Re: [Qtractor-devel] Inserts and synth plugins

[Holger M. <ho...@ma...>]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2014, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> On Wed, 2014-08-13 at 19:59 +0200, Holger Marzen wrote:
> > http://www.marzen.de/tmp/qtractor-mixer.png
> 
> Most times in my life I worked as an audio and video engineer, so I
> expect for my home recording the same professional workflow. Your
> approach of mixing seems to be completely different to mine. I'm doing
> old school engineering, IOW the basic for the song I' doing now, for
> each channel is Fons' parametric EQ and I will add at least one aux for
> reverb today, but limiting/compression is something to avoid. Placing

I use the limiter as the first plugin as a "gain knob". It never has
something to limit. It's there "just to be sure".

For vocals I used offline compressing for some time, now I use online
compressing. I like it for pop music.

> instruments in the "frequency room" by using EQs or by killing dynamic
> are completely different schools. The long and the short of it, you
> found your personal way using Qtracor in a satisfying way, but Qtractor
> hardly can be used for a common professional engineering workflow.
> Qtractor's mixer design needs a lot of improvement. A good mixer without
> automation is better, than such an unfinished mixer with automation.

Automation comes very handy to activate an AUX send to an echo when I
want to echo only one word or a few notes.

> Note that motorized faders in professional studios are seldom used to
> move the faders during a production, they usually are used to restore
> different production mixer settings. Panning vs balance and audio vs
> MIDI CC fading are also serious issues. The mixer should control the
> audio stream and not send MIDI CCs. For stereo channels there should be
> the choice to balance between left and right or to individual pan the
> left and the right channel.

Of course the mixer in Qtractor can be improved:
- Multiple rows for the channel strip to get them onto the screen at
  once
- Switchable pre/post fader for AUX sends and Inserts
- Second fader and VU-meter (audio) for MIDI-tracks

Yes, there are some issues with AUX sends. Sometimes the order is
important. But with the song I am working I have no problem having an
echo bus, AUX sends to this bus and an Insert (working as a Send only)
to a Reverb's bus' input, so the echo gets some reverb.

Not a perfect solution but it works and it's free and open source
software. As you could see I enlarged the plugin boxes in the mixer
strips. That would be impossible with closed source software.

BTW I am no developer. I use Qtractor and write bug reports and
wishlists.

If you want to go "pro-like" maybe Harrison Mixbus is something for you.
It's a commercial version of Ardour.