The last time I brought this up a few people spoke up and defended the current plugin window approach because of added functionality.
What benefit do we get by doing it this way again? I forgot...
I say pick one method for both stereo and surround panners and go with that - either embedded or plugin window. It would seem more elegant to me to have the panners embedded (like you expect in an analog mixing desk) and then put the extra features in a contextual menu.
Location: Adelaide, South Australia (originally from Geelong)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serr
....It would seem more elegant to me to have the panners embedded (like you expect in an analog mixing desk) and then put the extra features in a contextual menu.
Would you integrate everything ReaSurround is as a general option, per track ?
That kinda makes you think what the envelope lane(automation playlist) for pan/left and width/right would do when you bring in this thing. Maybe it would just be the x-position of the first two sources.
Btw, the joystick scripts that you can setup in the midi devices page of the preferences, are not working well with joysticks. I've found it to be impossible to set a joystick to adjust a sound-source coordinate in both x and y.
This has to be possible too, because a surround panner is worth very little if I can't use a joystick control source to pan my sound in a surround field.
Would you integrate everything ReaSurround is as a general option, per track ?
That kinda makes you think what the envelope lane(automation playlist) for pan/left and width/right would do when you bring in this thing. Maybe it would just be the x-position of the first two sources.
Btw, the joystick scripts that you can setup in the midi devices page of the preferences, are not working well with joysticks. I've found it to be impossible to set a joystick to adjust a sound-source coordinate in both x and y.
This has to be possible too, because a surround panner is worth very little if I can't use a joystick control source to pan my sound in a surround field.
For my application, I really only need to see the speakers and the position of panning. Being able to click on the speaker icons to turn them on/off and move the panning position is all I need to do in an overview like this. If I needed to change anything more I'd be happy to open up the reasurround window to make further changes.
The idea of having the regular panner change to a surround panner if the track is a surround track seems logical to me, the regular panner is of little use in surround.
Assign track control parameters and save it as track template.
I don't think ReaSurround will ever be embedded natively into tracks.
Why not? It would make more sense to have a surround panner on a surround track. The regular panner is close to useless on surround tracks - the area that the regular panner occupies could be used by a small widget that remotely controls the reasurround plugin.
Additionally, using the regular X/Y automation envelope to control a stereo source around the surround field requires me to have 4 lanes of automation per surround track! Thats just unwieldy.
Why not? Because ReaSurround is a separate plugin, and I don't see that Cockos made any of their ReaFX as stock track controls (say, like Reason's mixer has it). It very likely won't ever happen, there are skinning issues (WALTER etc.) and a lot more.
Location: Adelaide, South Australia (originally from Geelong)
Posts: 5,598
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thalamus
For my application, I really only need to see the speakers and the position of panning. Being able to click on the speaker icons to turn them on/off and move the panning position is all I need to do in an overview like this. If I needed to change anything more I'd be happy to open up the reasurround window to make further changes.
The idea of having the regular panner change to a surround panner if the track is a surround track seems logical to me, the regular panner is of little use in surround.
My sentiments exactly.
As far as ReaSurround goes, I see it as a comprehensive surround speaker placement, dispersion and routing plugin. Whereas, the surround panners on each track would be just that, surround panners with speaker muting and soloing capability.
As far as ReaSurround goes, I see it as a comprehensive surround speaker placement, dispersion and routing plugin. Whereas, the surround panners on each track would be just that, surround panners with speaker muting and soloing capability.
Indeed.
I take your point E.D. - but this is about pointing out things that are missing or not working efficiently. Creating a link between a new UI element (surround panner) and the reasurround plugin should be reasonably trivial when you think about it.
If you want Reaper to work in the Post space then you have to open it up to the realities of daily workflows there. Surround mixing is certainly one of them.
Don't get me wrong E.D. - I appreciate that what you are saying is that this feature probably won't get implemented. All I am saying in response is that surround panning is absolutely necessary for Post these days, why wouldnt the devs consider facilitating the efficient operation of that in Reaper?
When the project is surround, all the channel also panners become surround panners. I don't personally do surround so I have no dog in the ring, but doing a thing and doing a thing well are not exactly the same. In the quest for excellence ("beat the competition" and all that) just doing a thing is often not enough.
Obviously, below you can see all of your panning settings across the entire mixer all at once no matter what the project setting is, stereo, 5.1, 7.1, whatever, the pans are always in the same place ....
