Metro 6 Released And Online, Why don't they *tell* us these things... Options

[Levon River]

Topic title sez it all:

http://www.sagantech.biz/acart/agora.cgi

Click on "Software."

And they din't even wait for that damn NAMM, thank-you-ma'am.

There's a non-G4 version, a G4 version (both at $319.99 [Why don't people just charge $320.00 and save the lives of some 9s?]), plus a surprise "SE" version for just $59.99.

Get 'em while they're hot.

This post has been edited by Levon River: Fri 10 Jan 2003, 00:27

[Levon River]

My, my, it's quiet in this thread. So I decided to make some noise.

Pursuant to that, I got Metro 6, and want to make the brief intitial observation that anyone selling this little beast short has probably tried to read the manual.

Okay, I'll 'splain: Metro is simply a weapons-grade powerhouse of audio and MIDI creation tools and capability. It supports every flavor and mutation of VST (OS 9.x and OS X versions). It supports Audio Units, Soundfonts, and Downloadable Sounds (DLS). It provides extremely powerful and complete ways of importing, inputting, and manipulating MIDI. It has useful bells and whistles like tempo mangling (my term), where you can virtually "move" bars around the hits of an audio file, e.g., and have MIDI parts follow like duckys in a row behind the tempo changes it creates. It gives you 64 tracks of audio, with as many audio effects as yer processor and memory can shoulder, and intelligent bus-routing options so you can set up, e.g. a single reverb and put it on various audio tracks with sends and returns (to conserve processor use).

In short, it's a MIDI-capable DAW, and has a full complement of what you'd expect.

So *why* have I seen and heard this thing described as an "entry-level" sequencer or DAW, I wondered. Because *that* is about as 180-degrees far from the fact as you can get. And I scratched me head and wondered some more. And as I'm exploring it, I'm beginning to believe that people who have said that about it simply couldn't get past first base with the program, and that was just their way of explaining it away. And I'm also beginning to suspect that the "documentation" might be the primary culprit and villain. That, coupled with the fact that Metro dances a bit to a different drummer: it doesn't necessarily address certain things in exactly the same and utterly predictable manner that some other DAWs do. So that adds its own level of learning curve.

But some sections of that on-line manual!

Man, that is a labyrinth. That is a house o' mirrors. That is Wonderland with a Mobius twist. At least parts of it, but some of those are important parts. Those parts, at least, look like the documentation must be something of a Frankenstein monster cobbled together by various people/companies as Metro evolved from MIDI-only sequencer to DAW+MIDI, then from OS 9.x to OS X. If "too many cooks spoil the stew," there must have been a marching army of manic cooks working on that recipe overtime. Hoooooowee!

All that's a bit compounded by the fact that aspects of Metro aren't exactly in the mode of one of those "intuit it all" programs; access to necessary features/setting/capabilities ain't necessarily apparent right on its face where you can poke at it. Some things you'd expect to be in Preferences are in a "Setup" menu, and some things you'd expect to be in "Setup" are in a "Special" menu, and... Well, you get the idea. So the manual is needed to understand even some of the basic set-up steps, but a trip to parts of that manual... . Well, a smoking caterpillar starts to sound downright logical.

This ain't intended to put anybody off, even a beginner, and in fact, quite the opposite. Because right now I don't see any other DAW+sequencer anywhere on the OS X market that offers anything *near* Metro's power and functionality and flexibility at anywhere *near* its price-point. That's called "value" in these parts, and I think it's a damn good value. But I also ain't gonna' lie and say it's all easy as pie, fall-down-easy, 'cause to me it ain't. There are likely going to be a few hurdles to jump over, and, unfortunately, some of those hurdles--to me, mind you--appear to be in the early going, in the fundamentals, in the basic set-up to get the motor cranked.

Once you do, though, it sure seems to hum and purr, and in my brief and limited usage of and familiarity with it, it has got some *horses* straining under the hood, waiting to be unleashed. So somebody ought to give any "entry level" urban myth a decent burial.

There's also the "SE" version for only about 50 bucks U.S., which is an awfully low-risk way to get yer feet wet and see how it works into your own line-up, especially if your needs are more MIDI-oriented and less audio-intense.

There are my initial thoughts on it. Love to hear yours.

