Qtractor

[rncbc]

Just to correct something here so we don't have a misunderstanding. Multiple midi channels per track isn't a 'little' thing for me. It's a very big thing, and often the first thing i evaluate in a Daw. I spent too many years scrolling through single midi channel tracks, to want to go there again, for anything over about 50 tracks.

yes master

now seriously, i do understand your stance and you're, of course, right. and it's not just a question of having an open mind: as i said before, the one-to-one-track/channel relationship was set very deep and early on the design. changing that will require quite a complete overhaul and structural change, which is sad enough, you see, if just you've been around and asked for it two years ago ...

Folders is a good potential option here.

it sure that would mitigate the issue, but even so, i'm afraid it's just not one panacea ...

And, it's good to hear about the keyboard shortcuts, so not all is lost!

uff, what a relief you know, that one was in deed crafted at the last minute, so to speak, right after your post on "my" forum. it has been asked before, several times and mouths, and it just took yours for getting the ball rolling. yes, nothing is ever lost

thanks Alex
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela

[Alex]

Rui,
I will continue to support this programme, and wax lyrical about its qualities. I trhink Qtractor is terrific for what it's designed to do, and as i wrote previously, it's ideal for quick drafts in my particular workflow.

The best of luck, and success to you!

Alex.

[rncbc]

thanks Alex,

btw, your skilled and powers would be much appreciated in the form of a short tutorial, with sample midi material whether possible. lexridge, the guy who is putting up qtractor's user manual, has asked for help in this area, as he has no big acquaintance with midi stuff. just one of your quick draft prototypes would be regarded as superior state-of-the-art i'm sure

feel free to drop by: http://www.rncbc.org/drupal/node/71

and it might just open some minds too

cheers and all the best to you too
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela

[Alex]

thanks Alex,

btw, your skilled and powers would be much appreciated in the form of a short tutorial, with sample midi material whether possible. lexridge, the guy who is putting up qtractor's user manual, has asked for help in this area, as he has no big acquaintance with midi stuff. just one of your quick draft prototypes would be regarded as superior state-of-the-art i'm sure

feel free to drop by: http://www.rncbc.org/drupal/node/71

and it might just open some minds too

cheers and all the best to you too
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela

Rui, i have quite a bit going on at the moment, but i've written it down, and if i get some time, i'd be happy to contribute.

Alex.

[Alex]

A quick follow up to this. Although tracks in qtractor are single channel, the master devices are multi, so there's an opportunity here to use qtractor in a routing role as well.

The possibilities in this programme continue to reveal themselves.


Alex.

[rncbc]

A quick follow up to this. Although tracks in qtractor are single channel, the master devices are multi, so there's an opportunity here to use qtractor in a routing role as well.

note that mono-channel semantics apply to midi tracks only. audio tracks are multi-channel by nature. another clarification: tracks converge to output buses, in qtractor parlance, and buses are multi-channel in deed. this is only a remark that qtractor buses are probably what you call devices. am i right?

- midi buses are in fact juat a qtractor interface device to an alsa-seq port, so that you'll have 16 midi addressable channels, as usual on every midi port device.
- audio buses have as many channels as you declare them to, and each channel interfaces to one and only one jack audio port.

i think that's it.

The possibilities in this programme continue to reveal themselves.

i guess, the more you dig in, the more dirt you get out

cheers && happier

[Alex]

Rui,

I've had a full day with Qtractor now, and explored even more of the programme.

I understand now what you mean about the audio device. I have 17 midi devices and 1 audio device with 52 channels that works and doesn't crash now.
So far so good, and as a 'drafter' for quick orchestral writing i'm getting faster with QTR. I'm still a bit tired of scrolling, hehe, but with 40 tracks, i can live with this.

The intereaction between QTR and Linuxsampler is good too.

I have some questions at this point.

In qjackctl, qtractor appears in the alsa midi tab, and i need to use a link utility called a2jmidid in order to route midi from QTR alsa midi to Linuxsampler Jack midi. Do you have plans to enable jack midi in QTR, so i can simply cable QTR to LS in the jack midi tab? Alternatively, can you create 'mirrors' of the alsa midi ports, so they automatically show up in the jack midi tab as well?

When i use a single audio device with mutiple channels, is there any way i can seperate out the channels, in stereo pairs, or individual mono channels into dedicated tracks? Currently, i have one audio device in with 52 channels. I'd like to be able to take channel 1 and 2 into a track, channels 3 and 4 into another track, etc. Would it be useful to have this capability in the 'create track' options for audio?

Alex

[rncbc]

Alex,

In qjackctl, qtractor appears in the alsa midi tab, and i need to use a link utility called a2jmidid in order to route midi from QTR alsa midi to Linuxsampler Jack midi. Do you have plans to enable jack midi in QTR, so i can simply cable QTR to LS in the jack midi tab? Alternatively, can you create 'mirrors' of the alsa midi ports, so they automatically show up in the jack midi tab as well?

jack-midi support is planned but it's not high priority atm. i have too much many other things to work on, in my own needs. i'm working on midi instrument plug-in integration (DSSI and VSTi) and after that i will tame the huge task, being a project of its own, to get automation in qtractor. i'm afraid these will span for the rest of the year

otoh, i have some doubts whether jack-midi is as fit to purpose as is alsa-seq. although it brags sample-accurate midi, audio and midi processing is carried on a single thread, hardly taking advantage of the now really common multi-core machines. but that's a story for another thread, another forum...

When i use a single audio device with mutiple channels, is there any way i can seperate out the channels, in stereo pairs, or individual mono channels into dedicated tracks? Currently, i have one audio device in with 52 channels. I'd like to be able to take channel 1 and 2 into a track, channels 3 and 4 into another track, etc. Would it be useful to have this capability in the 'create track' options for audio?

you call devices, i call it buses, remember? so, the way i'll suggest is about having several audio buses, each one with either one channel (mono) or two channels (stereo) as you wish. then you assign each bus to each of the corresponding tracks. have in mind that each track may be assigned to different buses, as input and output. as always, each bus channel will appear as one jack audio port on the connections window.

tell me whether you're following the idea.

[Alex]

Rui,

I'm using Jackdmp, which is multi thread. works well with my dual core amd.

I understand what you're saying about audio busses.
Is there a limit on how many audio busses QTR can handle?

Alex.

[rncbc]

I'm using Jackdmp, which is multi thread. works well with my dual core amd.

that's not the issue i'm afraid. jackdmp takes in fact advantage of multi-core/threading but that's only when you have paralell paths in your connection graph.

it's no matter whether you're using jackd or or jackdmp: each client will do it's own processing in one single thread. what jackdmp does as an improvement is that you can have two or more clients running in parallel for the same period cycle, provided they belong to distinct signal paths, but one client takes one and only one process thread. ever.

what i was inferring was that qtractor processes midi and audio in separate threads. thus each thread can run on it's own core at one given time. with jack-midi, audio and midi has to be handled through the very same thread, the jack client process thread, and that might just degrade the real-time constraints if the whole arrangement is a bit more complex than the usual. eheh. and that's one issue you might worry about then, as i guess you're always trying and pushing the limits

Is there a limit on how many audio busses QTR can handle?

sky is the limit. ok, ram and cpu will bring that way down a lot

byee