Media Bay as an Addon.....

[LEX]

I think Media Bay should be an addon to Cubendo.

Or at least user pref to TURN IT OFF.

LEX

[Animus]

I agree 100%. It's pretty useless imo.

[shanabit]

It would be GREAT if it just worked. The Additional Content add on was so screwed up that I decided NOT to by ANY of the sound kits they have now. How could it NOT find the presets when Steiny was the one making them??. I do like the Loop Browser though, quick to find something to jam with.

It DEF should be a pref so you can shut it off and save CPU

[LEX]

It would be GREAT if it just worked. The Additional Content add on was so screwed up that I decided NOT to by ANY of the sound kits they have now. How could it NOT find the presets when Steiny was the one making them??. I do like the Loop Browser though, quick to find something to jam with.

It DEF should be a pref so you can shut it off and save CPU

Yes, the fact they released it broken and problematic is another example of their "marketing".

I didn't realize there was a CPU hit as well. Can you explain that?

That alone is another reason to eliminate it from the Program.

LEX

[shanabit]

Im guessing that the Dbase program or whatever they are using to search is ON all the time and OPENED up, thus sucking CPU cycles

[LEX]

Im guessing that the Dbase program or whatever they are using to search is ON all the time and OPENED up, thus sucking CPU cycles

How much? A few cycles might be expected, but I thought the purpose of the dB was that once it did the initial search, it was just reading the DB.

Most DB's I have used are not a constant reading and cycling. You could update it quickly with new information.

If it is constantly searching, it is extremely poorly designed then.

LEX

[TAFKAT]

I think Media Bay should be an addon to Cubendo.

Man if only it was an option..

I may be tempted to move from N3 on my personal studio rig.. LOL

Don't really have the time to arm wrestle the thing tofigure out where a simple plugin preset has been saved.., Man, it did my head in.. :-(

Lifes too short.. :-)

V:

[Sam]

I sure hope they sort out MB in N5....its almost really useful.

I tried just using it at a SFX DB browser, but the sheer fact that I cannot select a range of a file to import, set a point in a file to snap to cursor on import etc etc makes it quite useless to me.

It doesnt suck up any extra cycles if you arent always rescanning (switch off 'rescan on select') - and I have found it pretty decent as long as I stick with .wavs (SD2 makes it very cranky) and dont use external drives (a drive letter change makes her cranky too)

Almost works, almost good, almost....

[LEX]

I sure hope they sort out MB in N5....its almost really useful.

I tried just using it at a SFX DB browser, but the sheer fact that I cannot select a range of a file to import, set a point in a file to snap to cursor on import etc etc makes it quite useless to me.

It doesnt suck up any extra cycles if you arent always rescanning (switch off 'rescan on select') - and I have found it pretty decent as long as I stick with .wavs (SD2 makes it very cranky) and dont use external drives (a drive letter change makes her cranky too)

Almost works, almost good, almost....

Well, it is pretty much useless then.

As an FX editor as well, mobility is key. Something SB doesn't get.
I have my FX on external drives. In fact, I don't know many FX editors who have their libraries internal. None that I know of.

Considering libraries go back many years, I have files that are sd2, aiff, wav and BCW.

If it could be an addon, it would be much better. Pretty much all editors use an external DB like Soundminer or Netmix.
Even Digibase and Digibase Pro, while slow, is better.

Kind of a wasted feature. "Here, our new Media DB. It really only kind of works, maybe if you are lucky on a good day."

I guess this is where their programming resources go, rather than the basic functions of the software.

LEX

[dcwave]

I have been fighting Media Bay since day one. I wish I could turn it off and save presets directly to XML files.

The concept is cool, but the implementation sucks. In fact, I would rather have SQL Express with a web interface that held the indexes for soundfiles or presets. ACID Pro does something like this.

[messianic]

I have never really used it. It looked promising at first I must admit then as time went on I went back to my usual way of working.

[JOGA]

Hi guys!

I simply hate Media Bay, but some people seem to like it and use it a lot. I think that Media Bay should be an addon to Cubendo or with a user pref. to kill it.

Cheers

JOGA

[kdm]

I'm one of the black sheep that uses Media Bay... though it did crash Nuendo once, so I'm leery of it at the moment.

Imho, it has potential as an fx database, even if it is behind the other 3rd party options at the moment - just having it there within Nuendo is much more convenient, esp. with heavily loaded projects where I don't want a second app open.

Btw - that's my main use for it - sound fx searching, and it's actually pretty good for that. The SoundFrame/preset management system is a jigsaw puzzle with a few missing pieces at the moment. I separate the two since I use them completely differently.

Making it an add on still wouldn't be a bad idea though since ultimately, it isn't going to be useful to everyone unless they put a good bit more work into it. It still feels shaky to me - needs to be bulletproof.

