Let's Moan About the Sequencer!

[Creativemind]

Hi Everyone!

Today I was recording guitar, did quite a bit and tell you what, Reasons sequencer needs improving and the way it navigates and un-intuitively sends you here, there and everywhere. Today it was really starting to annoy me.

I was editing in a clip with quantize points on the audio transients and I sliced one and it sent me out the clip and back out of audio quantize view (if that's what it's called) and had to click in it again. I was like argh!

Then there was, the not being able to slice a transient with the razor as the snap wasn't the same as where the transient I was trying to click so it was slicing at the wrong position. Yes, I should've right clicked really and clicked Split At Slices but you know, it would be good if there was a keyboard shortcut for this.

There were other things that are a bit vague now but sometimes it'll randomly throw me off course of where I'm editing, shunting me left along the screen. Daft! you should also be able to move and delete audio clip parts while in audio quantize view.

Does anyone think there logic In this? I would like to know Propellerhead / Reason Studio's logic in the way it navigate's audio clips and midi clips for that matter. Hope some of these things are fixed in the 11 point updates but something tells me they won't be. There's about another 20 odd of these little annoyances like there's no keyboard shortcut to move a clip up or down a track like you can horizontally by the snap value using ctrl and the left / right arrows on your QWERTY keyboard. You would've thought that would be obvious. So the other day I had sliced a word off the end of a sentence and added the DDL-1 to it to delay it and then because the snap was at 1/16 it moved horizontally slightly when I tried to move it to the new audio track. I had to change the snap to bar (but I wanted it on 1/16th) so it wouldn't move and then change it back to 1/16th again. Just to be able to go, ctrl and up / down on your keyboard I thought would've been obvious.

[BRIGGS]

"Let's Moan About the Sequencer!"

TLDR...OK .....Boo hoo!!!

[rgdaniel]

You kids and your fancy sequencers... Why back in my day we recorded in mono, in one take, into a big horn and onto a wax cylinder. And we LIKED it!

[rgdaniel]

part 2:

[BRIGGS]

You kids and your fancy sequencers... Why back in my day we recorded in mono, in one take, into a big horn and onto a wax cylinder. And we LIKED it!

I loled!!!

[Jagwah]

Working in C Major is a lot easier than any other scale because the notes of the scale are white across the sequencer, every other scale I have to reference the tiny piano roll and sometimes line up my notes with it so I can see better the tiny lines I'm trying to decipher. Things like this are just nonsense, it's been SO MANY effing years with barely any upgrades here. If they need to rewrite the bad sequencer code or what the f*ck ever, just f*cking do it and stop being a load of old bollocks.

[guitfnky]

the worst is when an undo completely moves you to some other unknown spot in the song. WHYYYYY???

[Raveshaper]

But guys, it's so stable! Gotta be thankful it won't crash while we're fighting to be productive.

But seriously, all I can guess is that the code is so fragile they haven't been able to curate it.

Rule number one in legacy code is "if you got it running, don't touch it". Unless you plan on replacing it.

I think the plugin approach is an attempt to make way for ripping stuff out. This release is going to be all kinds of hilarious, I think.

The number of "how do I do simple basic thing x" questions with "can't in this app" answers is going to explode. It's already trending in all the recent threads.

Pass the popcorn, this should be entertaining.

[marcuswitt]

In my humble opinion, there’s actually nothing to really complain about in terms of Reason’s Sequencer. There definitely are some things that need to be added, e.g. Track Groups/Track Folders, hiding of Tracks and Track Groups, Clip Groups and such things. But from my perspective, the Sequencer at its current appearance and feature set is basically a ‘no-brainer‘, which runs smoothly and very reliably. I’m looking forward to see some improvements to be implemented in R11.x in the future. So, no moaning from my side. Sorry for being a KJ.

[Heigen5]

I also have nothing to blame about the Reason's sequencer that much of. Midi-chace + Track groups would be the only features I'd like to be implemented.

[Ahornberg]

Hmmm ... are there other DAWs that do a better job here?

[aeox]

In my humble opinion, there’s actually nothing to really complain about in terms of Reason’s Sequencer. There definitely are some things that need to be added, e.g. Track Groups/Track Folders, hiding of Tracks and Track Groups, Clip Groups and such things. But from my perspective, the Sequencer at its current appearance and feature set is basically a ‘no-brainer‘, which runs smoothly and very reliably. I’m looking forward to see some improvements to be implemented in R11.x in the future. So, no moaning from my side. Sorry for being a KJ.

100% agree! There are just a few certain things that would improve organization that would be nice.

