At this juncture this post is ancient history. Since it appears to be the most browsed topic in this forum, it is time to address what's going on with Fusion now and move forward.

With the release of Fusion 7.1.1, and following my full migration to the product, I am happy to report that I'm absolutely thrilled with it. The overall sound quality is emminently superior to the entire previous line of MM products, particularly for any type of House music. In conjunction with high-end ASIO sound, the difference, even when also using ASIO with Pro6, in sound is obvious.

The broad range of included effects with Fusion makes it a no-brainer for studio and live production work. The automation is a huge plus. Track editing is so much easier and more accurate, and the song slicer is easy to use and does not require that much intervention most of the time.

I do find, however, that I spend more time working my sets in Fusion than I did in Pro. It takes longer for me to create a set in Fusion, only because of the fact that I can do so much more with the application

Fusion is a process-intensive application, and you should have one of the new dual core PCs if you're serious about using it. With an underpowered PC, it can stumble. There are also bugs here and there, but there have been bugs in all releases of Pro to date. Current bugs in the 7.1.1 release of the Fusion product appear to be minimal and manageable.

In terms of remixing production numbers, because of the superior editing and automation function of Fusion, it has more than enough track capability (8 strips) to suit my needs.

It has also come to my attention that certain members of other forums have bandied about my name in vain on their forums to promote a particular separatist view that they desire to promulgate. With respect to that, let me assure you that my original interest in this post was to generate a general response to improving the next generation of MM products within the beatmixing.com family, and any attempts by others to hijack my intent is misplaced, and offensive to me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tepmix,

Tepmix, I fully understand your frustration at having to relearn how to do things you'd become so accustomed to in Pro 6, however I think once you get used to Fusion, you'll find you're able to create for more innovative mixes with a lot less effort.

I've been using Mixmeister for around 4 years, and I know my way around it enough to say there's a lot of features that I was frustrated with. In particular looping, which in Fusion is such a treat to use. Something which I could be fiddling with ours in Pro, is now instantaneous and automatic, so i can focus on tweaking the volume and effects.

And yes, sprockets were a very neat way of doing things, but they are no way near as flexible as the song slicer. For example, in Pro 6 I would spend time setting up an outro on one track that lasted for 16 bars. However, I would then have to re-adjust this if I found a mix that needed more than 16 bars to sound good. With the song slicer, I do it once for the entire track, and it's good for any mix! Whether just a straightforward beatmix, an overlay or even for cutting samples (another great feature being able to split a song with the right click menu).

Everything you said is fair comment (and yes the interface may be a little dark & gloomy, but at least it can be skinned now), but I would encourage you to have another look at the features and see if you can get to grasp with the different methods. I know that I've found them far more useful than their counterparts in Pro 6.

I'm with you Tepmix. Luckilly, I tried the demo first... Pro 6 is still the one for me.

Frankly, I could care less about the slicing features of Fusion. There are much better programs that do looping and slicing than Fusion! Recycle, for example. I don't need a DJ mixing program to perform fine tune editing of my individual tracks. Slices! geesh. Mixmeister doesn't know how to fine tune the aspects of a track. For gosh sakes, you can only adjust the bass, treble and midrange in Fusion. This is something that you should have already prepared in advance of your set if you have a track that you want to modify.

The strength of Pro was its ability to mix on the fly! Granted, that ability came with learning. Fusion, on the other hand is for amateurs, who I suspect, had difficulty with the technical nature of the Pro interface.

I don't have time to spend hours re-learning an interface I've already spent endless amounts of timelearning. I have work to do!

quote:

Originally posted by Tepmix:

At this juncture, I will not use Fusion and I'm sorry that I blindly purchased the upgrade.

I believe Mixmeister offer a 30 day money back guarantee. If you are unable to use Fusion perhaps you should take advantage of it.

I'm not going to repeat the Pro vs Fusion arguments as there is nothing new here and they've been done to death if you use the search function.

To summarize though: Fusion is the way it is as a change was needed to break out of the limitations inherent in the old Pro interface.

