Show Page - abandonware?

[Scardo]

So I just had a look at the Show Page (though I've used S1 since version 2) and it has promise, but why, after many years of feature requests, does it still have no Video, no Lighting, and many other features that VSTL and MainStage have.

Seems as if someone thought it was a good idea to create the Show Page, but then someone else decided it wasn't worth spending any money on it.
There are next to no tutorials for it.
If you search the forum there's very little info about the Show page. Worth pursuing or not?
Personally I find it more intuitive than either MainStage or VSTL2, but, it has limitations - I can probably use it as a virtual pedalboard and vocal processor live, but that's about it.
I'd like to think there's be some development but if not then perhaps it's not worth building a (theatre) show around it
Thoughts?

 

[Dave71]

There is a common misconception that feature requests, even popular ones, will be implemented within a year, maybe two. here's how it actually works:

There is a feature request, and it will go on the list. It will be categorized so when a certain part of the software is getting a new look at it will come up. That's the first part, because sometimes other parts of the software have more and more urgent feature requests. In order to keep things streamlined it is important for a development team to focus on just one or a few areas at once, so all are basically working on roughly the same part.
So, following from the previous, it can take a few years before it gets on the immediate to do list.

Now comes the part that follows when it does come on the list and it's decided that that particular feature will now be worked on. Can someone just start coding? No, far from it! A team of UX designers need to first work out how exactly that feature will be implemented. Where will it be in a menu, will there be shortcuts, how should it look? Those are simple questions on the surface but when you start thinking deeper about it there is a lot to it. The already implemented features and workflow need to stay in tact and the new feature needs to fit that workflow. In fact, it needs to fit several workflows. So even the design can take quite some time before it is good enough to give to a coder to start working on it. Then it needs testing, first by the development team oitself, then a group of alpha testers. And if it gets through that phase it will be ready for beta testing, which means it is pretty much decided it will be in the next update. Sometimes it is found that it's just not ready yet and is taken out of the release version in order to have more time to develop it further.

So you can see that implementing something can take a long time. It's never a matter of "just a few lines of code", there is the rest of the software to take into account.

The showpage is certainly not "abandonware". It is simply not the focus of development at this point because there are still hundreds of other requests. I would certainly like to have a MIDI feature and automation in the show page, and I have other requests as well, not just for the show page. But I can be patient, either some of them are deemed good ideas and fitting the philosophy of the software, or they are not. And if I at any point find that I can't live without a certain feature I will look for either a way to achieve what I want to achieve, or I look for something that does what I need. Not to switch, just to be ble to do what I want to do when I need it. I have Mixbus, reaper, installed ProTools Artist yesterday (more curiosity than anything) and Studio One. And even though I will never leave Studio One, sometimes I just like a change of environment for a certain song. At this point all I can tell you is to look at the feature request page and vote up what you need. because honestly, that is where we all get a vote. I have some on there that I know people would love to have and they get only 2 upvotes because people can't be bothered.

 

[Scardo]

Thanks for that lesson....

Show Page was introduced in 2020 - almost 5 years ago. Perhaps there's a list of improvements, additional features and other developments for Show Page since its release? I'm not aware of anything significant.

A company leads by development - not based solely on its own customer requests (preaching to the converted) but by keeping a keen eye on the marketplace, and seeing where new business can be stimulated by competing with the competition, or anticipating customer needs. Anyone looking at the live performance world can see a huge change over the past 5 years.

Steinberg's VST Live was launched in July 2022, and is now at Version 2 - with significant updates, improvements and added functionality.

You're quite right of course, Show Page is not the focus of development for Fender/Presonus, nor has it been at any point. Not one feature added in 5 years? I think then that it's fair to assume there is no-one leading the team with that particular element of S1 in their remit. Ergo, it is abandonware. Anyone looking at the marketplace for this type of app will see immediately the potential, as shows, even non-professional or semi-professional, increasingly require a one-stop solution for lights, sound, video etc. Fender/Presonus is missing the boat. The competition is already moving ahead - I stand by my original statement - someone at Presonus thought the Show page was a good idea, got a working version up and running, then the company changed direction and let it stand as a very basic live tool.

Studio One has gone through 2 major version upgrades since Show arrived with V5, neither of them has added anything to Show Page.

As to voting on the FR posts - I've been doing that since day one. On the Presonus forum, I've only just discovered this new forum - such is the lack of interaction between Presonus devs and their user-base. I have to admit I love S1, I was an early user (2011) and in fact was an endorsee for a while (there's even an old Youtube video endorsement for Presonus from my Brighton Studio days). I too use various DAWs per task. But here's thing - in the early days of Studio One they made quite a big deal of stating that MIDI was a thing of the past, and the midi in S1 was very basic. They quickly realised that MIDI is far from dead, and in fact is now back bigger and better than before. So they took that on board and developed their MIDI (still woefully behind Cubase of course but hey...).