Location: Adelaide, South Australia (originally from Geelong)
Posts: 5,598
That's a good reference, Lawrence. ProTools also does something very similar. I see no reason why REAPER couldn't have this functionality embedded too.
Here's the expanded mixer view without the pop-up panner. No clue if that's changed with the newer mixer design. I think there would be no doubt at all as to how much better that is than having a surround plugin on every track in a huge scoring project.
Here's the bigger surround pan UI when you double click on it for more detailed editing. It has some useful options like constraining movement vertically, horizontally and diagonally.
Sony Vegas swaps out it's standard stereo panners for surround panner tools the moment you specify 'surround' as the audio format for the session in the session properties.
Sony Vegas swaps out it's standard stereo panners for surround panner tools the moment you specify 'surround' as the audio format for the session in the session properties.
True. Here it is for those wondering what it looks like. Not the prettiest thing in the world but immediately accessible across the console. It also has faders for every surround speaker, which might be handy.
Why not? Because ReaSurround is a separate plugin, and I don't see that Cockos made any of their ReaFX as stock track controls (say, like Reason's mixer has it). It very likely won't ever happen, there are skinning issues (WALTER etc.) and a lot more.
Don't hold your breath for this one.
Can someone explain the benefit of doing it this way (plugin) instead of embedded? I really don't understand what added functionality was achieved by making the surround panner a plugin. Please enlighten me.
Can someone explain the benefit of doing it this way (plugin) instead of embedded? I really don't understand what added functionality was achieved by making the surround panner a plugin. Please enlighten me.
My guess is that more functions can be housed within a plugin GUI than can be usefully presented on a track header, for example.
Also it means you can use any surround panner plugin of your choice, you are not limited to the one built into the software.
Waves S360, for example, can be loaded onto the track and can completely replace the Reasurround plugin.
I think there are reasonable arguments against both of those reasons.
The one big advantage to having Reasurround as a plugin is that it isn't limited functionally to the "surround" formats prescribed by the track GUI design. This means it can be freely configured to support large and non-standard speaker arrays. Conversely it can be used in a bus scenario, bringing multiple source channels into one Reasurround instance. This is how I use Reasurround for ambisonic mixing right now. Admittedly, that is a corner case, but how would you see the flexibility of Reasurround preserved if it was rolled into such a track panner?
My intuition tells me that the reasonable arguments against even doing so would center around the familiar user friendly vs. configurable debate that rages constantly on this forum.
The one big advantage to having Reasurround as a plugin is that it isn't limited functionally to the "surround" formats prescribed by the track GUI design. This means it can be freely configured to support large and non-standard speaker arrays. Conversely it can be used in a bus scenario, bringing multiple source channels into one Reasurround instance. I use Reasurround for ambisonic mixing right now. Admittedly, that is a corner case, but how would you see the flexibility of Reasurround preserved if it was rolled into such a track panner?
My intuition tells me that the reasonable arguments against those would center around the familiar user friendly vs. configurable debate that rages constantly on this forum.
To be clear, I would see the surround panner as an extension of the Reasurround plugin. So if you set the Reasurround plugin to be 5.1 you'd see the right number of speakers on the embedded panner - similarly with 7.1 etc.
So the track header and mixer panner controls would take their configuration from what is happening in the reasurround plugin on that channel.
With Reaper, the notion of a bus is somewhat missing. A track is a track. If it's a six channel track that you happen to be sending to then it's a surround bus, if you like. And again here, if the Reasurround plugin inserted on your 'bus' channel was set to 5.1/7.1 or whatever, then that information would be reflected on the panner widget on the bus's mixer and tcp controls.
With Nuendo, if you are working on a 7.1 project, the surround panners reflect that.
Location: Adelaide, South Australia (originally from Geelong)
Posts: 5,598
As mentioned earlier, I don't think there's any REAson to discontinue the ReaSurround plugin if surround panners are added to tracks. They are different tools.
Imagine this scenario:
REAPER has no built in stereo or mono panners on the tracks. ALL panning must be done with a stereo pan or mono pan plugin. Can you imagine how messy that would be? We'd have panning plugins littering our screens and out of alignment with the mixer.
Well, that is EXACTLY what it is like trying to do surround mixes in REAPER right now.
As mentioned earlier, I don't think there's any REAson to discontinue the ReaSurround plugin if surround panners are added to tracks. They are different tools.