That's not necessary. I've had many years of good experiences with MMPro, but I do feel strongly that the direction that the interface has gone makes it less of a studio quality "live" mixing tool and more of a "fly by the seat of your pants" tool for the DJ used to handling physical electronic devices. The appearance of the interface alone speaks much to that effect. I can see where a move in that direction might be more popular with many.

However, my affinity with it as an actual PC program, with all the traditional PC key strokes and mouse strokes, to replace traditional DJ mixing devices is what has made it so attractive to me for so long. In many ways, I feel like my hands have been cut off with Fusion.

However, I will continue to support the development of the software for the time being and just hope that many of the features that made it usable for me will perhaps be restored to a future edition.

For now, I'll stick to 6 as long as I can.

Tepmix,

Thanks for taking the time to write. Indeed, we do offer a 30-day money back guarantee. I encourage you to vote with your dollars. If you aren't happy with your purchase, please use the support section of our website to get a refund.

There has been lots of debate on the sprockets versus the anchors + song slicer. Let's not view this as an either-or situation, since we will continue to enhance Fusion.

Tell me more about how you use the sprockets with Pro 6 in a live setting. What makes them so useful? Do you typically run with snap to beat on or off? Do you make use of the sprocket ranges or the inner sprockets? Is there anything else we should know?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Ok, so the best way for me to explain this to you is to show you.

I am extremely dependent on sprockets, measures and beats to allow me to edit and manipulate the track. Here’s an example (from a previously-performed set) of how sprockets were used to effectively sync a complex section of a mix. I use both snap to beat on and off depending on what I’m doing at any give time and frequently switch between the two. In a long sprocket overlay, with snap on, I can effectively align any portion within the sprocket that may be out of sync with the other (by snapping the beat at various places on the line): Image sample #1 in this post



I also find the sprocket extremely effective in visualizing the length of the intro and outro and seeing clearly the division of measures and loops of measures (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,72,80,88,96.104,112,120,128 etc. bars). The sprocket makes it quick and easy to sample your transitions at various lengths in advance of your performance position and get the transition to be as complex as possible while matching any and all aspects of key, beat, whether in 8-bar sync, 4, bar sync, 2 bar sync, etc. Here’s a clear example of how useful the 8 bar line feature is within the sprocket—you can see in this 120 measure intro/outro how the visual delineation of the sprocket matches the high and low points of each track. Sprockets make it very easy to sync these points, oftentimes correctly on the first try before you’ve even heard the result. This is also, of course, dependent on your ability to understand harmonic relationships, how and whether the intent is to exact key match, or modulate by the harmonic “Circle of 5ths,” use effective dissonance, etc: Image sample #2 in this post.



Sprockets make it quick and easy to edit a track for length, effect, or to eliminate a downtempo or another section that you don’t like. With beat snap on, you can split a track and shorten it, insert extra sections of the same track, etc. Note edit in top track: Image sample #3 in this post.



You may want to do this several times in a track. The clear marking of measures and lines makes it easy to drop in effects on or off-beat too: Image sample #4 in this post.



So, sprockets are the way I do this. Inner and outer ranges—everything about them is important. Furthermore, the clearly seen visual delineation of each track and how it is exactly overlaid is of extreme importance to me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tepmix,

In Pro, the clear ability to see the track and the song file when doing production track work is very important. So, the changes in Fusion are frustrating. The following are examples from an original work used in actual live performance. Obviously, this piece is exported out to a single file for the actual live performance. I wouldn't begin to know how to do work like this in Fusion:

Thanks for the detailed posts and screenshots. I can certainly see why you would be struggling to use Fusion as a production sequencer in this way, not least because you would be limited to 8 simultaneous tracks.

Holy crap! That's a lot of overlays. As mentioned, you can only have 8 tracks running in Fusion...

Thanks for the examples. They are really helpful.

