Mixcraft Suggestions!

[Anorax]

Another thing that would be nice is if the automation parameter menu on the track appeared/operated like the MIDI/AUDIO menu does, which is wider and allows you to use the scroll wheel.

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I could have swore I saw this in the bug tracker. Odd.

[GCJ]

One thing I would absolutely love is the ability to make... blocks? of automation.

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Kind of like this (I know it's not a well done photoshop but I think it shows the idea well enough), I like the current way of automation too so the option to switch between them would be appreciated as well. It's just a bit frustrating sometimes trying to move blocks of automation back and forth and constant cutting and pasting.
EDIT: Also upgrading Mixcraft 8 later tonight! I really love the Melodyne integration.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Did you know you can currently copy and paste automation?

Greg

[Tranceprod Dan]

Nice idea! move-able, loop-able automation units

[mfkne]

- adjust Mixer knobs & sliders with mouse wheel
- option to duplicate clip (not nly copy & paste)
- Theme Editor
- add compressor, saturation and limiter to Mixer strip (as done with EQ)
- auto-beatmatch imported clips to grid (does not work every time, have then to do manually)

[Acoustica Greg]

- option to duplicate clip (not nly copy & paste)

Do you know about Alt-Drag? Hold down the Alt key and drag the clip. You can even do this with effects in Mixcraft 8.

[mfkne]

- option to duplicate clip (not nly copy & paste)

Do you know about Alt-Drag? Hold down the Alt key and drag the clip. You can even do this with effects in Mixcraft 8.

yes, I know. Thank you. But in other DAW I can f.e. press "D" or "Ctrl-D" several times. It´s quite faster...

[Acoustica Greg]

- option to duplicate clip (not nly copy & paste)

Do you know about Alt-Drag? Hold down the Alt key and drag the clip. You can even do this with effects in Mixcraft 8.

yes, I know. Thank you. But in other DAW I can f.e. press "D" or "Ctrl-D" several times. It´s quite faster...

And Ctrl+D is faster than Ctrl+V? I guess you skip having to press Ctrl+C? Is that the advantage?

[mfkne]

Yes, much faster

[HertzFidelity]

I originally posted this as a new thread in the pluggins area of the forums, mainly because it was the most relevant area I could find at the time.

What I am proposing which may be very useful to many advanced users is to add a feature that allows functions to be drawn and superimposed into the automation lanes with a number of options to modify their shape. For example an exponential setup with an upper limit could make the magnitude of an effect rise suddenly without the chopping generated by vertical blocks (a feature added in mixcraft 7). The functions should include:

Sine waves, triangle waves, saw waves, exponentials and logarithms all with settings that allow the user to alter the: *Amplitude for waves or max and min values (on vertical from 0 to 1 or -inf to +6dB).
*Wavelength of the function (defined by the units used for timing).
*Whether the function is normal or reversed on both of the above settings.

It would also allow far more variations if functions could be superimposed over each other, for example combining a sine wave with a linear rise (easily created using points) so that the sine wave either increases it's amplitude or focus with the linear rise.

I would like to know whether the Mixcraft community thinks it would be nice to have these functions available for the automation lanes and whether the Acoustica team believes it could be possible, worthwhile and not insanely preposterous. Details given here are quite basic to attempt the cut down the complexity of this post however if it is too confusing to grasp the concept I can convey the details more clearly in another post.

[HertzFidelity]

Hi,

Did you know you can currently copy and paste automation?

Greg

Also, yes you can copy and paste automation's however it is limited to pasting only simple functions. When the functions become more complex with many hundreds of points, copying and pasting can result in points overlapping in really tiny units which causes glitches in the audio and it can make mapping out automation's really tedious.

[Ajgi]

Here's my list. Sorry if they've been mentioned before.

Higher fidelity wave forms, allowing for more precise audio editing.
- in other DAWs (eg Reaper and Ableton) I can zoom in all the way to see the actually shape of the wave, allowing me to cut the wave when the phase is at 0, meaning there is no click at the start of the sound or anything.
- ideally this would come with redesigning the UI to be Vector based rather than images, meaning Mixcraft would scale better at different resolutions, and allow for a more customisable UI.

A superior automation system, allowing for curves and shapes like Ableton and FL Studio do.

A fix to the automation menu enabling proper scrolling that I've submitted bugs for, and others have mentioned recently in this thread (PLEASE FIX REEEEEEEEEEE)

In the piano roll, I'd rather the number keys controlled the note length rather than the grid size. I pretty much only ever use either Grid, Grid triplet, or Snap Off.

I'm loving the new feature showing effects on the tracks, could we get a hotkey to toggle the plugins? (eg. shift click on the plugin toggles it)

Something I think is a bit more of a stretch but an amazing change would be to upgrade Acoustica Studio Drums.
At the moment it's unusable in a professional environment. Some new, more realistic kick snare and tom samples, plus making the plugin multi out would be fantastic.