This post has been edited by Levon River: Wed 15 Jan 2003, 18:11

[ryosode]

Yeah, I agree with you Levon. I tried Metro 6 on my OSX and I think this is a great software and quite frankly more than any amateur or intermediate users need. However, we as Mac users expect, as you pointed out, clean interface and good documentation. I actually don't mind if they jack up the price another $50 or so if it means to get a better documentation and another $50 if they can throw in a clean and intuitive interface with it.

[gorillacake]

I downloaded the demo for osX and I couldn't even get past that first window were you set up your ports. What the is that shit. How can I have an old port if I haven't even used the program. Of course I didn't really read the manual but I thought I would at least be able to play around and record one audio track. Oh well, still seems like a good deal. I just wish it was a little more intuitive. I'm still interested in seeing what the thing can do because the price is right, it's for osX, and it has audio unit and vst capability. Could you guys explain that whole port assigning thing to me because I actually did try to read about that on the online manual but it didn't make any sense. I'm using the quattro with only two of the audio I/O's active. Bye Bye

[BusError]

I have to say the same, I played fr 3 minutes with the demo; until it crashed. I was already annoyed at the interface at that point anyway (OK button on the left of the windows, yuck)

However, compared to the $80 Intuem is it as usuable (and as crashy) this one boast much more features, in the 3 minutes demo time :-)

[Levon River]

gorillacake: I'll give you my best shot at it. As for the opening "old" vs. "new" Ports thing, I'd just ignore whatever it's throwing into the "Old" side. If you've got Apple's "Audio MIDI Setup" (AMS) correctly configured, then whatever your MIDI interface is should show up in the available choices in the dropdown menu on the "New" side. In fact each MIDI I/O you've got on your interface should show up there, named the same as you have them named in AMS. So in your case, use two of those "New" dropdowns to assign as "Ports" the MIDI I/Os on your Quattro that you plan to use--each one of those Ports carrying 16 channels of MIDI. (You have the clickable option of Metro then creating a separate available "Instrument" for each available MIDI channel on all your selected "Ports".) When you're done there, bail from that window.

(Once you're out of there, I suggest you go into Metro Preferences and change something and save it. I think that seems to keep that "Ports" window from presenting itself every time you open the program. )

For your audio "Ports," you configure that under the "Setup" menu, "Digital audio..." Selecting that opens a window where you can configure Metro for your audio I/O. It also should present you with options that are a reflection of what you have configured in AMS. One thing you have to check in there, though, is the option if you want to record in stereo. Otherwise it defaults to recording in mono. Also, be sure to go into "Device Options" and do whatever seems called for there. Once you've set all that, you're actually pretty well done and ready to make happy noises. (Why the manual doesn't just say that, I dunno. )

After that, in the "Tracks" window, you should see a bunch of tracks all assigned to one of your MIDI "Ports" (16-channel I/Os) in the "Instruments" column. If you click on that Port name in any track, you'll get a contextual menu in which you should see a list of each and every MIDI channel for each configured MIDI port, plus whatever audio Ports you've configured. Set the track to what you want, and that's the MIDI channel or audio "Port" that *that* track will record from and play back to.

After that, select "Instruments" in the "Windows" menu. That brings up an on-screen mixer showing all your configured MIDI channels and audio I/Os (which Metro calls "Instruments"--wisely or unwisely) on individual channel-strips in the mixer, and named with the default names. Each of the channel-strips with faders represents one of the (in your case) 32 MIDI channels, or one of your audio I/Os--all of which is assignable by you to any channel strip on the mixer. Double-click on the name below any of the faders. That opens a "Define Instrument" window showing you which "Port" that channel strip is currently assigned to (audio or MIDI), and, if MIDI, which channel it is. You can rename it anything you want (like "DX7 Bells").

It's right about this point that you should start to be getting a little bit of a warm glow of satisfaction and a feel for the way this powerful, if complex, beast is put together, and should be able to start intuiting a few things into working order. It takes some fiddling and fuddling around, but pretty soon you go, "Whoa!"

For more command and control power, go to the "Special" menu and select "Modify Instruments and Busses..." (Why is in the "Special" menu? What is the sound of one hand clapping?) There you'll find just scads of options for setting up your mixer channels (Instruments) and your busses any damn way you want.

Anyway, play around with it and record some audio and/or MIDI on one of the tracks, and play it back, and double-click on its track (opening the "Graphic Editor" window), and hopefully it'll all start making some sense about that time.