Right, kinda. Well, actually in the Nuendo case they are the same tool... but your point is still valid.
Some of the previous positions are odd in that they appear to suggest that if Reaper had surround panning built into it's UI surface, the ReaSurround plugin would somehow just suddenly "poof" out of existence, no longer be available.
Not sure why that is, especially since I previously showed Nuendo with both at the same time, the direct surface control and the plugin? And that actually is a plugin that can be loaded into any plugin slot...
Here's the relevant part ...
Because they wrote both the DAW and the plugin, they can make the plugin be the engine for the surface panner and they can open the plugin UI for tweaking the surface panner in detail, and you can still use it in any plugin slot like any other plugin, since it's just a plugin. None of it is mutually exclusive.
I posted the graphics to try to avoid people thinking those kinds of things. It didn't help.
Right, kinda. I posted the graphics to try to avoid people thinking those kinds of things. It didn't help.
I don't think I suggested Reasurround as a plugin would "poof" out of existence.
Perhaps an easier way to frame this discussion about seemingly mutually exclusive surround devices is to refer to the similar debate about whether there should be a dedicated mono track type in Reaper. There are those who would like for Reaper to have a pannerless track exactly like you describe Danii. It would only have 1 output and only process on 1 track channel. Now we are asking for a surround track type that is ??? channels input and ??? channels output. Please don't read that as mockery or criticism. I would like this figured out in a satisfactory way.
I agree in principle with Lawrence's suggestion that we can have both a plugin and track panner as in Nuendo.
I had suggested using Reasurround in a bus context...to me a bus in Reaper is any track that is receiving or combining 1 or more other tracks. This could be a folder parent, the termination of a send or the master track.
As you can see it's already fairly easy and accurate to select and modify individual sources in this type of setup. Automation is a mess of lanes but that is par for the course in surround work...best not to look and just overwrite. There are problems but I like the idea of having all sources represented in a master (or sub-master by category) view like this. I also like the idea of having one comprehensive window rather than many.
P.S. Sometimes my intent isn't all that clear, so probably my fault, the misunderstanding.
I've privately dubbed myself "the thread killer" because I think sometimes my intent is so unclear as to provoke no response at all.
What do you think of the idea of having each track in a mix or group feeding into a master Reasurround like I have exemplified? I would hope for a few enhancements.
Each instance feeding in would present under it's track name with as many points as the track has assigned outputs.
Selected track(s) in the MCP or TCP would cause the corresponding points to be highlighted or the rest to be dimmed to make it clear what is being worked on.
Perhaps an option to relationally group all the points from a particular track so they all select at once and move in relationship to one another.
Those are a few just off the top of my head. It's not that I particularly dislike the idea of a tiny surround panner on each track (I do find them of limited use as opposed to what a normal pan knob is for stereo) I just can't see how it can be easily or elegantly done in Reaper. Perhaps a simple launch button/indicator to replace the panner that would launch Reasurround for that track?
I like your idea Plush. I can't personally judge the relative value of it because I don't do that kinda work, I don't use streams that way, but reading what you wrote above makes sense to me.
As to the earlier Nuendo example, I could have explained it much better. What happens there is that when you change the master bus configuration to surround, it actually "loads" the surround plugin on every channel. Not in the insert slots, but in the mixer's pan position.
If you open a Cubendo session and look at the plugin manager you'll see all of those background plugin instances referenced like below. Sorry for not explaining that.
So by treating the pan as a UI plugin slot, and not a static control, they can easily swap it out that way, from stereo to surround. Obviously, just loading the plug wouldn't be any better if there weren't graphics on the UI for directly controlling it and getting visual feedback, you'd still have to open each plugin window individually, so the graphic on the UI is just a graphic section that controls the background plugin... like Reaper's track control knobs in a way.
Same goes for the standard pan controls. You see 215 loaded below...
... and if you do the math (9 tracks in that song) 9 * 8 (8 sends per channel, each with a panner) = 72, * 3 (3 separate mixers) comes to 216 (not sure why it's off by one ) ... so each individual panner is kinda like an inserted pan running instead of a dedicated panner hardwired into the architecture.
Another thing to maybe consider is FX sends. If you have a verb in a surround project you may need a surround pan on the send like below, where a mono track is sending to a surround effect like reverb on a 5.1 fx channel. In this case, at least in VST3, the verb would auto configure to 5.1 as would the panner on the send ....