[makke]

It needs midi chase, automation values should be like 87hz, if you automation like EQ, not in value 1833382.. Everything needs to be bigger and more clear. Everything is simply way too small and pixel mess. Select notes, move arrow up = move one semitone up, hold shift and move up = one octave up. Just like in other daws. Probably something else too, these just came to my mind quickly. Especially midi chase is needed asap.

[elMisse]

It needs midi chase, automation values should be like 87hz, if you automation like EQ, not in value 1833382.. Everything needs to be bigger and more clear. Everything is simply way too small and pixel mess. Select notes, move arrow up = move one semitone up, hold shift and move up = one octave up. Just like in other daws. Probably something else too, these just came to my mind quickly. Especially midi chase is needed asap.

Automation tracks appear anywhere they want. Most often 27miles from the instrument track, and have absolutely nothing recognizable in common with it. They should of course be grouped together. And one click should open/close the whole palette of automated devices tracks, nicely stacked together, in the order they are wired in the rack.

[PrestonM]

That would certainly make everything a lot smoother and user-friendly, elMisse. Who can make this happen? haha

[chimp_spanner]

Hmmm ... are there other DAWs that do a better job here?

Cubase Pro 10 basically addresses all of this and has, IMO, the best MIDI editing around.

It's a weird one for me because I've been at my most productive since I switched to Reason about 4 or 5 years ago. I've done all my production music (many, many albums) and released a commercial album with it. I generally find it's super conducive to creativity and inspiration, just chucking things in the rack and seeing what sticks. In that regard the sequencer is perfectly adequate. When you drill down into the details, there are things you can't (and perhaps should be able to) do but I think it would take a serious lack of imagination to not be able to work in Reason *at all*.

It's once you're past that initial creative phase that things can get a bit clunky. That's when you start to notice the lack of more functional (if less exciting) things, like folders, group editing, mixer channel presets, visibility zones, more tools for manipulating notes and controllers, etc. So being able to run the rack in Cubase is kiiiind of a solution for me, although I greatly prefer Reason's automation (especially now it has curves), and global undo. I prefer its mixer too, despite the things it's missing.

So yeah I dunno. 11 will allow me to leave Reason as a DAW, even though I'd miss it. But if I work exclusively in Reason I know I'll be tying my hands unnecessarily when all the other things I need are in Cubase. So the next year or two will be super interesting (and illuminating) in as much as what Reason will be going forward. I don't doubt that I'll continue to make music in it though. No good reason why that would change just because of what we did or didn't get in an update. I still love working in it. I just feel like it's so tantalisingly close to being really, REALLY good (like 6-12 features for me anyway).

Anyway on that note, I'd better get back to work, and writing!

[Creativemind]

the worst is when an undo completely moves you to some other unknown spot in the song. WHYYYYY???

Oh yes, undo's shouldn't undo your navigations or at list it's time for undo history with the ability to uncheck things you don't want it to undo. Colouring clips? nah, just colour them again, re-labelling? nah, just re-label and navigation, gone for me. I only want it undo destructive things like slicing clips, moving parameters or deleting notes.

[Creativemind]

I also have nothing to blame about the Reason's sequencer that much of. Midi-chace + Track groups would be the only features I'd like to be implemented.

Well my grumbles are how it handles navigating around the clips in general, a bit cumbersome or may I say, clunky. When things arise in the future I will jot them down to send to Reason Studios.

The undo thing mentioned above is also definitely an un-natural approach to me.

There was also an issue I made a thread about a couple of years ago about the graphics in clips being out of whack when the amount of rows in a midi clip differed. I did message Propellerhead about it at the time. They said (as I thought it was a bug) that it wasn't a bug. What happens is if I have a row of say hi-hats in a clip then on a previous clip there's a row of hat's on the same row in the clip but the amount of rows in a clip is more in the 2nd clip, the hi-hats look like they're on different rows graphically in the sequencer. It makes me check the midi clip (wasting my time) checking sometimes to be sure. I did check how this was on FL Studio and they do a similar thing only it's done in such a way that it doesn't lure you into thinking you've placed midi notes on the wrong rows. I will check later how Reaper and Cakewalk handle this particular aspect as well.

[selig]

Automation tracks appear anywhere they want. Most often 27miles from the instrument track, and have absolutely nothing recognizable in common with it. They should of course be grouped together. And one click should open/close the whole palette of automated devices tracks, nicely stacked together, in the order they are wired in the rack.

