Mixcraft Suggestions!

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

I like working with this DAW.

but... "Mixcraft doesn't have a built-in option to record the MIDI output of a virtual instrument."

And that is the only thing I really miss, cause it´s no good for creative workflow.

(For example: Routing a Track with a Midi Lane to another Track, armed with for exemple an arpeggiator like "Nora" and an Virtual Instrument, I can´t record the output midi notes...

Thanks,

Hi,

Why do you want to record the output of the MIDI notes?

Greg

[rrichard63]

... Why do you want to record the output of the MIDI notes?

Greg

Three examples to start off with:

(1) I like the effects I can create using CableGuys MIDI Shaper. There's a whole thread on this one:

http://forums.acoustica.com/bbs/viewtop ... =4&t=22357

There are other plugins that raise the same issue. One useful one is Blue Cat Audio Remote Control.

EDIT: the first example doesn't involve recording MIDI output onto a track. Instead it involves sending MIDI output to another instrument plugin. In Mixcraft that requires the same workaround.

(2) An arpeggiator plugin gets me part way to what I want, but I need to edit the MIDI in the piano roll to get the rest of the way there.

(3) I like the strumming engine in guitar library A but like the sound of guitar library B (probably applies to instruments other than guitar, too).

Others will add their own examples to this list.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Okay, thanks for your feedback!

Greg

[bigaquarium]

The request for more stuff is by no means a complaint about what you already have, so....

1. Freshen up the VSTi drum samples; preferably more lower pitched, unprocessed stuff.

2. Eliminate the low end hum from the VB3 when playing notes, make the treble rotor a little choppier too.

3. Find a way to audition VST presets a little faster, seems a lot slower with 8, even in 32 bit native.

4. Option for new track with duplicate settings to the selected track.

5. Drag and drop empty "pallete" window to put frequently used stuff on it, whether effect chains, vsti's, quantize settings, whatever. Some kind of consistent icon handle for grabbing stuff and putting it there.

That's it for now.

[jddrock]

Hi,

I use MC8 Pro Studio for recording/mixing/mastering/noodling around but I also play live keys a lot in different venues. I'd like to see the next version of Mixcraft have more features tailored for those who are using MC live.

1. Right now my main live setup is running two midi keyboards into Mixcraft and arming the respective midi controllers to the tracks I want them to control. To switch sounds I have to mute/unmute the desired tracks or quickly cross-fade which can become very cumbersome with the memorization of what mute buttons control which sound. Doing this in the middle of a song is even harder.

I would like to be able to create "scenes" where at the push of a button I can switch to totally new settings instantly. For example, if I'm using a basic grand piano vst with some reverb on my 1st midi controller and an ambient pad with some delay on the 2nd midi controller and I want in the middle of the song to switch the 1st controller to an organ tone with an EQ plugin(with saved settings) and the 2nd controller to a synth lead sound with a delay plugin it would be great to have "scenes" so with 1 button on your controller you can switch all of this seamlessly. The alternative right now is to quickly mute the tracks you don't want and try to simultaneously unmute the ones you need.

I know with one midi controller you can just setup some settings on the 1st track and then have your other sounds on subsequent tracks and switch to them when you need. But for someone who may have 2+ controllers hooked up that doesn't cut it for live use.

(P.S. I would still like to be able to trigger samples/backing track audio in each "scene". A plus would also be being able to use the "Performance Pannel" inside scenes.

2. I would like to be able to assign different plugins to certain VST's in a single track. Currently if you add a plugin to a track it affects every VST in that track's chain. If one wanted the bottom half of the keyboard to control a synth bass and the top half a Rhodes sound and wanted to add a reverb plugin but only have it affect the Rhodes VST you can't. I know you can create two tracks and arm them so that the 1st with the synth bass VST is assigned to the bottom half of the controller and then the 2nd track with the Rhodes VST is assigned to the top half of the controller but this goes back to suggestion #1 above, if I wanted to then switch to another sound I couldn't do it without either muting these 2 tracks and unmuting another set of armed tracks or unarming them and then switching them.

One way this could be implemented in future versions is being able to connect and control different VST's on the same track to send tracks instead of one static send knob for each track. In the page where you add VST's and plugins you can control the volume and pan of each VST. A send knob could be added there for each separate VST on the track.

