Who Else Thinks PT Midi is UNBEARABLE? Here's Why.

[relaxo]

I’ve just been catching up on all the Logic vs. PT threads with all the people switching to ProTools for composition. I don’t understand this. I have been a TDM+Logic user since the mid-90’s too. Mostly a Logic composer until I started engineering and have been using PT everyday since for three years now. For me, PT is NOT okay with midi by any means, especially for drum programming and general midi note editing. I so badly want to switch exclusively to PT for everything, I even have a new Control 24, which I love. I just spent two weeks writing midi in PT all day. It feels like verything in PT editing is designed to slow you down like auditioning velocity changes and switching between notes view and velocity view 5 or 10 times a minute when editing. Insane.

Please help me understand and slide me some techniques because I really want to use ProTools exclusively. How do you guys do it? Doesn’t it drive you nuts and cut your productivity in half? I have to stay with Logic for now

(Digidesign, please read!)

A redesign of midi editing is mandatory. Why:

Track Views:
Having to change between track views hundreds of times per hour while manually editing midi is the single worst feature of PT. Please just stay on one view for all editing tasks. This MUST be changed. It can’t be argued, it’s a horrible design, right at the heart of your programming activity.

Sounding notes while changing velocity:
Midi notes should be automatically sounded when editing velocity changes like they are when you are transposing. Why do you need to hear the new pitch changes but not the new velocity changes when editing? When programming drums, each velocity sounds different and each new velocity needs to be sounded. Notes should play with every change, or at least have the option to, especially when transposing notes and changing velocity. I want to hear what it sounds like without having to swing down and click on the note after each volume change, which is tedious if you program all day. I do a lot of live drum sample triggering, and I need to hear every time I move it to a new velocity (128 steps) just like I need to hear each note as I move it higher and lower in pitch. What's the difference, new note pitch or new note volume...you usually need to hear it!

Why? Especially with percussion samples, there is a totally different sample being triggered with each volume step, sometimes even 128 different velocity sample audio files per note, each with a different attack sound. Imagine going down and clicking on the note just to audition each sample assigned to each velocity. I know that you can play in loop mode to hear velocity changes, but I don’t need any more noise all day than I already get.

Integrated software sampler:
This needs to be efficient like EXS-24 and able to read many formats (without translating them first hopefully.)

Audio to midi:
Where is audio to midi?!? Digi, its 2005! You have a great program but sometimes I wonder... If we had this, we wouldn't have to buy Drumagog to replace live drum sounds. We'd do audio to midi, then use the new midi track with BFD or DFH Superior.

Midi note mapping and controller mapping:
I use many different percussion midi triggers (Kat pads, MPC pads, Yamaha triggers, and regular keyboards.) All of these have different, random output notes for each pad. I also use many different drum samples and machines, each with different samples assigned to each note. In Logic, dealing with this is no problem.

What is needed in PT is NOT more and more fancy groove quantization and all of that, but basic features like midi note and controller mapping functionality. I need the ability to change G#3 to A2 and F1 to C4 etc. on the fly in real time (individual note transposing) and save those settings as a preset for any midi trigger to sample player combination. I can’t reprogram the triggers and rewrite the sample keyboard maps for every permutation.

What is midi mapping? Any input note may be routed to a different output note and assigned its own velocity setting, and name. Note mapping is infinitely helpful for drum programming. With note mapping:

Each individual input note can be:
• named (snare, hi hat and so on);
• mapped to a different output note (F# and G# for the same hi-hat sound, allowing you to play rapid repeats or transposed for another trigger/sampler combo);
• given a velocity offset;
• assigned its own MIDI channel

With related controller mapping you could quickly and easily reprogram midi controller data from one parameter to another. You could be using your mod wheel as a pitch adjuster then with a flip of a menu, have that wheel be controlling a filter. It’s in the same vein as note mapping, just reassigning midi data in real time.

Note mapping is indispensable for anyone who does much percussion programming.

Midi monitor display:
Where is the alpha-numerical display of incoming and outgoing midi notes? Once again. When I hit a key, where does it display what note and the velocity that I just hit. Or if I am sliding a midi controller, where does it read the current cc number and 0-127 level? Here is basic midi functionality once again missing in PT. There is a separate application that does this called MIDI Monitor 1.1.7 that can be run in parallel to PT.