I have no clue how Reaper handles that in surround, FX sends and surround FX.
At any rate, that's where I would usually look, Nuendo, re: surround, for general ideas.
What happens there is that when you change the master bus configuration to surround, it actually "loads" the surround plugin on every channel. Not in the insert slots, but in the mixer's pan position.
If you open a Cubendo session and look at the plugin manager you'll see all of those background plugin instances referenced like below. Sorry for not explaining that.
I think the idea of making the master/folder/bus track (whatever you want to call it) the determining factor in what sort of soundfield is being panned (5.1, 7.1, ambisonic, decahedron...whatever) makes perfect sense for Reaper as well. Part of my worry was that a set of autonomous panners would be created per track with individual presets needed for each and then a properly configured bus at the end for it all. From there my mind went to track types as a way to autoconfigure things and the thought that there would be a 5.1 track type, a 7.1 track type, a 9.1 with height etc.....
That just creates a whole new nightmare for anyone mixing surround.
The good common thread in both ideas is that the master bus (folder/send) determines the virtual space the surround mixer will be mixing in. Whether the panning interface is unified in that single Reasurround instance (as per my example) or represented by the track instances (Nuendo) doesn't matter too much to me as long as the tracks aren't autonomous. The tracks should automatically "plug in" to that master soundfield established by the bus.
That's where a track based approach gets a little confusing for me. If for instance a track is established by the bus to be part of a 5.1 soundfield but the track has 9 channels active in it (which is and should continue to be possible in Reaper) then how do those 9 channels resolve? Does the panner display 9 sound sources to be panned inside the 5.1 field? How can it logically be paired down to the desired channels for the mix?
[New York voice]
So I have either a mono, a stereo or some other whacko signal and wanna to send that to a 5.1/7.1 bus. Big deal. I use a panning plugin that spreads those signals to a appropriate number of channels.
Now what da fuck is the stereo-shit panner still doing there on my track? It's useless. It's dead weight.
And whadaya know, plugins only work at block rate in the VST2 world. But for signals that fuckin' move, what do I do ? Stepladder, zipper sound ? Nonono,no!
The stereo pan in the track is sample accurate. The plugin isn't. But people use it, and it's useful. Reaper sets up the channel count when you play with the output channel count in the ReaSurround plugin.
There is no fockin' reason not to intrudce a flexible multichannel panner in the spot where the stereo panner now sits in the track. And there is a minimum of one really good reason to do so, which is automation resolution.
You might have heard things flying around in films, whizzing by in the theater or your living room. This is how we do it.
I mean, comon, we can't even use joysticks yet anyway, so ReaSurround can't even be said to be useful for post mixing yet, unless it's completely static most of the time.
And here's another reason. Instead of dumbass track templates(which I love but not for panning) you tell Reaper to use THAT device(the joystick) for controlling the panning in a larger-than-stereo channel count on your selected track. Maybe you even get to configure two controls. Maybe it's an action that says "control pan position a(x/y) with device, and control pan position a+1(x/y) with this second device. Stereo signals require two joysticks.
Resolution and configuration, 'cause both ain't on the menu just yet. If they were it could be said that it just works. ReaSurround the plugin was step 1. ReaSurround the track panner is step 2. Nobody wants to lose the plugin.
So basically all that to say the new version of Reasurround needs to be special because VST2 is limited to block rate resolution. I think we all agree the plugin/track panner needs to be more than just a VST2 plugin. Resolution. Check.
Configuration gets less defined. I know it's probably simple in your mind how those variable number of channels get resolved in this panner but I can't figure it out. Do you see it as the Reasurround panner having the same "input channels/speakers" dialog box it has now? I suppose that would make the most sense because if it were based on track channels then every time someone added a sidechain they would trigger a Reasurround instance.
I'm not worried about losing the plugin. The fact is those of us who use Reasurround for less orthodox whacko signal panning will want to use this new system too. The worry (if there is any) is that the new system will be dialed in specifically for commercial surround formats which would force the rest of us to use the plugin and route around the new system (just like nuendo).
I'm sure there must be a way to make this fit together...I just haven't heard it yet.
My studio is configured for 5.1 Surround. Most of the surround work is done on Protools. I'm the only one stubborn on using Reaper.
