What's the catch?!?

M

mjhigg

New member
Been using Cake PA9 with Win98SE (PIII866MHz, 256RAM, 20GB5400HD) for a couple of years now, mostly for audio. Now I'm thinking I should get WinXP (heard it's more efficient and doesn't seize up quite as much), and get in on this low latency WDM, DXi, and real-time audio processing thing that Sonar has. Then I find out that this guy Flavio has a program that supports 24-bit audio, WDM, MIDI editing, automation, DX and VST instruments and effects. It goes for a pittance, the guy does his own support, and the min system requirements are less than Sonar.

Er, what's the catch?
 
Well, N-track will do all of the things you stated, but I think it is still behind Sonar in the midi department. I not really sure because I don't use any midi stuff, but from everything i hear, you may want to keep Sonar for your midi work.

N-track is definately worth the $69 is costs for the 24 bit version. Depending on your system, it has basically unlimited tracks.

Blessings, Terry
 
I haven't used Sonar, but would expect it to be considerably more robust.

n-Track is really good, and is my primary multitracker. I'm glad I bought it and I will continue to buy upgrades in the future.

However, it can definately be flakey. I find it pretty darn solid for recording audio and mixing, but for VSTi and DXi and general MIDI work I find it full of features but hard to use and often buggy. Other features like effect automation are difficult to use.

Overall it does work as advertised, but you have to be patient. I've lost my head over n-Track problems a few times...but hell, I've lost my head over car problems, money problems....put into perspective n-Track problems aren't really so bad :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
How come Flavio hasn't cracked DXi and VSTi and midi yet? Is it the size of his operation? Very small companies take longer to come up with working programs?
 
Dobro, MIDI, VSTi, and DXi all work...they're just...not as good as they could be. Kind of awkward and quirky and they sometimes crash. Functional but not user-friendly.

I would say that the size of fasoft does have something to do with it. I mean you basically have one guy wearing a whole bunch of hats. n-Track was originally just an audio multitracker, and at least that part is solid. The whole virtual synth/sequencer craze is relatively new as a whole, thus I'm not suprised that n-Track's support in this area isn't 100%. I am however suprised that it does support all these technologies at all! A lot of big name apps like Sonar don't even support VSTi (just DXi).

Slackmaster 2000
 
The catch is...you become on of Flavios beta-testers!!! :)

The stability issue is really the only issue. I use it for targeted things, and still use v2.3 something, so I cannot speak to new releases. But they sure seem buggy from all I read!!!

BUT, probably worth putting up with for the small $ outlay. YOu really can do alot of audio work for a little money.
 
As far as Plugin Bugs go, I got a load of free DX Plugins with PG Music's PowerTracks PA8. N-Tracks recogizes them all and all of them work well with n-Tracks so far except PG Reverb which n-Tracks casues an "Invalalid Page Fault" in. Don't know what the deal is with that.

PG Dynamics (Gate and Compressor) and PG Peak Limiter are awesome tools and work great with n-Track. So do the 5 Band and 10 Band PG EQs.

CR ><>
 
I have had some problems with some plugins with N-track but I see folks complaining about plugins in other more well known apps as well, so I think it has more to do with the lack of standardization in the PC world than just N-track.

All in all I have found N-track to be a very enjoyable app to use. It's true that we are all kind of Beta testers with this app because Flavio is constantly upgrading it. For me, that's half the draw. I enjoy looking forward to the next new feature he will come out with.
Some of you who have not been following the recent updates may not know about the 20 band paraEQ that each channel incorporates. If you double click any of the EQ knobs in the channels it will open up a window that shows the frequency line and give you the ability to add up to 20 nodes that are completely adjustable. The latest version also has a spectrum analyzer in that same view.

Blessings, Terry
 
still4given said:
I have had some problems with some plugins with N-track but I see folks complaining about plugins in other more well known apps as well, so I think it has more to do with the lack of standardization in the PC world than just N-track.

All in all I have found N-track to be a very enjoyable app to use. It's true that we are all kind of Beta testers with this app because Flavio is constantly upgrading it. For me, that's half the draw. I enjoy looking forward to the next new feature he will come out with.
Some of you who have not been following the recent updates may not know about the 20 band paraEQ that each channel incorporates. If you double click any of the EQ knobs in the channels it will open up a window that shows the frequency line and give you the ability to add up to 20 nodes that are completely adjustable. The latest version also has a spectrum analyzer in that same view.

Blessings, Terry
Click to expand...
Thanks for the heads up on the new features, Terry. Been checking the forum out sporadically but just got registered there yesterday.

CR ><>
 
I should mention that I use more plugins than anybody I know...my plugin list is just out of freakin control...sometimes I find plugins I didn't even know I had. VST and DX.

n-Track works very well with 99.9% of them. On occasion I'll have problems with a couple plugins...usually not show stoppers, but when I use them I make sure to save often.

When it comes to mixing and processing audio tracks, n-Track works very well IMO.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I can vouch for everyone's opinions here, in that this thing rocks for the bucks spent. Yeah, it can be as unstable as all out, but the current version is probably THE most stable yet (at least I think so, and it also depends on what external soundcard I use; N-Track really likes my Digigram VXPocket2; it tends to have issues with my Tascam US-224 (from audio drop outs to actual bsods), resulting in it primarily being used, these days, as merely a mixing interface, and at some point, I may be upgrading to a JLCooper CS32 Mini Mixing Desk (finances, and God, willing), and dump this all together).

I'm just REALLY glad I figured out the Aux function (thanks to the people here AND the people there). It was driving me NUTS!!!

The one thing I discovered - my BLUE plugins. The DX versions work the regular tracks, but won't on the AUX tracks (I ended up using the PG ones - like Axe, I also registered Powertracks Pro 8.0). The VST versions, however, work just fine on ALL tracks. Go figure.
 
Shakey,

Whenever a plugin is available in DX and VST versions, I always choose VST, even if the interface isn't as good. For the most part (though not a rule) they tend to be much more stable.

I've only developed a couple plugins personally (the infamous Suck Knob 2.0 VST, haha), but I can tell you that writing a VST plugin is simply MUCH easier than writing a DX filter. I believe that perhaps the simplicity of VST results in more stable end products, at least when it comes to free and shareware plugins developed by individuals.

Slackmaster 2000
 
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