In PT, why not give us a -Logical- "tools pop selector" up if we press a key? Forget fancier groove templates and beat mapping and high powered midi operations etc etc etc that Digidesign has been developing. Just make the basic manual midi editing bearable please! (Big hint: Look at either or all of Logic, Cubase, DP, Studio Vision etc. to develop a new paradigm.)

Thanks, Scott

[crizdee]

Hi,

Scott, you're not alone in wanting better and faster midi editing! it has been mentioned many times and every midi user (like me) who wants PT's superior audio engine! so moves from another program to get the audio advances!! first thing we say is..."where's the basic midi functions that we had in 1992" Well, slowly they are arriving!? but Digi will always have it's audio cap on first and foremost!

I'll tell you a story...

I went to Abbey Road in December to the Pro tools 7 seminar, about 150-160- pro tools users in the room? when the demonstator announced the new features, people were responing with "ooh" "yeh" "nice" when he announced "Real time midi" i cheered the room went quiet and everyone in the room looked at me like i was a lepper!! there he is the midi guy! all on his own! shouldn't he have a bell around his neck?

We are out-numbered and will never be priority for Digi! though i think the Wizoo team are on board now and we should see some interesting developments. I'm sure we'll have the best quality plugin synth ever soon! but still won't have midi note mute!!!!!

In 1969 we put man on the moon! in 2006 we still can't mute a midi note, convert audio to midi, map a midi signal, etc etc.

Chris

[Ray Lyon]

in 2006 we still can't mute a midi note, convert audio to midi, map a midi signal, etc etc.

and no MIDI scrub either...

Scott, are you using the smart tool along with with all the new MIDI keyboard shortcuts? Though not ideal for you it may at least be bearable .... your workflow might be able to adjust...

[relaxo]

Scott, are you using the smart tool along with with all the new MIDI keyboard shortcuts? Though not ideal for you it may at least be bearable .... your workflow might be able to adjust...

Yes, yes, please help. I do use the smart tool. Which keyboard shortcuts do you most commonly rely on? Thanks.

[jeremyroberts]

Scott,

I agree 100% - although I manage to do high-level work, I know I am giving up speed of workflow for PT.

Your shopping list reads like a featureset of VISION - a program that many of us grew up on, going back to 1988 -- midi scrub, auditioning velocity or duration changes, incoming note naming, etc... these are BASIC midi sequencer functions...

Remember, there are many camps of PT users, and I would be the first to say that NOTATION does NOT BELONG inside protools. There are other programs that do it very well, and it is so easy to export midi.

BUT -- until we get these other workflow issues, especially midiscrub and note sounding while editing, PT engineering has lots to do to make PT the true integrated platform.

I gave up a bunch of midi control so that i can work in one space -- and now I'm used to it. has it slowed me down? Maybe... but the work is still only as good as i can write or hear. I don't blame my tools. Is there a workaround for every task we need? Yes. Would it be better if we could have some minor enhancements? Obviously.

Hopefully the product managers are reading this...

[Bentley Ferrari]

Hi,


We are out-numbered and will never be priority for Digi! though i think the Wizoo team are on board now and we should see some interesting developments. I'm sure we'll have the best quality plugin synth ever soon! but still won't have midi note mute!!!!!


Chris

Chris, you're right. The saving grace of PT, though, is that it is so easy to play with from a "more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat" point of view. Many of us do our midi work on other programs, even on other computers, and record the resulting audio into PT. There are so many good things out there to choose from, and you don't even to give compatibility a first, much less second thought. Its a bit of a pain to keep a record of a midi file somewhere else than in your PT Session file, but its not an insurmountable barrier.

By the way, Chris, if possible I'm going to nominate you for a Grammy next year: "Best Use of Exclamation Points in a DUC Post Reply." You definitely get my vote for one of the most positive and encouraging people here on the DUC. Thanks!!!

[Lee Blaske]

We are out-numbered and will never be priority for Digi!