A couple of months back, I was asked to mix-down a trailer in surround. After a couple of struggling tries, with ReaSurround, I set out to look for alternatives. I went back to my old lovers Logic and Cubase and was setup in under 2mins.
I still didn't want to give up on Reaper, so for the next project, I picked up IOSONO's Anymix Pro demo. Now, while I didn't spend a lot of time, Anymix allows for a lot of standard options, although it still didn't ease out the surround problems within Reaper. Still needed a bunch of routing magic with using it on a master buss or per track!
Multi-panner is a must! Maybe some pre-configured option to change a channel to surround modes as well.
Back in Cubase land, Anymix was set for upmixing in under a minute!
ReaSurround might be future-proof or have unlimited channels, but the UI is a nightmare! I've replaced it with IOSONO's AnyMix for now! -.-
Pretty much. Even the older versions of Cubase do this stuff out of the box and it's not really a post product. It doesn't do surround formats over 5.1 and it doesn't have the more advanced post features of Nuendo, but the surround panning and metering is all there by default on the UI. Below is a mono track playing in a 5.1 project.
The control room section handles all the surround soloing, soloing and pushing the soloed channel to the center speaker and all that. It's all built into the UI by default, for up to 5.1...
The ReaSurround interface is the fallback, because it's the most flexible option, though of course it can be improved in the UI department.
Just like we have three different stereo panners, we could have several preset panning configurations for multichannel work, plus ReaSurround 2.0. There aren't really that many surround options to begin with. We just need to narrow it down to the most used cases and find a way to unify the interface by looking at all the stuff that is already available, giving it a Reaper edge one might hope.
Most surround panning is done with a mono or stereo source. After that it's pretty much a free for all.
Thus it looks to be effective to provide a submenu per source channel count.
Code:
Mono -> 5.1
-> 7.1
-> 5.1 ITU-R
-> 7.1 ITU-R
-> less often used target channel count
Stereo -> ...
The come the multichannel input configs, and of course the actual panner would have presets, and they could be displayed here as well as "user presets" or a "Custom" submenu.
The question will be, will the freewheeling panner for 32->12 for example have to be different from those preset setups ?
I think not.
Some basics on the UI front.
The three "Edit controls" that you can target 10 different things with can't be mapped to controllers. That's the first thing that needs to be changed if they're to be more useful. I'm not suggesting the target choice or the edit controls themselves can be automated. They automate the other parameters after all. But they should all be available as controlable paramters.
Beyond that, we need people here who moves things around in the surround spectrum. How many of us here do that ? I certainly do not count myself amongst the experienced folks in that regard.
Surround panners help the user by limiting where they pan to for one, and I'm not sure the ReaSurround panner does that well enough yet. And of course we don't want to sabotage the existing users workflows either, though just leaving the current ReaSurround plugin in place would take care of that.
Justin Webber from Maggot Software New Zealand, showing off Spanner 2.0 :
There are quite a few great ideas in this.
I'm curious so see how people mix large post projects in Reaper. I've worked with Justin for years, and for the past 3 film projects used Spanner as a track panner in my Pro Tools sessions. Having the iPad as a joystick, and Spanner following track selection using an Artist Mix, with the overlay over the video itself, has been golden.
Whatever the solution winds up being, plugin or built-in panner, for me its the interfacing that is of the first concern. On large projects with dozens to hundreds of tracks, the less clicking the better. In Pro Tools, I'm having very good success using an Artist Mix to do surround panning, and thats using either the Pro Tools surround panner, or Spanner as a plugin. Spanner has solved many of the problems that happen with the Pro Tools panner, such as offsetting a stereo image and linking the panners, rotating, and not having a separate LR parameter (Front and rear), multi-touch for multi channel, etc..
I haven't explored very far how to do surround mixing in Reaper for projects of any size. I look forward to looking into it more, but it'll have to be on my free time. At first glance, mono to 7.1 with an Artist Mix seems "OK", but once we get into stereo or higher, the workflow slows down a lot as far as I can tell. Linking the right to the left, with quickly adjustable offsets, would go a long way. I'm sure there's a way to script that in Reaper but thats a bit beyond my capabilities as a relative noob to Reaper.
Embedded surround panner
but immediately accessible across the console. It also has faders for every surround speaker, which might be handy.
Well, actually in the Nuendo case they are the same tool... but your point is still valid.
Linear Mode
