Around 1:10 or so Walt impliess that MixConsole is ultimately meant to replace The Project Window as ‘the primary screen’.
Two reactions, depending on my mood.
Not in this life, pal.
Gee, this is concerning, nay, -frightening-.
I’ve been wondering about all the transport and marker gizmos migrating to MixConsole.
For -me-, I don’t care if MixConsole delivers a perfect Gin and Tonic every day @ 5pm. It can -never- replace The Project Window and in fact, I’m one of those that wish you’d showered The Project window with all the attention you’ve placed on the new Mixer.
To me… the whole point of a DAW is… said it 13 years ago… to be a Musical Desktop Publisher. It’s primary benefit to me is to make inputting and manipulating audio as easy as using InDesign to assemble a book. It’s exactly the same paradigm. Mixing is important, but frankly? The better I get at assembling my materials, the -less- ‘mixing’ I have to do. (Deepest advice I ever got years ago: you’ll know yer getting better when yer mixes come together faster.)
This may seem overly expansive, but Cubase is NOTHING without the Piano Roll. It -is- the piano roll. If it didn’t have a piano roll… or the piano roll was a secondary part of its design? I’d use something else. Believe that. The quality of the piano roll is the ONLY thing (well, except for maybe Score integration) that keeps me welded to Cubase.
Most of the new gizmos in Cubase are -not- about the piano roll. Most of the feature requests I see here are about the piano roll. Maybe they’re not ‘sexy’, but what long-time users want is for proper attention to be paid to the piano roll. And it feels like you guys are neglecting the thing that made me love you. You’re kinda taking your core competency for granted.
Beware all kingdoms who take their core for granted and venture too far afield. (I’ve been watching Game Of Thrones—cool stuff, eh? ). You’ll lose yer home flag.
I agree totally, Suntower.
I would love to NOT have to use the mixer as much as i do now. My F3 button is worn out
Don’t get me wrong, I love the new mixer. But:
To be able do everything about the mixing in a well-planned and thought out project-window as well, with every send and insert readable instantly, without having to open additional “Mixer” or “Trackview” -windows would be a godsend.
(The new trackview showing the entire signalpath is a great addition though)
To show/hide tracks at will, group and reorder, copy inserts and sends from one track to another in the left side of the project window…would be great! (I think protools 10 already can do this…no?)
MiDI and audio-edits is great to edit in their respective and specialized editorwindows (pianoroll).
I work with the mix as I go, and the process is no longer seperated in recording/editing/mixing. -“Everything is broken up and dances” - to quote Jim Morrison
The mixer is ok for people working in the old record-edit-then mix paradigm, but the project-window must get on par to support the process for more modern approaches to music-making.
Everything should be possible in both views…after all, the project window IS a mixer, just flipped on the side
I have only one 27-inch 2560x1440 screen and find myself hitting the F3 button far to much to show/hide the mixer window. Good to know I’m not alone subscribing to this point of view, Suntower.
I never thought of it before, but yes, the piano roll -is- a mixer on its side. Yes, if I could see and manipulating the sends/inserts/meters from the project window that would be =fabulous=. Especially if I had access to them with key commands.
As I alluded before, for what I do (concert music, progressive rock) if I’m spending a lot of time in the Mixer, it means my composition or my raw tracks are flawed.
My sense is that traditionalists (the track then mix crowd) wield an undue influence in the recording world.
I think the -reality- is that more and more people live in the Project side of the world because we (or at least -I-) am tracking/overdubbing/mixing all at the same time… and usually until about 5 minutes before I have to make a delivery. (Left handed compliment spoiler) I’ve said it over and over… S/B has been allowed to skate on improving the Project Manager because frankly they were like 5 years ahead of everyone else so they spent all this energy on competing with P/T. Well… now’s the time to swing the pendulum back the other way.
Cubase has all this stuff they can leverage on the Project side (Note Expression, Logical Editor, Score, VST3) that no one else has and composers would LOVE to be able to use more.
I use project window only, it will remain my primary screen. I never use mix console for mixing, because I use custom setup remote control with faders. When mixing I just select track in project, and adjust fader. All eq and level I adjust with remote (now I miss low/hi cut connections to remote control). Same with plugins, I always add them in project window (I only use mixer rarely to move/copy plugins between tracks). I use channel editor to see channel parameters (and here I would be happy to see option to have both eq and channel strip at the same time, not that I have to click on the tab). Mixer is now mostly useful for me just to see overall on a 2nd screen, as a meter bridge, all channels set to narrow view. And I use mix console also to assign channels to groups and FX, because these new functions for now only work in mix console. If I could do that from project window, I wouldn’t use mix even for that. Basically for me mix console is only a visual overview sitting on a 2nd screen, and I rarely click there.
All new routing functions of mix console should be available in project view too.
It seems to me that Cubase has been trying to be all things to all people right from the start, and they are just continuing in that plan.
They seem to be doing a fair job of it. When the February update comes out people will be cheering and thanking SB, and there’ll be a few who will complain bitterly that the request or bug fix they had was not included, same ol’ same ol’.
Yes! I just finished writing/mixing a 16 track album (electronic music) with 3 edits of each track, and hardly touched the mixer once. I do 99% of my work in the project window, using the channel inspector at the side of the project screen for levels/plugins/sends/pan etc
The mixer is a one-dimensional beast, it has no “time” axis. You can’t compose in it, or arrange in it.
So I agree that a “mixer-centric” paradigm is fundamentally flawed for anything except “track then mix” scenarios.
The project page is where I spend most of my time and I don’t use the mixer that much either and I agree that it would have been nice to see some of these improvements in the project page
for someone who produce music the project window window is the most “visited” window.
today most music production (at least home/project studios) if its recording,arranging,editing, and 80% of mixing is already done in same stages for good and bad.
i like in protools(never used it just saw Dave pensados episods) where u can see inserts and sends of all channels in project window.
i guess that way u can copy/move plugins among channels and adjust send levels without clicking specific track to open it one by one.
but maybe there are disadvantages im not aware off !
“… taking as many features out of the menus as possible and bringing them into the primary workspace” …
is ambiguous.
It’s not clear to me whether he is suggesting:
(a) the Menus are a secondary workspace; or
(b) the Mixconsole is the primary workspace, as compared to the Project window.
I hope he means (a) and that Steinberg treats both the Project window and the Mixconsole as equally important primary workspaces and that functions will not, in future, be transferred from the Project window solely to the Mixconsole.
Like other posters above, it would be very inconvenient for my composition workflow if functions in the Project were reduced.
). You’ll lose yer home flag.
