Tracktion Software Corporation has launched Tracktion Version 5 (T5), for Linux, Mac & Windows.
According to the developer, Tracktion 5 “combines an intuitive workflow with a ground-breaking feature set at a remarkable price”.
“Our intention from the start has been to enable rapid capture and manipulation of musical ideas,” says Julian Storer, Tracktion creator and co-founder of TSC. “To that end, Tracktion 5 eliminates barriers to the creative flow as it solves a number of problems that have long plagued the multi-track recording process.”
In Tracktion 5, the need to create sub-mixes in order to free-up resources for additional tracks is now eliminated by T5’s ‘Edit Clip’ format (right). This allows users to embed multi-track material as if it were a single audio clip, while allowing the source material to be edited. This makes complex song arrangement easier and improves the use of system resources.
To make the best possible use of your computer’s capabilities and achieve professional results without dedicated, external DSP, T5 introduces a full blown System Resource Manager and unique ‘Freeze Point’ technology. This gives the user precise control over which session elements should be automatically pre-rendered, so that they can reduce CPU load while retaining mixing/editing flexibility. The result is surprisingly low latency playback regardless of session size.
Tracktion 5 has hundreds of new features, including ARA integration for Celemony Software’s Melodyne, rapid audio comping, track presets and more.
Here’s a video preview of the Multiple Edits feature:
Here’s an overview of Tracktion 5 Freeze Point:
Tracktion 5 Per-note MIDI Automation:
Tracktion 5 Edit Clips:
Tracktion 5 MIDI Learn:
Tracktion 5 will be available for download from www.tracktion.com at $29.99 for upgrades or $59.99 for new licenses. The software operates on Mac, PC and Linux systems.
Glad to see more support for The Linux OS
“Binary blob” ???? The fastest drivers are written in Assembler and the executables are ALL binary. Anyway I don’t like seeing the 2 prices. Which is it …. $29.95 or $59.95 ?? How crippled is the $29.95 version ? I haven’t really seen anything new here. This style of interface has been around for more than 10 years.
Dan
It’s right there in the article: “$29.99 for upgrades or $59.99 for new licenses.” If that still doesn’t make sense, it means $59.99 for new users and first-time buyers, and $29.99 to upgrade from a previous version for current users. No crippled separate versions.
Yeah this interface has been around for a while Tracktion was one of the first to do it. Tracktion had a one-window interface before Logic etc. Not sure whether Live came first, but I’ve always liked Tracktion’s interface better than Ableton’s Arrange view.
If there only were some decent drivers for multichannels audio interfaces for Linux. Apparently manufacturers do not consider Linux as a serious system for a DAW. No official drivers for MOTU, M-Audio, Mackie, Roland, Yamaha, Lexicon, Focusrite, Presonus, or even RME. Oh yes, there are some inofficial RME drivers. Crap, they do not work at all.
I have a Zoom H6, and while I do not use it much as multichannel on linux, last time I checked it did work. Could be wrong though.
Actually, a lot of interfaces work just fine under Linux with FFADO, i even have a RME fireface running without troubles. have a look of supported interfaces: http://ffado.org/?q=devicesupport/list
I never tried Tracktion before, but I was very nicely surprised about the workflow. The left-to-right flow is extremely intuitive and I love how you can easily freeze just a select number of plugins. Still need to do some more serious mixing and editing with it, but I found that the single window interface really pleasant to get around with.
MB: What do you mean by “official drivers”? Some horrible binary blob? I use MAudio and Lexicon interfaces on daily basis. And I know others with ECHO, Digigram, roland/edirol,….. Not every single card is supported on linux indeed, but many are.
This price level alone could make this the DAW of choice for entry level music makers. Nice to see some clever and useful MIDI implementation. Seems like users of other DAWs might even like to have this as a 2nd or 3rd option.
Vtech: By official drivers I mean those offered by the vendor, as oposed to those made by hackers and independent developers. AFAIK (and have checked this again on the support web sites) there are NO Linux drivers for those devices you mentioned. Prove me wrong.
