes? It's probably user error on my part, but I do find it a bit disconcerting when the cursor 'auto-scrolls' to the end of a clip whenever I remove notes. On a long clip this can result in considerable confusion if I haven't remembered which bar I was editing ;-)

I'm also wondering what your plans are for the future of QTractor, because it seems to me you've already produced pretty much all that is needed in the way of functionality (yet you're still calling it alpha code?!? ;-) - perhaps just some ergonomics to smooth? (eg: Could Sysex be made more 'on the fly'; could it be easier and more immediate to 'write in and/or edit' controller data, preferably without having to first figure out which controller from your drop down list?); could there be a function to extend your excellent colour-coding scheme to bars as well as tracks - ie: 4,8,16 or 32 bar 'blocks' of different pastel shades along the top ruler? 'Icing-on-the-cake' stuff!)

Finally, could I second Louigi Verona's request to at least have the option to save piano-roll edits by default, perhaps with a new filename so edits remain non-destructive? Also to have the option to set up a new folder for each session instead of that seemingly redundant request for a filename before the system file selector comes up?

Oh dear, I think I'm beginning to 'tread on toes' now, despite my first paragraph, so I'll shut up and end by saying - 'QTractor is THE sequencer I have been searching for ever since my Atari ST packed up 23 years ago' ;-)

Obrigado muito muito, Senhor!

rncbc's picture

Many, many thanks for the support.

could you tell me when this new version will be turning up in Synaptic or a PPA for UbuntuStudio, please?
Next release (0.4.6) is getting ready and will get spit out any day soon now :) However I don't have the slightest idea when it will get to your packager thereafter. I do offer a couple of debs on release date, that I do build for xUbuntu 10.04 on some virtualbox (i386 and amd64). Maybe you can try them first or you can wait patiently soon after--it might help if you contact the right distro packaging people for just that ;)

wondering what your plans are for the future of QTractor
There's still a really big TODO item to get chalked off before one can consider this an accomplished development: automation (includes MIDI learn & discrete control mapping). It has been said, from a friend of a friend, that this will be the "year of Qtractor automation" ;)

Thanks

ps. ah, and just say "muito obrigado", no need for "Senhor" which stands for "The Lord", who I'm sure I am not :))

ROFL!

Shows how much I know of the Portuguese language! I was just trying to be polite and had no idea it paralleled the Spanish meaning ;-) No fash mal (phonetic!) is about my limit, despite many months hauled up on the beach in Peniche harbour a decade or three ago!

I also have egg on my face over the finding of MIDI controller information, not having noticed the 'Event' menu option until yesterday - duh! Now, if that could be made editable when you get to automating MIDI 'real soon now'... ;-)

As for PPA's for UbuntuStudio, I've just discovered that falkTX and philip5 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9319024#post9319024) seem very keen on packaging your latest offerings.

Do you have an online outlet for your own music anywhere? Assuming you actually have time to make some, that is!

rncbc's picture

Re: falkTX
afaics he's portuguese alright and he seems to be doing a brand new distro of his own from the ground up, kxstudio ? a hell of a job indeed! despite portugal being that of a small country, as you may already know, the announcement caught me in surprise :)

online outlet for your own music anywhere?
Correct, I do fail to get time to make music lately, but there's this old crap on soundcloud.com/rncbc. Aha, beware! Focus is (was) mostly, if not all that is, on MIDI sequencing against a beloved DB50XG junkie, so all audio mixing, mastering or whatever is no short than bland, to say the least ;)

Cheers

I never realised those old Yamaha daughterboards were so credible! I really like your 'Sweep05-2' and D'n'B tracks - the former features a guitar that sounds more like a Korg Trinity.

Hmm, if this is 'bland crap', you're in great company - would go down well in any Brit club for sure ;-)

Thanks for sharing, Rui ! I'll check out soundcloud and maybe bend your ears with a Qtractor production of my own 'real soon now'...

danny, hey!
i've had the same quirk when piano roll would go to the end when you delete notes. Do try the latest snapshot, see if it is still there. I haven't seen this bug in a long time, maybe it was corrected?

http://www.rncbc.org/snapshots/#qtractor

I'll try it out 'real soon now' - once I finally get my firewire i/f working... ;-)

...where you say to Louigi "Anyway, in what situations exactly do you want to let it save changes automagically without asking any questions? maybe that can be arranged ;)"

Would it be a bore to substitute the Enter/Return key for your 'save' dialogue, when this editor has the focus? That is: ENTER saves the edits, ESCape 'closes without saving' ?

BTW Rui, I disagree totally with your modest comment about QTractor being a toddler in the DAW field - as a longterm semi-professional user of certain German mainstream offerings, your sense of ergonomics coupled with the coding abilities to make it happen already put QTractor well within the 'commercial credibility league'. If you can maintain this clean smoothness and (apparent!) simplicity of use through all the upcoming increased complexity, you will end up with a DAW in a league of its own, IMO.

Obligatory caveat time:- Would it involve brain-busting 'codery' to somehow include any loop boundaries in the playhead's travels? That is, when using the back & forward (not the FF & Rewind) buttons, the playhead cursor stops at the loop boundaries as well as the edit boundaries? There again, perhaps I've missed something obvious... That's what comes of learning an app on-the-fly, I guess! ;-)

rncbc's picture

The MIDI editor's save paranoia has been arranged and that is already engraved on this last release (0.4.6).

include any loop boundaries in the playhead's travels?
excellent! I must have been living under a rock for way too long for not to get to that first :)

Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou!!

De nada, Rui - I'm delighted to find I can be helpful in your quest for the answer to Life, the Universe & Electronic Music ;-)

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