[jaws-uk] Re: Jaws and Cubase

  • From: "amie.slavin" <amie.slavin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 20:24:25 +0100

Hi George, thank you for that. I'm still in the UK, though, unless you all know something I don't! :o)
Am surprised to hear Sonar is apparently so widespread. I know RNC teach it, and consequently it's the VI first option, for the most part, but, again, I've yet to meet a professional using it. News that various stars use it is lovely, of course, but unless they want to come and work with me (or invite me onto their projects) their use of Sonar doesn't make my work any easier. I know loads of peple using ProTools or Cubase; just not Sonar. Anyway, I'm not exactly in a conventional job, so maybe best to ignore me. Having said that, if anyone wants to give Stevie Wonder my EMail, I'll be onto Sonar like a shot!! 

Thanks for your help.

Amie
----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 4:33 PM
Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Jaws and Cubase



I've purposely kept quiet here since I'm sure you don't want
to hear sales and marketing blurb from the U.K. distributor
of CakeTalking for Sonar.  However, perhaps it is indeed
time I chimed in.

First, Sonar is indeed used in the majority of the UK's
music conservatoires who have visually impaired students.
And although not a sequencing program, so is the Sibelius
score writing package. (Accessible with Sibelius Speaking)

For various reasons I can't publicly give you a list of
Sonar users I know, but be assured there are lost in the
U.K. and indeed world-wide.  Quite a few of these users are
professionals with expensive DAWs and their own studios.

Unfortunately, as Tristram has mentioned, Cubase and
Pro-Tools have not been written with screen reader
accessibility in mind, and even JAWS scripting doesn't get
close.  On the other hand, the Sonar developers have been
very co-operative.

I may as well drop the name, Stevie Wonder, into the
discussion. He has become an enthusiastic Sonar user, and
indeed Caketalking's developer has spent many hours with
Stevie who had some valuable input.

Caketalking isn't JUST a set of JAWS scripts.  It also comes
with a 300 page tutorial, and so by the time you've been
through it, you'll have a very good idea of what sequencing
is all about.

George Bell
Managing Director
Techno-Vision Systems Ltd
76 Bunting Road Ind. Est.
NORTHAMPTON, NN2 6EE, UK.
Tel: (01604) 792726
Fax: (01604) 792726
mailto:george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web: http://www.techno-vision.co.uk







-----Original Message-----
From: jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tristram
Llewellyn
Sent: 08 April 2008 15:45
To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Jaws and Cubase

"Of course Sonar is a successful product, but it's just not
what most people use."

I'm surprised because Cubase certainly in years gone by has
not been such a big thing in the states, however perhaps the
users you come accross are Windows based and if Cubase was
big anywhere it was the Atari and Windows.  Steinberg are
based in Germany, it is not often that a European software
title is anything like dominant in the US market.

As for Pro Tools accessibility you may have miss-interpreted
silence as being some kind of indication that it is
off-topic which it isn't, sometimes you just haven't reached
the right people or even the right list.  Even in the UK
nobody will be too shy to let you know what is on topic or
not.

Pro Tools is not presently accessible in any meaningful
manner (to the best of my knowledge this is true for current
releases) and few on this list will have had any direct
experience with it at all.  There have been petitions to
Digidesign the developers, I do not know what progress, or
lack of it has been made.  In the professional world which
is overwhelmingly Mac based there is a far bigger issue that
VoiceOver lacks important infrastructure on which to provide
the level of functionality required for that environment.
Even talking in terms of Windows platform (on which it also
does run) there would still need to be significant adaptions
made.  Digidesign have been trying to extend Pro Tools have
however been doing a range of lower priced products with
specific hardware (mostly M-Audio).  As this reaches a
market where visually impaired users are more likely to come
accross it this issue may come into their radar.

Regards.

Tristram Llewellyn
tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Technical Support
Sight and Sound Technology

-----Original Message-----
From: jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
amie.slavin
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 8:00 PM
To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Jaws and Cubase

Hi Tristram, agreed, for the most part.  Of course Sonar is
a successful
product, but it's just not what most people use, in my
experience, anyway.
I'd love to learn more about the ProTools platform, in terms
of
accessibility, but don't know where to find out.  Did once
tentatively ask
this list but nobody answered, so I thought I'd better take
the hint and
regard it as off-topic.

Thanks for your post; much appreciated.
Cheers
Amie
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tristram Llewellyn" 
<tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 5:40 PM
Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Jaws and Cubase



Well to answer you first question, here is a page listing

those who have

put their name to Sonar for what it is worth:
http://www.cakewalk.com/Artist/default.asp

However in any case artist endorsements are not where it

is at anyway,

they get paid or a free copy or something to say what a

good time they

have with it.

