is MIDI a dead horse?

dijon wrote on 3/16/2007, 1:27 PM
i hate to bring this up again, but i miss vegas.

Since so much of my work has moved from hardware to software I've had to jump ship to Sonar. It gets the job done, sort of. Mostly, i loathe it. Honestly I hate almost everything about it. Each time I finish a project i feel like I've had to cheat my way through it just to get it done on time. I just spent the last 3 days trying to use their crazy ACT learn feature so i could use my expression pedal on an external hardware synth. Never got it sorted. Sonar forums were no help. So here I am...again. Ive got Vegas 4.0 and I check, desperately, each new release to see if there is midi support. I've tried using Acid but it's just not up to the vegas bullet proof standards in it's Midi implementation. I'd gladly wave goodbye to the $1000 I spent on sonar if i could use vegas as my audio production tool. But, no midi, no go.

Sound on Sound just reviewed vegas for the first time since 1999 (does that tell you how much impact it's had in the audio world lately?) and the guy absolutely loved it - except for its lack of midi. It bothered him as well to have to leave vegas to go to some overblown sequencer package just to use something as mundane as a softsysnth.

I know there are business decsions that factor into this - what happens when Vegas and Acid start to get too similar? You know what? No one cares. They're both great products and your audio crowd is disappearing. Take away the video and bring back the Vegas Audio line - i don't care.

Ok, that's my thought after a hellacious day of dealing with your "competition" Sonar. Which is a joke because you could rule this space if you wanted to.

did i mention i missed vegas?

Comments

BradlyMusic wrote on 3/16/2007, 1:45 PM
Hopefully, The next Acid will have all the rest of the Vegas bells and whistles.

I think Sony has made it quite clear to us, which direction Vegas has decided to go without coming out and directly saying it. Acid is their audio focused DAW, where Vegas is their NLE with good "audio" functionality. In other words, don't expect midi in Vegas, or I think you'll be waiting quite awhile longer then you already have. Probably the day will come, when there is a merge of Vegas and Acid, but don't hold your breath.

"They're both great products and your audio crowd is disappearing. Take away the video and bring back the Vegas Audio line - i don't care."

I couldn't agree more, it's just too bad that Vegas does editing better than Acid. FYI, that audio crowd that you've talked about disappearing seem to be all over here:

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/

If you haven't checked it out, then I suggest you should. The price is right, so it won't hurt as much as Sonar did (ie it's shareware with voluntary pay to play). You'll be pleasantly surprised and immediately comfortable with the UI if you're a Vegas user. It has most everything Vegas has, and then some,and oh yeah.....MIDI!!!. 99% of the previous Vegas audio users can't be wrong.
dijon wrote on 3/16/2007, 3:31 PM
thanks for the tip of that *other* software bradlymusic. i just did in about 5 minutes what i couldn't do with sonar all yesterday. i still miss vegas, but perhaps now...not so much. now i just sort of feel sorry for it. what a missed opportunity to serve the audio community. see you at the other forums.
rraud wrote on 3/16/2007, 4:15 PM
Yeah, My sentiments exactly. I do mostly audio post on Vegas and Acid doesn't have the features Vegas has. I have tried Reaper, (I like it better than Sonar too) but I keep going back to Vegas for the fast work flow.. It's bad enough telling clients you use Vegas or ACID, but Reaper gets blank stares or silence.
And how about the OMF and BWF issues.
BradlyMusic wrote on 3/16/2007, 7:12 PM
It's funny rraud, because I feel exactly the same way. Vegas just feels like home to me, but sometimes I guess you're forced to move if your landlord can't keep up with the maintanence. I bought Acid 6, but it's just missing too many little things compared to Vegas and I just get frustrated, when I keep bumping into them.
Ben  wrote on 3/16/2007, 7:51 PM
I'm in exactly the same boat Bradly, and to you other guys too. It's tough when you do this for living and your tool of choice feels abandoned... yet you still find it hard to leave. I've too been investing some time in the 'other app' and have been pretty active on the forum... recently purchased the commercial version.

The UI still unfortunately doesn't quite have the intuitive and rock solid feel of Vegas... but feature-wise it's way, way beyond Vegas. And the other stuff will hopefully eventually get there. Do come on board and get involved! The more of us Vegas refugees the better...

(Sony, we'd love to stay with Vegas/ACID. What about giving us a darn good reason for doing so? We've all been loyal customers, myself for nearly a decade, of Sound Forge and then Vegas. We've been waiting with baited breathe for years... it's crunch time guys. What about showing us what you can do...?)

drew_ wrote on 3/16/2007, 8:42 PM
I couldn't agree more.. and I would consider that my loyalty to Vegas became far greater than the company's loyalty to me.

Secrecy about future plans, "it is what it is" mentality and of course the change in primary function & focus of the software that my whole business revolves around! That's a big issue.

Added to that the speed of competitors in the market - Sonar is a good example of that - it doesn't inspire confidence.

As a music shop guy in a big store in London said "I think everyone knows ACID 7 has a lot to prove.. most people still see it as a Rewire slave whose masters may not need it much longer"

Eek

adowrx wrote on 3/16/2007, 9:18 PM
I love Vegas when audio editing is on the table.... It's the best.

If you need to integrate.................I use SX 3.11 whatever............................

PT is tedious in comparison when it comes to audio only edits.
SHTUNOT wrote on 3/18/2007, 1:45 AM
"As a music shop guy in a big store in London said "I think everyone knows ACID 7 has a lot to prove.. most people still see it as a Rewire slave whose masters may not need it much longer"---

Damn that hurt. Ouch.

Ed.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 3/18/2007, 5:00 PM
Pretty clear that Vegas will NEVER do MIDI. I gave up asking after years of asking for a simple MIDI playback track.

However since you have been busy Sonaring, Acid has probably moved closer to what you want.

geoff
Geoff_Wood wrote on 3/18/2007, 5:02 PM
I still can't quite get the hang of ACid either. I keep looking for the Media Pool. And lots of other 'little' things.

geoff
dijon wrote on 3/31/2007, 5:20 PM
actually my last day of 'sonaring' was the day i downloaded reaper (rebuilt a vegas project as a test and had sidechained compressors cranking in about 5 minutes - try that in..well..anything. come to think of it, i think it may well have been my last day of 'vegasing' as well. i suppose i'll keep vegas around for my video work - all one or two projects a year. i hear the video side gets updates and support.
kbruff wrote on 4/2/2007, 4:16 AM
It really is weird how SMS conducts itself.

But there are those die hard fans who will blantantly justify the under achievement.