But Linux doesn’t working this way. Vendor provided closed source drivers are considered hostile and it’s better to avoid them. That’s why I switched from my then favorite NVidia graphic cards to Intel videos, as they have proper open source drivers. They don’t break stuff with every new release. At my work, we use 10000+ CPUs super computing cluster. Any closed source stuff on the OS level is prohibited there. That’s why no one uses Windows in super-computing. Vendors are supposed to provide documentation. This way, I have perfectly fresh MAudio Delta 1010 drivers on the latest Linux, but there are no certified drivers available for Windows 8 (yet). 64bit drivers were delayed for 3 years on WIndows.
I don’t care about how Linux works inside as much as I don’t care about vendor policies. I’m a user, not a computer geek, I need a working environment. Linux is useless for serious multichannel studio work because of the lack of drivers, period.
Delta 1010 is an ancient PCI-based device that’s incompatible with current motherboards and is long out of production. Please, name one multichannel interface currently available that is supported under Linux with stable and actually usable drivers. You won’t.
Motherboards are obsolete, in many ways, as are device-specific drivers and OS dependencies. Within each general eco-system thare are things that work together and things that don’t. Plenty of serious music is made with Linux or OSX as well as Windows, right? It’s ultimately up to the producers of the material to find what is useful and get to the business of creating art. Don’t contend with what does not work for you, just walk away.
> Motherboards are obsolete
This isn’t true in any way!
http://www.ffado.org/?q=devicesupport%2Flist&filter0=&filter1=&op2=OR&filter2%5B%5D=perfect
to name a few
I know this list. Spent weeks of hard work to get those drivers working. Most of them are not working at all, the rest is either unstable or totally unreliable. Totally amateurish pos
…and that nonsense with “incompatible with current motherboards “…. I’m running it in IvyBridge board bought a few months ago. Just forget Linux please and stop talking about it. You know nothing.
The Edit Clip feature caught my eye right away. Its not big “I” Innovation at all, but rather, a great example of its more rational current “competition,” Refinement. Any DAW can be expected to perform certain basic functions. Its the fine shadings like this that win people over. I can’t quite see using 2 or 3 different DAWs, as familiarity is what also gives me transparency in use; my muscle-memory is lined up behind Logic now. I just wanted to compliment Tracktion on a practical and inviting tool. The means to maintain a solid workflow are golden. This one looks like a really buff variation of Audacity, which is a serious plus.
I occasionally pull up Audacity for noise-reductions & pitch/tempo manipulations. I occasionally pull up Garageband for the new virtual drummer thing or some loops. I don’t use 3 DAW’s, but will occasionally grab a different tool when it does what is needed in the moment. Not sure what the super-powers of Tracktion are, but for $60 it is easier to imagine adding it to my applications folder.
I’ve used Tracktion for many years and love it. I’m no pro music producer, I just do voice-overs with some simple backing tracks I make in Tracktion, but the thing is super easy to grok yet does the job for any skill level. As far as the comment that someone made above about this sort of interface being around for more then 10 years, yes, that would be Tracktion 1.
any ideas if this will work with a digidesign 002 and AU plug ins?
Dusted off my forgotten Tracktion 2 licence and upgraded to 5. At $29 it is no brainier update.
Very nice fast workflow, stable and with few surprises that even my “big” daws don’t have.
Love it 🙂
You know, I have an old Tracktion license for version 3 or so, at $30 I think it’s worth having a look at the upgrade.
Hm, any word about support for Retina MacBooks? The only DAW that does a (halfway) decent job is Logic, and GarageBand, as long as you don’t use any of the old plug-ins, and some parts of the Reason window (minus everything in the Rack). The Tracktion site seems to be unavailable and the all-knowing internet does not know either.
Tracktion has it’s own forum for questions at tracktion.com, but a more active forum where Jules the developer hangs out is at KVR. You’ll find people there that can help you with anything Tracktion.
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=22
The features list and the price makes it a Bitwig Studio Killer.
Tracktion 3 came bundled with my Mackie VLZ3, never used it as I never became a DAW guy up until a few months ago. Mainly, I’ve used REAPER, now I upgraded for the $30 will have to test how it works in linux on the weekend.