Once you have some audio recorded or imported into a track, for some instant fun gratification, select that track, then go to the menu "Windows/Plug-ins," opening that. You should see a complete list of all your available AUs and VSTs. Then go to the menu "Windows/Effects," opening that. You then have a window into which you can drag any of your plug-ins, which then presents you with a fine interface, like for Apple's reverb. How they get applied where depends on how you have your busses set, etc., but the manual seems to be fairly clear in that area at least.

Hope this at least gets you going and yer juices flowing, and hope you have fun.

This post has been edited by Levon River: Thu 16 Jan 2003, 03:24

[BusError]

Thanks Levon for the "Metro for morrons", I'm going to give it anothe shot, promise :-)

Considering are an EZbus fan, you can't be wrong, so I have to give Metro a spin :>

[Levon River]

I actually don't mind if they jack up the price another $50 or so if it means to get a better documentation and another $50 if they can throw in a clean and intuitive interface with it.

Well, I hope they *don't* jack up their price, but get a better documentation and streamline the interface a bit.

The more I play around with the program the more it strikes me that it's much simpler to use than the manual ever allows you to find out. They could probably replace half the damn manual with 1/4 the number of pages, but that just simply explained how to set it up and get rolling.

I also think the "intuitive" index of the program would shoot way up if they added some of the little mouse-hover contextual labels that are all the rage.

One of the sort of annoyance-level problems *I* have with the interface is that in a few important places (e.g. "Tracks" window "Instrument" column, and in the "Graphic Editor" window, in the little bar right above the MIDI notes/audio display) there is *no* indication of which text is actually a pop-up menu location, as opposed to just information text (which can be sitting right next to it and look just like it). There's no way in hell to know that clicking on some text gives you selectable options except by stumbling across it by accident or in the manual. This seems to be some kind of throwback to or hold-over from "Classic Mac" days. Jeeeez. Could use just a pinch of Cocoa, if you ax me.

Considering its power and flexibility, though, overall I'd have to say these are wish-list items, and working with the program you start to kind of learn its idiosyncracies. I think it's a very promising launch, and look forward to upgrades and improvements I hope to see come. Let's give 'em a round of applause for just getting it here.

[Levon River]

However, compared to the $80 Intuem is it as usuable (and as crashy) this one boast much more features, in the 3 minutes demo time :-)

If I parsed that right I 'd say I agree that Metro has one hell of a lot more MIDI capabilities than Intuem--plus Metro has all the audio features. And with Metro SE, you can get *all* that for *less* than Intuem. (I'm very surprised that they are selling Metro with all that MIDI sequencing muscle for that price. That's a major deal if you ask me. I shudder to recall what the major MIDI-only-sequencer programs with similar capabilities were going for just a few years ago.)

When I was first using Metro this go-'round, I was cursing under my breath 'cause I couldn't find (or remember) how to get controller, pitch bend, etc. information into the "Graphic Editor" window of a MIDI track I was futzing around with, along with the MIDI note information. So I spit and turned to the manual, and then it all came back to me from my old Metro MIDI days that you can stack as many track views as you want in the graphic editor (you just click on the big "+" sign in the upper left for each track view you want to add into that window), and can assign each of those additional track views to any track--including the *same* track. That way, you can have any number of views of the same track--one showing notes, one pitch bend, one MIDI volume, whatever--and they all stay in complete sync, and in complete "zoom" sync as well.

Of course most MIDI sequencers have a way of doing that at least for *one* MIDI track and its controller information. Some even allow you to "blend" a bunch of tracks into a single view, with different colors of notes for different parts (which can become confusing as hell). But when it comes to editing multiple MIDI parts, that's one of the beauties of Metro that I had forgotten how much I missed. Much as I'm a fan of DP, that's one aspect of MIDI editing in DP that sometimes has driven me batty.

Hell, in Metro, you can have the different MIDI parts for, e.g., violins, violas, celli, and contrabasses all stacked up in one "Graphic Editor" window, where it's easy to inspect them for voice-leading problems and what have you. When you zoom that window in or scroll, they all stay entirely locked together, so you are always editing in a proper and sane frame of reference without having to shuffle windows that sometimes have different zoom levels and/or are scrolled to different measures, and/or don't stay in visual sync, and.... Arrrrrgh!

Metro has a very nice solution to all of that. I'm glad I've rediscovered it.

[gorillacake]

Wow! Thanks Levon River. Maybe sagantech should hire you to write a new metro 6 manual. Sounds good, I'll see what I can get going tonight when I get out of work. Cheers.