3. I would like to be able to route the metronome to different audio devices. This comes in handy when playing live and wanting to sync up time-based effects and arps with the rest of the band and needing to send a metronome to the group's in-ears. I had a gig about 2 years ago with my band where we were playing a very electronic heavy set. For one of the songs we used about 6 different midi controllers all hooked up to MC7. We were using a lot of arps and delays so we needed everything to be in sync. What I did was create my own metronome track and routed it to an output track that outputted to a different audio device than I was using for my VST's. We then sent the metronome line to our in-ears instead of the front of house PA.

4. If MC adds the feature of "scenes" for live playing it would be great to assign a separate BPM to each "scene". Say if I have one song that is 145bpm, I'm using time-based effects, the metronome is able to be sent from MC only to the band's in-ears, and the next song is 77bpm, it would be most convenient to have each "scene" an assigned bpm. That way the internal clock, metronome, and time-based effects are all synced up when switching sounds/songs/scenes.

5. I know I'm suggesting a lot of live performance features. If these are implemented it may be best to then add a separate "Performance Mode" or "Performance Page" that is setup differently than the regular mixer and track pages suited for live performance "scenes".

Now on to some more basic MC suggestions.....

6. I love the new feature MC 8 has where you can add FX on the side of the track instead of having to open up the FX page. I would like to see a power off/on button added next to each plugin on the track. Currently to turn off/disable or turn on/enable a plugin you have to open the plugin and uncheck/check it or go to the FX list page and do it there. It would be great to be able to do that on the track itself. It would be more efficient.

7. I would like to be able to copy effects from one track to another. Right now you can drag a plugin to another track but there's no option to copy it. Sometimes I want to copy a plugin and its settings to another track but can't without duplicating the whole track or saving the preset in the plugin and opening the same plugin in the other track and finding the preset. It would be much more efficient to drag and copy plugins to different tracks.

8. Can you currently make MC a slave to an external clock? If I hook some kind of drum machine or metronome by midi can I control Mixcraft's master clock from it and change BPM's? This would make it possible to sync MC's time-based effects, arps, and samples to an external device.

9. It would be great if Mixcraft could be used as a ReWire application, or even better a VST, in other DAWs and software.

3. Find a way to audition VST presets a little faster, seems a lot slower with 8, even in 32 bit native.

4. Option for new track with duplicate settings to the selected track.

5. Drag and drop empty "pallete" window to put frequently used stuff on it, whether effect chains, vsti's, quantize settings, whatever. Some kind of consistent icon handle for grabbing stuff and putting it there.

+1 ^^^^

I know these are a lot of features that would be completely new in the live performance area of things. I really like Mixcraft and the way a lot of it works for recording, mixing, and mastering, but for years now I've had to do lots of workarounds to make it suite my live needs. I've recently considered purchasing some software tailored for live use such as Cantabile 3 as MC lacks in this area. I would like to be able to keep MC's on-board sounds for live playing but wouldn't be able to if I switched to something else. I've been with MC since version 5. I have TONS of saved presets inside MC and I'm not aware of any way I could transfer them if I switched to another a live performance software. I'd love to be able to use MC it for live use.

Thanks for considering my boatload of suggestions!

Jeremy

[Mark Bliss]

It never ceases to amaze me how we have such a diverse and wide range of users. And seeing some of these requests never ceases to teach me something new or make me think of new and interesting ideas for how I use the program.
So for that, thank you.

Never thought about the split keyboard/effects issue for example. I assume some virtual instruments solve that internally, but hey, that would be cool if there was an intuitive and simple way to do that in the DAW. Cool idea IMO.

Jeremy, just a couple of things:

6. I love the new feature MC 8 has where you can add FX on the side of the track instead of having to open up the FX page. I would like to see a power off/on button added next to each plugin on the track. Currently to turn off/disable or turn on/enable a plugin you have to open the plugin and uncheck/check it or go to the FX list page and do it there. It would be great to be able to do that on the track itself. It would be more efficient.

You can right click on the effect in the track slot and disable/enable it. But I agree that an active toggle box in each slot would be handy.

7. I would like to be able to copy effects from one track to another. Right now you can drag a plugin to another track but there's no option to copy it. Sometimes I want to copy a plugin and its settings to another track but can't without duplicating the whole track or saving the preset in the plugin and opening the same plugin in the other track and finding the preset. It would be much more efficient to drag and copy plugins to different tracks.

Alt/Drag can be used to copy to another tracks slot.

