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Migrating semi-pro studio from windoze

Thanks for a great sequencer (only folder tracks are missing)!

I'v played around with ardour, but I don't like the interface. It has to be more user friendly. QTractor is the sequencer of my choise in Linux where the interface is simple and you don't get lost. I've started to migrate my projects from Cubase in windows and the only thing I miss so far is folder tracks. This is an important feature if you're serious about audio production with lots of tracks. I have many projects with all drum sounds on separate tracks and only that can result in more than 10 tracks (I had to do it like this because I use Kontakt for my drumsamples and then you have to trigger each instrument on a different channel).

I just bought Poise (the best vst drum sampler, still budget price, out there that runs fine with festige/dssi-vst) so now I'll start to migrate the drums to stay on one track, but some of my projects still have lots of tracks (more than 10 vocal tracks).

If I manage to gain productivity with QTractor I'll donate if you take donations. I don't mind spend money on good quality stuff such as my soft synths (Albino3 and Predator) and my mixing tools (I'm selling my UAD-1 card now because of Nebula from Acustica Audio that runs with wine and the creator maybe will create a native windows version as he has bought up the intel api for linux, IPP7, that he uses). :)

You guys from portugal are amazing! falkTX and Rui kick some serious ass in the audio software area!!! (I'm half brazilian)

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rncbc's picture

thanks for stopping by. be welcome

re. folder tracks
i think i know about what you're asking or at least have a faint idea. indeed, it just seems like one of an old feature request, among many... as you can surely understand, unfortunately there's anything like that being promoted on the priority queue atm. truth is, i've been busy with so many things that most find as truly essential that the accessory has just step to the side.

however, you may want to give some more details on the real functionality that those so-called folder tracks can bring to the scene. don't ask me to just look at other commercial applications for example because i won't. i don't have the time nor the patience and sure i don't have any of them any near me (i've ditched windows more than a decade ago). sorry

otoh. i may take that as like mixer groups, that you can mute/solo collectively as one its basic functions, but you may have some other tricks in mind.

please, it would be nice if you find the time to elaborate, won't you?

cheers

Of course I'm willing to colaborate and I understand that you are busy! :D

Folder tracks is just for organization to be able to expand/collapse groups of tracks. You could leave the additinal features for the moment (mute, solo, arm record. when clicking on mute for example every track in the folder is muted and so on). The important thing is to create a folder track and then drag and drop the tracks over that folder to associate them. You could also create a sub-folder track inside another to create a tree, but this could also be left to a later release.

This is an explanation of the use from a commercial software.

"The simplest application of a Folder track is to allow you to reduce the number of tracks shown in the Project window without having to delete anything. To open or close a Folder track, simply click one of the Expand/Collapse Folder buttons on the Folder track itself, in the track list: either the small +/- button at the bottom-left of the track, or the small folder icon. Alternatively, to open or close all Folder tracks in the track list at the same time, hold down Control/Apple when you click the +/- button.

You'll notice that Folder tracks have similar controls to regular tracks, including Mute, Solo, Record, Monitor and Lock buttons, and using any of these controls affects all the tracks contained within the Folder. For example, pressing the Solo button will activate the Solo button for all the tracks in the Folder, providing a quick way to solo different groups of tracks in your Project. This is particularly useful when you're working with a large number of audio tracks that all need to be record- or monitor-enabled at the same time: place the audio tracks in a Folder and use the Folder's record and monitor enable buttons. Finally, the Folder track's Lock button is also a convenient way of locking the entire contents of a Folder with a single click."

Here's some example pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MackieTracktion_FolderTracks.jpg
http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/may05/images/cubase2.l.jpg

So we have the requirements:

1. Create folder track
2. Remove folder track (removes all the tracks in that folder/removes the folder track and de-associates the track with the folder and puts them in the "root")
3. Expand folder track
4. Collapse folder track

Much of the times you don't have to for exampe be able to solo the folder track as you mostly have the one to one structure of the folder tracks with the mix busses. For example I create a mix bus "Drums" where I route all my drum tracks, same for vocals etc. But this feature is nice when you don't have one to one relations so I recommend this to be added to a future release whenever there is time to implement it.

Optional features (later release)
5. Solo folder track (solos every track in the folder)
6. Mute folder track
7. Arm record folder track
8. Show the overview of containing clips in the "clips area"
9. Create sub-folder track (same structure as folder track, just to organize further. for example I use the structure below to be able to mute/solo just the lead vocals, etc)

-VOCALS
--LEAD VOCALS
---LEAD VOCAL 1
Lead Vocal 1 Left Track
Lead Vocal 1 Right Track
---LEAD VOCAL 2
--BACK VOCALS
---BACK VOCAL 1
Back Vocal 1 Left Track
Back Vocal 1 Right Track
---BACK VOCAL 2

uh yeah that would be a neat future, I too miss it from the cubase days ;) as MrLove is saying, the primary purpose of it is just to have a less cluttered project (i.e. only a graphic thing), though Mute/Solo etc. on all tracks in a group/folder would be nice.

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