Q for those that want MB (the file/database section) removed - why? If you don't allow it to search when opened, and never open it, it isn't actually doing anything, no more than the score editor, for example. Or is it really the preset system you don't like (and I agree). Just curious.

[Animus]

The new preset system is freaking insane.

[dcwave]

I'm one of the black sheep that uses Media Bay... though it did crash Nuendo once, so I'm leery of it at the moment.

Imho, it has potential as an fx database, even if it is behind the other 3rd party options at the moment - just having it there within Nuendo is much more convenient, esp. with heavily loaded projects where I don't want a second app open.

Btw - that's my main use for it - sound fx searching, and it's actually pretty good for that. The SoundFrame/preset management system is a jigsaw puzzle with a few missing pieces at the moment. I separate the two since I use them completely differently.

Making it an add on still wouldn't be a bad idea though since ultimately, it isn't going to be useful to everyone unless they put a good bit more work into it. It still feels shaky to me - needs to be bulletproof.

Q for those that want MB (the file/database section) removed - why? If you don't allow it to search when opened, and never open it, it isn't actually doing anything, no more than the score editor, for example. Or is it really the preset system you don't like (and I agree). Just curious.

The preset system is what I do not like the most, but I have had issues with it searching drives (at my request) and then locking up.

[kdm]

If MB is locking up searching drives, be sure no drives are set to go into sleep mode - esp. off-the shelf external drives (some of which have sleep mode built in and can't be turned off). Even so, they should wake up and MB respond, though it could take 20-30 seconds sometimes.

I haven't had MB lock up while searching drives, but that's the one aspect of a database system that needs to be bulletproof for sure, and I'm not convinced it's completely stable yet.

I have MB set to only search folders and drives with fx samples, just to be sure it doesn't search for files I don't need, or files that would be used by sample libraries, etc.

[LEX]

If MB is locking up searching drives, be sure no drives are set to go into sleep mode - esp. off-the shelf external drives (some of which have sleep mode built in and can't be turned off). Even so, they should wake up and MB respond, though it could take 20-30 seconds sometimes.

I haven't had MB lock up while searching drives, but that's the one aspect of a database system that needs to be bulletproof for sure, and I'm not convinced it's completely stable yet.

I have MB set to only search folders and drives with fx samples, just to be sure it doesn't search for files I don't need, or files that would be used by sample libraries, etc.

After my initial run with MB, It crashed on searching/queing 1 drive. Nothing was set for sleep.
It was a MAC.

I went back to Soundminer and all is well.

LEX

[hackenslash]

+1. There should definitely be an option to disable it.

[kdm]

And for those that want to enable it, it should work without crashing, locking up or causing any semblance of mayhem. Anything half baked that manages or searches file systems makes me nervous.

[LEX]

Hey Dedric,

How about a poll?

LEX

[kdm]

Yes - good idea. I might setup a poll this afternoon. First, there seems to be some confusion (thanks to how it was setup in the app of course).

SoundFrame is what Steinberg is calling the full sound/file and preset management system. Media bay is supposed to be the sound browser within that umbrella - mainly for searching audio files, loops, fx, etc, though not limited to that.

It sounds like for the most part presets are the biggest issue, with Media bay's drive search process being a second issue. Those are both subsets of the SoundFrame system.

Probably good to separate them for sake of digging into what we do and don't like. The SoundFrame concept is interesting in that it combines all file management under one roof, but it's definitely making things confusing for most users, and the concept seems unfinished to me.

So let's separate the concepts into
1 - media management (audio files, loops, fx, etc)
2 - preset management

Does that make sense?

[HowlingUlf]

I think the term Steinberg has dreamed up should be SoundFrame, of which MediaBay is just a part, but who cares?
I do! At least in this post ...
That's because I have two things to say

1. I'd like to have SoundFrame Mode and Basic Mode where Basic Mode just shuts all SoundFrame activities down and let you use what worked perfectly well in SX3, among other things FXP/FXP files for presets

2. It just won't happen. Regarding SoundFrame weaving its roots into Cubendo, we're beyond the point of no return. Sad but true. End of story. Period.

[edit]
I typed the above before I read the post from kdm
Sorry for the SoundFrame thing again ...

[Daryl]

I never use it. Not interested in it at all. I'm all for making people pay for the MEK.

D

[psvennevig]

I use MB a lot.
I agree with Dedric that it has lack of features. Especially the option to select only a range of a sound and spot only that range in different "post" modes.
Instead of crashing with sd2 files, it should simply support them OR ignore them.
I have all my FX on external drives, and its no problems with MB for this.
I hope that they make it more complete though in N5.

Pål

[LEX]

I realize some people like it, that is why I think it should be an addon or be able to turn it off.

I'd much rather use Netmix or Soundminer.
Those work 100 times better.

LEX