To very quickly go off on a tangent here most of what you

hear in

sequenced material coming out in charts or whatever either

side of the

pond has not been exclusively produced in either Cubase or

for that matter

Sonar.  The days when Cubase was used (because there was

hardly anything

else) throughout pro studios all over the world are long

gone.  In the DAW

(Digital Audio Workstation) market Pro Tools rules with

attendant starting

price tag of around £10,000 hardware and about half again

in plug-ins (at

least!).  Cubase or Sonar may be used to start off a

project but you will

quite rarely find it used to finnish a top flight project.

I am not

trying to say it is rubbish (see later) but just to fill

you in on how it

fits into the general landscape these days.  Last year

recording in a

studio I had access to a Pro Tools system with a 196

channels and a price

tag of somewhere in the region of "if you have to ask you

can't afford it"

hooked up to a a 96 chennel Audient analogue
desk considered quite cheap at £25,000 and soon to be

replaced by

something about 5 to 7 times more expensive.  There wasn't

a Cubase to be

seen anywhere, although I am sure the studio owner could

have dug us out

one if we had needed it and would probably have been a

hire in option.


So, what I am saying is that the best thing to do is

choose the path of

least resistance and also what works for you, in terms of

the former for

most new users this will be at presently that is Sonar, it

could be

something else in five years.  Maybe if you were a very

competant Cubase

user to start with and then subsequently lost your sight

later on and

stuck with the same version you could manage somehow if

you had been

already very used to keyboard shortcuts etc.  I have known

of people who

were able to do that (at least for a time).  However, not

only is Sonar

not a bad choice (you can check out some of the mailing

lists devoted to

using screen readers and Sonar) but it is the right choice

given the

context that Cubase by no means holds the position it once

did as

pre-eminent.

Accessbility for most third party programs can be

problematic at some

level or other via the screen whether it would be Sonar,

Cuibase or

whatever because the developers are not at all focused on

accessibility.

Fortunately there is a tremendous growth in external

controller type

interfaces and many plugins can be controlled either by

inserting MIDI

controllers directly into the sequence or via external

control surfaces as

themselves.

I hope that helps, for what it is worth I do own and use

Cubase is my

hours off work and although I am not a JAWS or screen

reader user I spend

many hours supporting screen readers and I know from

personal experience

how Cubase operates in this context I can test it anytime

I want.  Leaving

accessibility asside I would definitely consider Sonar

seriously, whilst

once it would have been a Mickey Mouse option these days

it certainly

bears comparison with Cubase and also happens to be more

accessible.


Regards.

Tristram Llewellyn
tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Technical Support
Sight and Sound Technology

-----Original Message-----
From: jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Behalf Of amie.slavin
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 3:49 PM
To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Jaws and Cubase

So where are all these successful mainstream users of

Sonar?  I keep

hearing
how great Sonar is for accessibility, and how it's

challenging Cubase for

industry standard status, but have yet to come across it

at all, other

than
in the context of VI access.  Also, how does Sonar handle

plugins, created

by third parties?  I use Cubase, but with lots of help.

Know of one user

who used Cubase both before and after losing her sight,

and says she uses

it
by memory.

Darren, will write more off-list.

Cheers
Amie
www.roughdiamondproductions.com/sound-artist
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tristram Llewellyn" 
<tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 12:04 PM
Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Jaws and Cubase



There are no JAWS scripts for it, that is certainly true

but it is not

the whole story.  Cubase is full of owner drawn controls

which are quite

non-standard and therefore not scriptable, so nobody has

bothered when

you can get Cakewalk Sonar to talk better.  Your contact

may be getting

on well with Cubase through a combination of sheer

determination and the

generous provision of keystrokes and perhaps it is an

earlier version as

well.  The important point is that you are much less

likely to be able

to replicate that experience yourself.

If one were looking at sequencing for music Cubase would

no longer

necessarily be the automatic choice it once was in any

case.  Cakewalk

Sonar is just as good and they are hungry for customers

and are real

advocates of the Windows platform itself unlike Steinberg

who split

their development between Windows and Mac.  All of this

means you get

really good software for something that is equal to or

cheaper in price

than Cubase and can be made to talk either with the

Caketalking scripts

or others that are freely available.


Regards.

Tristram Llewellyn
tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Technical Support
Sight and Sound Technology




________________________________

From: jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Behalf Of Darren H
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 6:15 AM
To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jaws-uk] Jaws and Cubase


Hi folks

I've heard a lot of stuff about Cubase not being

accessible for jaws

users.

Is this actually the case or is it just that Jaws has no

scripts

available for it and there's a lot of mucking about with

the Jaws Cursor

to get it to operate properly.

I ask because I know of one blind Jaws user, using jaws

4.5 who uses

Cubase very successfully.

Yes, it's not for the fainthearted, but it obviously can

be done.


To my next question.

Why are there no Jaws scripts available for Cubase as

it's such a

popular software application that uses standard windows

operations.


I'd appreciate any input.

Cheers
Darren Hartland
www.bigmixentertainment.co.uk



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