Choosing Metro?

[MP]

Hi All,

I am a longtime Digital Performer user and need to move my DAW to OSX. I have been on a week long quest to find a DAW that is stable and will run comfortably on my 1 gig TiBook with 768 mb ram. I have tried the Metro demo and so far no crashes, it seems to perform great on the PB with a slew of VIs and other plug-ins, outboard midi timing seems to stable (believe it or not, I've had some problems here with other apps). However, just as I get going . . . the demo times-out (at least you have a demo!).

I would love to hear from other Powerbook owners what their experience with Metro on OSX has been (I'm using 10.2.8 for now). Is it as stable as it seems? Any problems I should know about? Can you route audio from the VI's to a record enable track? I must say that I am really impressed with the way the developer responds to issues in this forum (maybe that's why it works as well as it does).

Thanks for any feedback. I want to be careful before I make a purchase and start using it professionally.

Mike Pascarella
mike@pascarellamultimedia.com

[Jerm]

I would love to hear from other Powerbook owners what their experience with Metro on OSX has been (I'm using 10.2.8 for now).

I don't want to respond to this question because I am biased here so I will let others respond to this one.

Can you route audio from the VI's to a record enable track?

I think VI = Virtual Instruments. Why would you want to route VI audio to a record enabled track? You can simply capture the VI output using mix/render to a track. You can however capture the output of a Core-Audio (OS X Audio) device by selecting 'output master direct' in the input select column of the tracks window or by routing through an external mixer back into the audio input.

[MP]

Hi Jerm,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, by VI, I mean Virtual Instruments. I would often route VIs to a submix buss, then select that bus as an audio track source to record the output. My version of DP would not render a VI track . . . so I developed these habits. Also, I have used a couple of apps that don't render VIs very reliably (noise and timing issues) . . . maybe I wouldn't have those problems in Metro.

I did try to select output master direct as a track source, but it didn't work. I suspect that I haven't mastered the port/output part of Metro. Can I actually record Metro's own output that way?

Anyway, I'm going to continue banging away at this demo. If all goes well, I would like to contact Sagan tomorrow with some questions about ordering. Is there a phone number or a main email address?
By the way, I'm located in Westborough, MA . . . so we're neighbors!

Thanks,
Mike

[Jerm]

Can I actually record Metro's own output that way?

Yes. I believe there may be a special case for the direct input whereby the device is controlled by the recording tracks output assignment.

What kind of audio hardware are you using?

[Scoot]

My Jaguar 450Mhz tower with 768MB and an extra SCSI drive is probably similar in performance to your Powerbook and the only difference is you'd be able to run way more plugins before the CPU chokes.

My crashes occur beta testing plugins. If you run stable plugins that you trust in other apps, you shouldn't have any problems there.


If you have something crashing or quitting often, you can report it to the bug section and Jerm usually finds the problem within days (if not hours) or has others ways to catch the event occuring.

[MP]

Jerm,

I was finally able to record the output of a virtual instrument to another track. I knew I was starting to make progress when I got a nice feedback loop! I also successfully routed audio with Soundflower and Jack Tools. By the way, I'm just using the built-in sound on the Powerbook.

First impressions: Stable (so far) and much easier on the CPU than any other OSX DAW I have tried. It's nice to have all of my VST, VSTi, and AU plug-ins in the same program. However, I did notice that some of the Free MDA VST plugins were not recognized by Metro. The work-flow is a bit different from what I'm used to (still need to wrap my head around ports and outputs), but it's beginning to grow on me.

Mike

[Scoot]

(still need to wrap my head around ports and outputs)

What are you doing?

[MP]

Thanks Scoot,

I agree . . . I've often turned a stable environment into a nightmare with just a single plug-in. But I just can't stop myself from downloading every free softsynth out there (how may subtractive synths can one use).

I'm glad to hear that Metro is working out for you.

Mike

[MP]

Scoot, regarding Ports and Outputs . . .

I created a project with four tracks, each with a different virtual instrument. Then I added an aux bus (and added a reverb plug-in to it). I finally figured out that I needed to select "aux" in the mixer's pull-down to adjust the sends. I tried adjusting the faders of the virtual instrument channels, but go no reverb. I then realized that the audio for all of the synths was summing on the "built-in-aud-1" channel. If I adjusted THAT fader, I did get reverb, but for all the tracks. Maybe there is an easier way to do this, but I went into the Effects/Synth window and assigned each synth to its own output. That worked, but it seemed like I was taking the long way.

[Scoot]

I then realized that the audio for all of the synths was summing on the "built-in-aud-1" channel. If I adjusted THAT fader, I did get reverb, but for all the tracks.

If you were to import audio tracks into metro, you can see each track appear in the tracks window (command k) on a new built-in channel ie aud2, aud3, aud4.

This is a bit of a clue.

If you got your tracks together, then put the effect on the AUX and select AUX1 from the popup (top right mixer window) you can then raise the faders aud1,2,3 and 4 and each one is individual.