DP: Boo! ....Yay! (Scrub & Quantize)

[stubbsonic]

I was expressing some frustration about DP's long broken adjacent-note bug (which is impacting my use of MIDI scrub) on another thread. It was making me want to explore another option for heavy MIDI editing projects.

I took a quick look at Apple's "Pro" DAW that starts with L. The quantize options are ok, but not complete and not elegant. Steinberg's DAW starting with C. had a few different twists, but was also disappointing.

Those two alternatives helped me appreciate DP's excellent quantize options. The ability to process starts & releases separately with all those options for strength, sensitivity, shift, and other features, just seems like such a slam dunk. And, the implementation of "X in the space of Y" notes is perfect.

The situations that I use quantize for are: preparing MIDI for notation, a tricky or experimental passage, or for a low-strength slight tightening, or to create a rock solid reference track. Most of the time, those other program's quantization options will be adequate. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge DP's best-in-class quantization options.

[stubbsonic]

Looks like the popular Avid DAW that starts with P has a pretty comparable quantize panel. And the entry level version (which is free) could be my MIDI editing side-car app. There may be some issues with working across DAWs like this. I haven't done it in long while.

[stubbsonic]

Taking Pro Tools for a short spin.

With selection, there's a specific behavior that DP used to use, that I really liked. I would look at the piano roll, and I can quickly plan the rectangle that will encompass all the note STARTS that I need. The lasso ignored the grid setting as I always wanted control over lassoing (I'm fast at it). A later version of DP required me to always press COMMAND when I lasso select. That's a minor hassle, but ok.

Pro Tools works "the dumb way", it selects any notes that are even those whose release is included on the left side of the rectangle. This changes the way I have to plan my rectangle, and makes it impossible to select exactly what I want in my selection.

Pro Tools has very few preferences, let alone ANY related to selection. DP has quite a comprehensive set of preferences.

[greg328]

Yes I agree, DP’s implementation of quantization (is that a word?) is excellent and one of the reasons I’ve stuck with it for over 30 years!


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[CharlzS]

With selection, there's a specific behavior that DP used to use, that I really liked. I would look at the piano roll, and I can quickly plan the rectangle that will encompass all the note STARTS that I need. The lasso ignored the grid setting as I always wanted control over lassoing (I'm fast at it). A later version of DP required me to always press COMMAND when I lasso select. That's a minor hassle, but ok.

I think it's a bug that you can't turn off the grid in the MIDI Editor window and have to use the command override. I have the Info Bar configured to show the grid options, but it appears to be invisible (at least on my Windows box, Mac not available now). The Toggle Grid Snap appears to work if selected in Command Search (shift-spacebar), but I can't get the key commands to function on their own. The toggle grid thing should give you the behavior you're looking for.

Edit - Just discovered that stuff disappearing from Info Bar is a scaling issue. Scaled down the UI and voila all Info Bar items shown.
So . . . Nevermind.

[HCMarkus]

I've been doing all my MIDI editing in the SE lately. Am I missing anything?

[stubbsonic]

I think it's a bug that you can't turn off the grid in the MIDI Editor window and have to use the command override. I have the Info Bar configured to show the grid options, but it appears to be invisible (at least on my Windows box, Mac not available now). The Toggle Grid Snap appears to work if selected in Command Search (shift-spacebar), but I can't get the key commands to function on their own. The toggle grid thing should give you the behavior you're looking for.

I was trying to be brief. What I mean is that in a previous version of DP, the lasso-selection ignored the grid setting so even if the grid-snap is ON, the selection would still work as though it wasn't (which is how I like it to work). I like to keep grid-snap on, so, I must temporarily bypass the grid every time I select.

Adding to my original topic, Pro Tools First was an absolute abomination. I was startled by how much I hated it. Felt good to manually uninstall it, and SHIFT-COMMAND-DELETE (emptying the trash) never felt so satisfying.

It is unfortunate that DP is not higher on "the list", Yes, the music-making process itself has changed, giving way to more loop-based, 4/4-centric content. There are many ways that software can influence the end-product, even in a heavy-handed way. It's too complex of a topic to crack in this thread. But I'll just say that I like that DP (for the most part) gives me creative control without imposing lots of barriers to exploration.