Hi Tristram, I'm in the UK; flattered I managed to convey such an exotic vibe :)
Thanks for ProTools info. As you say, I'm on the other side of the great PC/Mac divide. Hoping Mac might become useful in future, but know nothing about it really. Re- Sonar, maybe I'm just odd, but have literally never met anyone who uses it, and as my work involves collaboration and cross-talk with mainstream users, I personally couldn't risk opting for even further marginalisation. I am lucky enough to work with a sighted engineer who can support me with Cubase when necessary. Of course the need for this makes me furious, but the whole question of VI access to music tech' enrages me. I won't start on that though :)
Thanks again for your input. Amie----- Original Message ----- From: "Tristram Llewellyn" <tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 3:45 PM 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.slavinSent: 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 CubaseWell 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 thepond has not been exclusively produced in either Cubase or for that matterSonar. The days when Cubase was used (because there was hardly anythingelse) throughout pro studios all over the world are long gone. In the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) market Pro Tools rules with attendant startingprice 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 pricetag 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 MIDIcontrollers directly into the sequence or via external control surfaces asthemselves. 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 experiencehow Cubase operates in this context I can test it anytime I want. Leavingaccessibility 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 thanin the context of VI access. Also, how does Sonar handle plugins, createdby 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 CubaseThere 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 ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. 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