Automation for the instrument always appears with the instrument - these cannot be separated. Maybe you're talking about when you automate a Mix Channel? In this case working with "Auto-group Devices and Tracks" will solve this problem for you. If you don't start with this mode "on", you'll need to clean up your rack/sequencer track order first (then us "Sort Selected Device Groups"), but from that point forward all related/connected devices will stay together.

[Creativemind]

the worst is when an undo completely moves you to some other unknown spot in the song. WHYYYYY???

Oh yes, undo's shouldn't undo your navigations or at list it's time for undo history with the ability to uncheck things you don't want it to undo. Colouring clips? nah, just colour them again, re-labelling? nah, just re-label and navigation, gone for me. I only want it undo destructive things like slicing clips, moving parameters / faders or deleting notes etc

[Fotu]

<snip>
I would like to know Propellerhead / Reason Studio's logic in the way it navigate's audio clips and midi clips for that matter.

If you are interested in the gory details of how Reason manages windowing zoom and positioning when going between Edit and Song modes I covered that in this post:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7513844

[antic604]

...hold shift and move up = one octave up...

This is actually added in v11

[antic604]

It's once you're past that initial creative phase that things can get a bit clunky. That's when you start to notice the lack of more functional (if less exciting) things, like folders, group editing, mixer channel presets, visibility zones, more tools for manipulating notes and controllers, etc.

Yeah, this is unfortunate. I'm actually TERRIFIED of the rack once the project is more than 10 tracks (because I use lots of FX to almost everything) and I'm paralysed when I need to move something, change order, etc. Might be I'm clueless to some shortcuts I should use, but more often than not I'll f*ck something up - either it will move some devices I didn't wanted moved or won't let me move a group that I think belong together. And even if I manage to move stuff correctly, there's a huge risk things got out of whack in either (or both) the sequencer and mixer. I perhaps should keep everything in Combinators or put FX only in the Insert slot, but I don't really like that, because I prefer to see things upfront and hate to see the "anonymous" Combinator icon in every sequencer track.

Oh well, hope they're working on it for 11.x

[chimp_spanner]

It's once you're past that initial creative phase that things can get a bit clunky. That's when you start to notice the lack of more functional (if less exciting) things, like folders, group editing, mixer channel presets, visibility zones, more tools for manipulating notes and controllers, etc.

Yeah, this is unfortunate. I'm actually TERRIFIED of the rack once the project is more than 10 tracks (because I use lots of FX to almost everything) and I'm paralysed when I need to move something, change order, etc. Might be I'm clueless to some shortcuts I should use, but more often than not I'll f*ck something up - either it will move some devices I didn't wanted moved or won't let me move a group that I think belong together. And even if I manage to move stuff correctly, there's a huge risk things got out of whack in either (or both) the sequencer and mixer. I perhaps should keep everything in Combinators or put FX only in the Insert slot, but I don't really like that, because I prefer to see things upfront and hate to see the "anonymous" Combinator icon in every sequencer track.

Oh well, hope they're working on it for 11.x

Yeah I know what you mean about the anonimity of the combinator. It'd be nice if it could take on the colour of the mix channel or something. Still, there are a *lot* of skins out there, so it might be worth building up a little library. They don't have to be too specific; just recognisable enough that you know "oh yeah, that's a guitar effect/synth/orchestral instrument/etc.".

With regards to moving things, I mean, don't be too scared. Routing is always preserved. It's just confusing sometimes, visually. I've had to develop a workflow for keeping things organised. So colour coding is a big one. I have colours that I use for different instrument groups from project to project so I always know what I'm looking at. I also use rack dividers (there are free ones in the shop) to split my rack up and label different parts of it. You can also create a sequencer track for them as well and use them to divide up the track list in sequencer view. And whenever I move anything, I always select all, right click, sort selected device groups. And that keeps everything the same in all three views. But one of my top, top feature requests (and hopes for 11) was an option to make this automatic. For new users the default behaviour is very confusing. They reasonably expect to drag a track from one place to another and have that change reflected without having to do an extra two step process. Oh I almost always alt/option click the collapse button as well so it's not too visually overwhelming. Also consider using different columns for different things. Drums in one, bass in another, pads in another, etc.

So there are ways around it - it's not a total show stopper. The only thing you can't really get around is the verticality of the sequencer view. With a lot of tracks there's no quick, easy way to select an entire region without cutting at the ruler, then clicking and dragging all the way down until eventually you hit the bottom. But often I end up missing a track, or realising that I was a pixel too far either side. Track folders would solve this nicely. In Cubase you can edit them the same as a regular clip and it just figures out what to do with all the stuff inside.

[miscend]

Just be grateful you're not editing your guitar recordings with tape and a razor blade.