There are times when I upgrade mainly to stay current. Modern DAWs are so feature rich these days there’s hardly ever a “holy cow” feature that I just have to have. That said, I’m more enthusiastic about the 10.5 release than I have been for some time, and mostly it’s the little things.
This release fixes the two things that have consistently bugged me most over the years. The fiddly region at the top that’s used for zoom, but half the time I accidentally toggle cycle instead. Now I can turn that off in preferences. Huzzah!
I also have adopted the habit of only opening one project at a time because if I close what I’m working on, the automatic activation of the next project is a) almost always not the one I want and b) forces me to sit there waiting for the wrong project to load. Now I can turn that off in preferences. Huzzah!
The ability to colorize mix tracks is something I think I’ll like. Importing seems to have gotten a lot of love, and I think I’ll be using that more. The combined selection / range tool will take some getting used to but I think it’ll also be a nice add. None of these have anything to do with deified bovines, l but they all add up to what I think is going to be a very nice update for the kinds of things that I use.
The one new feature that did get my attention was the spectral comparison in the EQ section of the channel strip. That looks very handy.
The last few releases haven’t really rocked my world, but I’ve stayed up to date. This one hasn’t redefined the DAW as we know it, but I think it’s going to be the update I feel the most, at least compared to the last couple of years.
Hmm. Download complete. Time for coffee and installs!