In all my time posting on the Presonus forum, and in all my interaction with support, I never got anything more than a workmanlike response, and to be honest, I never saw anyone from the dev team posting on the forums. And never in response to the FRs.

Contrast that with Dorico where the team are active on the forum.
And with VST Live where the team are active on the forum.

I'll admit this forum is new to me so I do not know whether S1 team posts or comments and replies to users, - I just checked and the Presonus one is still live so perhaps there are two? Is this forum not actually connected or run by Presonus? But in any case I'm increasingly going back to Nuendo (Cubase 14 is a killer, Nuendo will update this month probably) as my main composition and arranging DAW, and Mixbus Pro 10 is for mixing.

It's just a pity that what the Show Page offers is just not fit for the modern stage, but it could be. The workflow and layout is sound and I like the functionality of what they have at the moment....if only it had lights and video. I guess the error was making it part of S1 rather than a paid add-on like MainStage / Logic or VSTL 2. So there's no way of properly evaluating its worth within the Studio One offer. For that reason, I'm pretty sure we'll see 1/ No more development (maybe a few minor tweaks) to Show Page, or 2/ They'll spin it off as an add on or free-standing app, but for that they'd need a developer champion to take it on. And that costs money. Bets are on.

Of course it'd be great to be wrong, and I'll be more than happy to admit that if Presonus changes the game!

 

[SwitchBack]

Just want to say that this really isn't the place for rants (or demands). There's no official affiliation to PreSonus here, just fellow users. Constructive criticism on the other hand is great and may get some traction amongst users and with PreSonus eventually. But most of the time long posts could have been shorter

 

[Scardo]

My apologies - I thought this was an official site, I was rather hoping that my comments would to reach someone at Presonus, because as I said, I have never seen anyone from the company active on the other forum. My mistake! I will post no more on this.

 

[Dave71]

The session page also went without improvement for quite some time. Just be patient. And like SwitchBack says, rants are certainly not the way to ghet things added. The contrary may even be true. The wish is known and is on the to do list, just not at the priority level you want it to be. Also, you can bring up some specific other DAWs and certain features being added quickly, but every single one of these also has features that are still not implemented. Selective comparisons don't hold up. And again, as Switch Back says, we are not preSonus, so ranting here will not achieve anything except creating a bad atmosphere. That said, I'm not saying your wish is unjustified, I too would like to see some additions. It's simply how toi go about making that clear. Speaking for myself, if someone came up to me and started demanding something while being dismissive and just plain unfriendly, I will tend to do the opposite of what is demanded. If someone asks politely however... That is the last I will say about this.

 

[SwitchBack]

My apologies - I thought this was an official site, I was rather hoping that my comments would to reach someone at Presonus, because as I said, I have never seen anyone from the company active on the other forum. My mistake! I will post no more on this.

The funny thing is that 'not an official site' and 'reach someone at PreSonus' can be true at the same time. So with that and my previous post in mind, welcome to this forum

 

[Lukas]

I thought this was an official site

I wonder how I could possibly make the notice even clearer.

I was rather hoping that my comments would to reach someone at Presonus

I'm sure that PreSonus employees are reading along here, even if they are not actively interacting.

 

[Scardo]

View attachment 277

I wonder how I could possibly make the notice even clearer.

Yeah, sorry, I never read the small print...my bad as they say.

 

[starkid84]

Thanks for that lesson....

Show Page was introduced in 2020 - almost 5 years ago. Perhaps there's a list of improvements, additional features and other developments for Show Page since its release? I'm not aware of anything significant.

A company leads by development - not based solely on its own customer requests (preaching to the converted) but by keeping a keen eye on the marketplace, and seeing where new business can be stimulated by competing with the competition, or anticipating customer needs. Anyone looking at the live performance world can see a huge change over the past 5 years.

Steinberg's VST Live was launched in July 2022, and is now at Version 2 - with significant updates, improvements and added functionality.

You're quite right of course, Show Page is not the focus of development for Fender/Presonus, nor has it been at any point. Not one feature added in 5 years? I think then that it's fair to assume there is no-one leading the team with that particular element of S1 in their remit. Ergo, it is abandonware. Anyone looking at the marketplace for this type of app will see immediately the potential, as shows, even non-professional or semi-professional, increasingly require a one-stop solution for lights, sound, video etc. Fender/Presonus is missing the boat. The competition is already moving ahead - I stand by my original statement - someone at Presonus thought the Show page was a good idea, got a working version up and running, then the company changed direction and let it stand as a very basic live tool.

Studio One has gone through 2 major version upgrades since Show arrived with V5, neither of them has added anything to Show Page.

