I haven't installed it yet, because I'm still waiting on some assistance to get one of my USB keyboards out of the storage space my studio is in at the moment, but I have read the manual end to end.
One thing that struck me was its similarity to older DOS based sequencers, in that the approach tends to give you a lot of tools to work with without a lot of focus on bells and whistles. There's a very large list of things it will do to MIDI, but it leaves a lot of other stuff to other programs. In the computer programmer world, such a program is called a "gerbil." The mental picture is a small gerbil busily running in its wheel, doing what it's supposed to. Such programs are nice to find, because they handle things rather well. One of the points I like about QWS is that everything is done using a standard MIDI file. This takes a step or two out of porting the sequence to a notation program if you need it, or to a DAW should that be your intent. I plan to use QWS for my MIDI work while my studio is deconstructed for construction of the building, as I still have work I want to get done right now, and dragging a seven foot tall rack full of modules and support gear into the house (with three steps to get inside, too) doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raymond Grote Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 4:18 PM To: QWS list Subject: Re: QWS List is QWS harder to use than most midi applications? That's a good point. What I was trying to figure out is why QWS is so scary to a sighted person. It's nothing graphical, it just lays itself out in front of you and you have to do what you need with it. And it doesn't have as many functions but that's because it's only for midi, not even sheet music which I could care less about it. I'm sure there are other programs for it when I need it that I could use in conjunction with QWS. As I've said the only reason I can even think of is that it doesn't have any quick presets that you can just click or modify like some DAWs do. In any case, even though QWS's usage is simple, mastering it is not. I've had many people try QWS and play with it and figure out how easy it was to transpose or change to a different instrument, for example. But they know nothing about midi or theory. So it's even simple enough for them, and that's a good thing. If they're satisfied with it, then let them be. I really don't see how much simpler the interface could get. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leonard de Ruijter" <[email protected]> To: "QWS list" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 4:43 PM Subject: Re: QWS List is QWS harder to use than most midi applications? Hey Raymond, I have to say that qws seemed quite complicated to me when i started working with it. Another thing, which is a big credit to Andre, as soon as i started listening to some of his tutorials, i found qws getting more and more interesting for me, and understood more of it. For example, i've played with note transform for several days after i listened andre's tutorial concerning this. I use qws for every sequencing work i have to do now, and it works great. Lots of functions qws has i miss in daws, for example the quick note editing and midi assignments. So may be it's an idea to point the daw-lovers to Andre's tutorials. One remark i also have to make is that some of my sighted friends found qws quite scary as well, but that's more about how they found it look like, and as it is mainly used by blind musicians, i don't care. -- Regards, Leonard de Ruijter Playing in the dark Sunday, August 7, 2011, 9:56:04 PM, you wrote: > Hi all, > Here's an interesting question. When I learned QWS, I didn't > have anyone to help me out with it, just the setting up the keyboard > part. And I had to learn most of the tools and functions myself. > While I am a decent musician, I don't consider myself better than > everyone. But QWS just came natural to me, a little more than I had > expected. There are sighted people I know that know way more than I > do, who use other programs which are not at all accessible. They > have a whole workstation in front of them, and they can do way more > than impport midi data and play it back, they can tweak pretty much > every synth and effect peramitor there is. Whether they actually > know the ins and outs of it I don't know, but it sure seems like > they do. > Now the question. I know people who are impressed with the work > I do, contrary to my opinion, lol. but, they wanted to know how I > did it, but they're sort of geared into something like I said above > and I'm not sure exactly how to approach QWs. I initially said, > "The manual's really good, you should understand it." I was under > the impression that QWS's features were pretty familiar to any midi > sequencer that knows what they're doing, and it would be > ridiculously simple. But then an hour later they'd uninstall because > it was either too complicated for them or too slow. I then realized > that QWS and a DAW are pretty different, QWS is like Notepad, where > it doesn't offer amazing functions with one clikc. You have to use > the thirty or so tools that it provides you, in the way you want > them, not go by some factory of presets already made for you and > tweak it from there. > So am I even partially right? Is QWS really complicated from > that standpoint, or could it be lack of patience? We've all seen > what Andre can do with it, I myself found it hard to believe that he > used QWS at first since I'm nowhere near that level. > Maybe some of you here have had similar experiences and can give more > insight. > To unsubscribe or change list options, see http://lists.andrelouis.com for archived list posts, see http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] To unsubscribe or change list options, see http://lists.andrelouis.com for archived list posts, see http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] To unsubscribe or change list options, see http://lists.andrelouis.com for archived list posts, see http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