[jddrock]

It never ceases to amaze me how we have such a diverse and wide range of users. And seeing some of these requests never ceases to teach me something new or make me think of new and interesting ideas for how I use the program.
So for that, thank you.

My pleasure! I often comb through this forum for that very reason.

Alt/Drag can be used to copy to another tracks slot.

Ooo! Thank you! That will definitely help with my workflow!

[rrichard63]

... I also play live keys a lot in different venues. I'd like to see the next version of Mixcraft have more features tailored for those who are using MC live. ...

Why is a DAW (Mixcraft or any other) better for this than Topten Cantabile, Deskew Gig Performer, or Akai VIP 3?

[Scoobyben]

I'd be interested in an extension of the 'Link' feature. I often record tracks with multiple sources, and then piece together a few takes - leading me to need to choose the same pieces of takes for each of the input sources (e.g. Mic and DI for recording guitars)

I've recently discovered the 'Link' feature, which seems to help a lot with this - but it doesn't seem to apply to extending the clips via the 'drag' interface. I use this to set up crossfades between takes, so it'd be amazing if any linked clips could be extended in the same way, to avoid having to set up all the crossfades twice and manually ensure they're at the same place

[rrichard63]

Would it be feasible to add the following feature to the performance panel as an option? If a track has multiple lanes, the alternate takes are played back in the same manner as round robin sets of samples in a virtual instrument. In other words, on each repetition of a given set, one lane is selected for playback, either at random, or in an order determine by the position of the lanes in the track.

This would be a new option, not the default behavior of tracks with multiple lanes.

[bigaquarium]

Afternoon...

Another one... Find a way to decouple the beats/time/snapping of the video and audio tracks. I changed the tempo of my audio track from 90 to 60 and it blew apart my video track arrangement.

Thanks!

-N

[MaiandraGD]

Hi! My first time here, but I'm a Mixcraft user since 6 and it's my main DAW. I almost love it, I would like to have the following features, please consider them!
I highlighted the most important ones for me!


- Can change the name of the plugins (both the VST instruments and the effects)
- Learn PC keyboard keys like Ableton (not just learn MIDI, but also learn keyboard function)
- Make the loop function more easily, like in Ableton. Enter the loop mode automaticaly when region selected.
- loop mode for jamming (after recording a part, play it and continues recording)
- edit the sound waves like in Ableton
- edit multiple midi parts at once
- let the grouped tracks can be minimized/maximized
- a quick shortcut button to tap tempo
- let the zoom not affect the note duration in the sequencer
- more minimalistic UI (please remove that wood-like graphic in the mixer, it's horrible, for me)
- possibility to create themes more easily (i know you can change some files and images)
- undo/redo history panel
- backup auto-save every X minutes
- "capture mode" like the new one in Ableton 10 (it would be PERFECT if it works with audio too, not only midi)
- more colors to assing to the tracks (or let the user create a custom palett)
- fix a bug that it's on mixcraft 8 but not in 7: in a plugin GUI, selecting a preset with the keyboard arrows makes come back to the first preset (it must continues from where it is, but it starts again)
- let the user customice keyboard shortcuts (and add more!)
- please make an always-on metronome built in! i hate to create a new track for rythm or having another metronome to just practice. let the metronome works without playing/recording any track
- add auto- recording mode by detecting sound or midi note
- gradually change of tempo between sections
- add a mouse shortcut to directly play from that position in the marker
- add "one bar" to adjust to grid
- improve visibility of each bar in the midi editor view (all of them are white and soft grey hard to difference)



forgive my sad english XD regards!

[MATTOROURKE]

I'd like to be able to warp multiple tracks at once in a group, Like a full drumset that has timing problems. ala elastic audio.

[sjoens]

TEXT COLORS. I would like to see ALL text colors changeable. Right now only about half the text colors can be changed.

On that note, all the Track View button text can be changed but there's only one Mixer track type that allows it... Instrument/MIDI tracks. And only the ARM button at that.

[Ian Craig]

Hi,
it would
(as well as the many times mentioned ability to draw two points with a connected line in the midi controller window, for smooth transitions between patch changes not taking hours of manual input)
... it would also be a great addition to add the ability to change between created presets in each FX - which is, of course, not a primary Midi function, but in this age of Virtual Instruments and FX it shows how Midi is not really totally equipped to handle Vst preset changing.

Anyway, the thought is out there now, so feel free to agree