As to voting on the FR posts - I've been doing that since day one. On the Presonus forum, I've only just discovered this new forum - such is the lack of interaction between Presonus devs and their user-base. I have to admit I love S1, I was an early user (2011) and in fact was an endorsee for a while (there's even an old Youtube video endorsement for Presonus from my Brighton Studio days). I too use various DAWs per task. But here's thing - in the early days of Studio One they made quite a big deal of stating that MIDI was a thing of the past, and the midi in S1 was very basic. They quickly realised that MIDI is far from dead, and in fact is now back bigger and better than before. So they took that on board and developed their MIDI (still woefully behind Cubase of course but hey...).

In all my time posting on the Presonus forum, and in all my interaction with support, I never got anything more than a workmanlike response, and to be honest, I never saw anyone from the dev team posting on the forums. And never in response to the FRs.

Contrast that with Dorico where the team are active on the forum.
And with VST Live where the team are active on the forum.

I'll admit this forum is new to me so I do not know whether S1 team posts or comments and replies to users, - I just checked and the Presonus one is still live so perhaps there are two? Is this forum not actually connected or run by Presonus? But in any case I'm increasingly going back to Nuendo (Cubase 14 is a killer, Nuendo will update this month probably) as my main composition and arranging DAW, and Mixbus Pro 10 is for mixing.

It's just a pity that what the Show Page offers is just not fit for the modern stage, but it could be. The workflow and layout is sound and I like the functionality of what they have at the moment....if only it had lights and video. I guess the error was making it part of S1 rather than a paid add-on like MainStage / Logic or VSTL 2. So there's no way of properly evaluating its worth within the Studio One offer. For that reason, I'm pretty sure we'll see 1/ No more development (maybe a few minor tweaks) to Show Page, or 2/ They'll spin it off as an add on or free-standing app, but for that they'd need a developer champion to take it on. And that costs money. Bets are on.

Of course it'd be great to be wrong, and I'll be more than happy to admit that if Presonus changes the game!

I agree with everything that you said. And I disagree with those who suggest that we should just passively accept a questionable dev cycle (that doesn't address long standing issues), without voicing our criticism or concerns. Presonus... (well Fender now) needs to hear our feedback.

Presonus has had so much potential with Studio One, but in recent years it seems they have dropped the ball on what made them popular in the first place: innovation and work flow. The show page is woefully under featured. Hell, if they just integrated the 'show page' functions into the song page, that would give us the show functions and editing capability without the compromises the show page currently has.

I never cared for the "feature request" page, its seems really dead in terms of traffic, and ridiculously ineffective at gauging what features the larger user base actually care about.

As a Studio one user since v2, I hope the Presonus can get it together before it's user base starts looking for better suited alternatives.

 

[Mpheteng]

My apologies - I thought this was an official site, I was rather hoping that my comments would to reach someone at Presonus, because as I said, I have never seen anyone from the company active on the other forum. My mistake! I will post no more on this.

Dear @Scardo. I am in total support of your opinion above about the Show Page - its lack of modern functionality. Like you, I have tested both functionalities offered by Studio One's Show Page and Steinberg's VSTL. The latter is a standalone application (a great concept on live perfomance arena) solely dedicated to live performance and therefore has a lot more functionality and sophistication than the Show Page in S1. For example, and as you highlighted above, there is the DMX functionality for lighting control, visible and easy chord display, video support, the ability to add many channels and control them seperately and easily, etc. I tried to use the Show Page two years ago, but ran into problems due to its limited functionality, e.g., I use PG Music's Band-in-a-Box Plugin module for storing chords and displaying them on individual songs in realtime. I could not get the Show Page to do that (neither can I even right now). However, what is good about The Show Page is its realibility and stability, when compared with VSTL. Though VSTL, as you correctly alluded, is updated frequently (weekly), however, its greatest drawbacks include lack of stability and realiability, and an unstable and dificult to effect support for my XTouch - unstable mapping. Changes made today with a new VSTL verision would overwrite those of the past versions, some functionality not working as expected, etc - the latter is what has returned me to further pursue the Show Page, and I have now learnt alot about its stability and reliability, but sadly, also about its limitation and this requires URGENT addressing in order to meet the competion offered by VSTL et al.

My purpose of this response is simply to draw the attention of those concerned (e.g., the Moderator) to urgently bring this need for improved Show Page functionality to the relevant Presonus team.

I thank you!

 

[Davey]

For me, the Show page always felt like an odd thing to add to S1. There are much better, and more established, solutions for playing live and, as stated by various folks above, the current implementation is lacking many things to make it complete and would thus need loads more development.

Presonus don't have infinite resources so maybe they have decided other things have higher priority, at least for now.
Or maybe V7.5 is just about to land, complete with massive Show page improvements. We just don't know.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of S1 users use the Show page.

 

[Mpheteng]

Thanks Davey for your comment/clarification. We pray and wait that 7.5 might cover this huge need. Please include me in the statistics you are collecting.