Thanks for developing such a great, user friendly program. I really admire they way you guys always interact with the community, and how you're transparent about why or why not you do something.

[bedja]

First thanks for the new version which is great as usual.

Midi auto quantize was missing, nice to have it now!

As a suggestion for the future, i would love to create my own pc keyboard shortcuts (like in Energyxt), using only single strokes without having to use Ctrl+ .... for a faster action

[bedja]

French (and Spanish i guess) translation of the manual, i think you are loosing a lot of customers here.

Through forums, i know many musicians (mostly total beginners in DAW recording) who were very much interested in Mixcraft but wouldn't manage without the help of a manual, and went for Cubase or Studio One instead.

[Torton5]

This list is getting pretty long and I don't have the time to go through all the posts to see if these suggestions have already been made. I am using Mixcraft primarily for midi creation and editing and I have also used other DAW's for this and other purposes in the past, sometimes in a professional environment where time is money.

While I really like the interface and ease of use in Mixcraft for creating midi productions I am having a couple of problems that are eating away at my time. It may be that I am not using the program properly, I am not sure.

1. No ability to edit grouped midi note velocities on the fly

So you have a song and your editing a piano passage with 20 4-6 note chords entered, you want to raise or lower the velocities of certain chords. The only options I can find in Mixcraft is to raise or lower the individual notes in each chord 1 by 1 in the controller window or to select the chord and then use the drop down box to raise or lower the velocities by percentage or an absolute value.

The first method is too time consuming to be considered yet is very often what I have to revert to. The second method is clumsy and clunky to try to guess what level the velocities should be set to.

What I have done in the past in other DAW's is to select the notes of the chord and then just drag the velocities up or down directly in the controller window. If you try this in Mixcraft, it revert's to only selecting a single note in the controller window. Perhaps I am doing something wrong because I cannot find a way to do this.

I would like to be able to select notes in the piano roll and just move them up and down together in the controller window. I may have missed something but I regard this as a basic midi editing function not a special feature request.

2. No ability to create shared duplicates

So you have a song with 4 verses and 3 choruses and it's quite long. Your using the same drum pattern for each verse. Suddenly you decide that you want to change the drum pattern in all verses a bit. There is no way to change the drum pattern in all verses at once because there is no way to link all the files.

When you drag out the first verse pattern to create midi loops, thats ok, any change you make in a single loop are reflected in all the other loops you have dragged out. However, all the other loops you cut and pasted into verse 2, 3 and 4 from that loop are unaffected. I've been getting around this by deleting all the other verses and then cutting and pasting from verse 1 to update the change. Again, I may be doing something wrong but I cannot find a way around this and again, I would regard this as a basic midi editing function not a special feature request.

Other DAW's all have the ability to create shared duplicates in various ways. You can choose just to copy the loop to another location but it is separate from the original loop or you can choose to copy the loop and it remains linked to the original loop so any changes made in the original loop will be also updated in the copied loop, wherever it is.

3. No ability to superimpose midi files from different tracks

This is having the ability to put midi tracks over each other so you can compare timings. You might have a piano piece with synth, some bass and jazz drums and a saxaphone solo over the top but something doesn't sound right, you think the sax solo and piano might be clashing and you want to see the saxaphone solo midi notes superimposed over the piano piece to see what's out of time or where the clash is. You cannot do this in Mixcraft, it can be done using your ears and flipping from one instrument to another in the piano roll but this is again, horribly time consuming.

Other DAW's have an ability to do this through inline midi editing or superimposing the midi tracks on a grid or in the piano roll. For mixcraft, it might be good to have an option in the piano roll for this or to leave piano roll as it is in this regard for quick editing and perhaps to create a new environment called the "midi grid" where you can see the tracks laid over each other. The other option is Acid style inline midi editing where you just zoom in on a track, right click and select "inline editing" and then you can see and edit all the midi notes in that track.


Number 1 is giving me a bit of a headache and a major cause of frustration when using the program. Number 2 I can get around by the cutting and pasting option, it's annoying but relatively quick to fix up. Number 3 becomes more important when you have finished productions that you are finally editing and appears to inhibit my ability to properly polish the final production. I can get around it but it takes more time.

I really like Mixcraft for midi productions in many respects and it is the best DAW for visual representation, fast inputting and fast playback of midi notes, together with overlapping VST instruments and other areas. It's just these 3 areas that seem to be screaming out to me at the moment. If Mixcraft had these 3 capabilities, it would leap ahead of all competition as far as ease and speed of creating midi productions as far as I can see.

*edit* I just forgot that at certain magnifications in the piano roll you cannot differentiate the middle measure inbetween bars, just a string of same height bars in the ruler, this is causing problems with manual input, I'll see if I can get a visual explaining.