This was obvious to me years ago. Unfortunately, I really think that redesigning PT at this point to make it a real MIDI contender would be a major, major job. Also, it would make PT a very different application, and the people that like it the way it is might not like the changes. Digidesign also wants to keep PT relatively simple to learn. If you added all the features that other full-featured MIDI applications have, it would make PT a much more daunting application to learn. The manuals would swell.

I'm still also convinced that other important features are not added to PT, so that a hardware console controller is more necessary. If you added things like screen sets, the ability to construct multiple custom mixer windows, mixer windows with multiple rows of channel strips, etc., you wouldn't need an external control surface as much.

For those doing a lot with MIDI (especially using libraries with multiple articulation banks), folders are really necessary. Notation is also an important asset for serious orchestration. It would also be great if PT's window could be scrunched down a lot more to see more tracks. People doing serious MIDI use a LOT of tracks.

If someone held a gun to my head and told me I had to orchestrate using PT, I could do it, but it would be a big step backward. When you get on to forums where serious MIDI orchestrators congregate (like Northern Sounds), it's pretty obvious that hardly anybody is using PT.

I really don't think this is going to change. About the only way things could change is if Digidesign developed two different versions of PT -- one for the audio set, and one for the MIDI crowd.

Lee Blaske

[crizdee]

[quote

I really don't think this is going to change. About the only way things could change is if Digidesign developed two different versions of PT -- one for the audio set, and one for the MIDI crowd.

Lee Blaske

[/QUOTE]

Hi Lee, I agree with you on most points, though i don't see lots of posters asking for the most sophisticated midi features ever! must of us just want basic stuff? Midi scoring and notation as you say belongs to Finale or Sibilous, but the basic features we see requested many times just don't seem to be important to the Daly city club.

It can't be too difficult to have these basic functions and a dedicated midi edit page? we had it in the 1980's! and it sure would't make PT any more difficult to learn or get in the way of audio only users.

Thanks for the nomination Bentley Ferrari
I accept this Grammy on behalf of everyone on th Duc !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chris

[rtcstudio]

(Digidesign, please read!)

A redesign of midi editing is mandatory. Why:

Thanks, Scott

I agree with all this.

Fortunately I'm doing tons more producing and engineering than orchestrating now, but whenever I do a midi arrangement or combination midi/recording of real orchestra, I always go back to Logic. For me it's notation is totally adequate (some composers I know will only use Finale), and when editing orchestral parts I REALLY want to see notes, not dashes on a piano roll style edit window. I have a string arrangement default song, and a full orchestra default song, all ready with Kontakt and Mach 5 samplers, score layouts etc. I'm not sure Pro Tools will ever catch up to this. BUT....

If it ever was going to happen, I think it will be when Avid/Digidesign swallows up a competing Midi/Daw company, much like they did with M-Audio, Trillium Lane etc. Much like Apple did with Emagic. If this ever happened, Digi could integrate that program's midi features into Pro Tools, much like Apple does with features of Logic.

Then, perhaps there could be more selections on the Pro Tools preferences as far as selecting how you work: Primarily audio, Audio with minimal Midi (like it is now), Full Audio and Midi features, Midi and minimal Audio, or just MIDI. Songs/tracks could be imported from any of the song type combinations.

If they did it right, a user wouldn't have to be daunted but the size of the manual. Just have a regular manual like they do now, and then have an Advanced Midi Reference Guide, IF you want to activate those features in your Pro Tools environment.

Of course, it would help if the company Digi swallowed up was a great midi program to begin with! (Sonar, DP, etc.). Too bad Logic is already taken!

Because I think everyone is right: Until something like this happens, Digi is primarily an audio company. They really need a separate sub-set of the company that can do the midi thing, and do it right.

Imagine a Pro Tools DAW with the midi features of Logic. Surley that even excites the product managers at Digidesign!

ONE OTHER MUST: They would also have to fix the 2 display limitation on Mac systems!!! LET US USE PCI VIDEO CARDS or find us and approved AGP Quad Video card!

[ronwasserman]

If digi was to consult with 10-20 composers that work daily with midi and get a first hand account of why PT falls so short in features and reliability in this area, perhaps they could then focus on much needed improvements.