I think I can summarize your points this way. Please check me on this:

1) You really like having grid lines every 8 bars. The dotted black grid lines helped show big picture stuff like phrases and transition length.
2) You would rather use one window instead of two to control the coarse and fine adjustments of a transition. The sprockets let you do everything you needed in the timeline.
3) You need more than 8 tracks.

Am I missing something?

Aaron,

Yes, having clearly visible gridlines in a high contrast trackline is emminently important.

Having everything adjustable within sprockets in one window is desirable. Being able to push and pull the sprocket quickly has always been a priority while turning "snap to beat" on and off quickly to make fine tune adjustments. I've always wished that I could use intro/outro sprockets with "overlay" tracks as well as main tracks and/or the ability to have multiple main tracks (more than two, say up to 8) that were intro/outro sprocket capable. This for live performance.

For composition/sequencing/production, having the ability to have more than 8 tracks in straight overlays is also important.

Being able to do everything on the track line in one window with a simple right-click is so handy. Moving about to access controls or to another window to do these things will always take more time for me no matter how much I learn a new interface. It's a very simple matter of physical ergonomics.

Additionally, I definitely echo other calls here for the ability to continue to control tempo settings graphically on the track as well (zooming out to see how the tempo gradient rises and falls within the predictive timing of the track help one to graphically see how you're trying to push and pull the mood of the crowd).

Losing the tracking and effects from previous Pro mixes is also a problem because I, like others, save all my previous sets. As new sets are performed in live settings, I begin with previous sets as templates. I have an entire library of 2,3,4, etc. hour sets. In this way I can begin with work already done and then modify it to the evening as I go, cutting/editing/replacing/enhancing. Over time, I've been building historic collections of sets, so I can, in the future, pull a set from the past as a "template" and do something retro.

Aside from having lost the ability somewhere in the past to have volume markers to at the existing volume level in a line (they all set to "0.00" now upon insert in Pro6, which is kind of annoying--I think this started with Pro5), I never really felt that I lost anything in all the upgrades and improvements.

As a computer systems engineer (you know, the job that gives me all the money to be the musician that I went to school for), one of my jobs is to supervise the creation of software for various development projects. One is always faced with the demands of the new and backward compatibility with the old. So, I sympathize with your issues here. Nevertheless the extreme change of the new Fusion interface really did take me by surprise. I just didn't expect that you would go so far in a new direction all at once, and that there would be so many issues with backward compatibility--everything from previous saved sets being lost to a total change in how the interface is manipulated.

The new interface doe not present a graceful transition from the old to the new, and more than anything else, that could have been handled more delicately. But, enough said! I still think you've done incredible work with the MM product over the years. In fact, you're one of the few commercial software developers that I still have respect for in this day and age. With everything else I do these days, I've pretty much moved on to Linux and Open Source.

Thank you so much for spending the time here. I do appreciate it.

Tim

Just FWIW, I find lots to agree with in this thread ... it's good to see a thoughtful exchange on the issues ...

quote:

1) You really like having grid lines every 8 bars. The dotted black grid lines helped show big picture stuff like phrases and transition length.
2) You would rather use one window instead of two to control the coarse and fine adjustments of a transition. The sprockets let you do everything you needed in the timeline.
3) You need more than 8 tracks.

I use overlays the same way as the screenshots, and Aaron, your 3 points are exactly what I use/need.

Just taking some extracts from Tepmix's views:

quote:

Originally posted by Tepmix:
... I definitely echo other calls here for the ability to continue to control tempo settings graphically on the track as well

... Losing the tracking and effects from previous Pro mixes is also a problem because I, like others, save all my previous sets.

... lost the ability somewhere in the past to have volume markers to at the existing volume level in a line (they all set to "0.00" now

I also agree with these specific points.

I can empathise with Tepmix's other views but for me personally they don't give an issue as I do not mix in the way Tepmix does. However, as my style and skills develop it could be a problem in the future ... which is why I will keep my Studio6 version ... but then I can't open Studio6 sets in Fusion agin ... vicious circle ...

Just my views on an otherwise fantasic piece of software (i.e. Fusion)

Neb.