 

[Davey]

Thanks Davey for your comment/clarification. We pray and wait that 7.5 might cover this huge need.

I think it most likely won't, and I'm really don;t think the need is "huge".
Most S1 users probably never play live in any form and of those that do play live, some will not use any computers and some will use other PC/Mac/iPad solutions.

 

[Mpheteng]

Sad. Thanks though

 

[Scardo]

There are much better, and more established, solutions for playing live and, as stated by various folks above, the current implementation is lacking many things to make it complete and would thus need loads more development.

Actually, there aren't! MainStage has no timeline, VSTLive is woefully over-designed and unreliable as others have said (every single section of a song re-loads the guitar patches for example - even if it's the same patch - whereas S1 keeps the guitar patch as is until you tell it otherwise, far more sensible), and has a cluttered Mixer set up with different views per song. GigPerformer is a spaghetti Western of connections and again not centred around a timeline. Maybe great for a virtual keyboard rig but not much else.

I'm using Nuendo and the Arrangements at the moment. What I want is a timeline - for clicks, lighting cues, vocal and guitar FX per section or per song and possibly backing tracks for a future project. Studio One is so close to doing this but I won't commit to creating a complete show in it whilst the support and development for the Show page is unknown.

I'm a live performer as well as recording person, and from my observations live shows have really upped the tech requirements in the last few years. Even cover bands are using their own DMX controlled lighting, and processing for effects tied to their backing tracks. The number of Laptops I'm seeing onstage is definitely on the increase- I even saw a Metal band at a local festival using autotune on a Macbook for the main vocalist -my son, a big metal fan, was close to calling them out on Insta for such a transgression! So I think tech on stage is here to stay and the Show Page could be a winner with just a few improvements.

Other multi-media apps are overkill for bands (Millumin, etc) and things like Q-Lab are great for theatres but again not ideal for timeline based musical shows. Believe me, I've looked and tried them all. I did manage to get the Showbuddy DMX running with S1 by sending MIDI program change messages internally on the Mac, but it's just one more layer of apps to run simultaneously and worry about.

We'll see!

 

[TimC340]

I think it most likely won't, and I'm really don;t think the need is "huge".
Most S1 users probably never play live in any form and of those that do play live, some will not use any computers and some will use other PC/Mac/iPad solutions.

I’ve never even looked at the Show Page in S1. However, way back in the 1990s I was a part-time Stage Manager in an amateur theatre and even then we had computer control of the lighting (can’t remember the program!). I remember thinking then how good it would be to have similar control of music/SFX all in the same program. Perhaps I missed a trick by not following that up!

 

[Mpheteng]

Actually, there aren't! MainStage has no timeline, VSTLive is woefully over-designed and unreliable as others have said (every single section of a song re-loads the guitar patches for example - even if it's the same patch - whereas S1 keeps the guitar patch as is until you tell it otherwise, far more sensible), and has a cluttered Mixer set up with different views per song. GigPerformer is a spaghetti Western of connections and again not centred around a timeline. Maybe great for a virtual keyboard rig but not much else.

I'm using Nuendo and the Arrangements at the moment. What I want is a timeline - for clicks, lighting cues, vocal and guitar FX per section or per song and possibly backing tracks for a future project. Studio One is so close to doing this but I won't commit to creating a complete show in it whilst the support and development for the Show page is unknown.

I'm a live performer as well as recording person, and from my observations live shows have really upped the tech requirements in the last few years. Even cover bands are using their own DMX controlled lighting, and processing for effects tied to their backing tracks. The number of Laptops I'm seeing onstage is definitely on the increase- I even saw a Metal band at a local festival using autotune on a Macbook for the main vocalist -my son, a big metal fan, was close to calling them out on Insta for such a transgression! So I think tech on stage is here to stay and the Show Page could be a winner with just a few improvements.

Other multi-media apps are overkill for bands (Millumin, etc) and things like Q-Lab are great for theatres but again not ideal for timeline based musical shows. Believe me, I've looked and tried them all. I did manage to get the Showbuddy DMX running with S1 by sending MIDI program change messages internally on the Mac, but it's just one more layer of apps to run simultaneously and worry about.

We'll see!

Thanks Scardo for sharing your experience with this area of music - it's an eye-opener to me.

 

[Crossinger]

The number of Laptops I'm seeing onstage is definitely on the increase- I even saw a Metal band at a local festival using autotune on a Macbook for the main vocalist

That's interesting. Maybe reliability has improved dramatically in the meantime. I haven't played live in a long time. But 20 years ago, we hardly dared to go on stage with notebooks. At most, we played stems or backing tracks with an SP-404 or similar.

 

[Vocalpoint]

Thanks Davey for your comment/clarification. We pray and wait that 7.5 might cover this huge need. Please include me in the statistics you are collecting.

Agree with @Davey and many others in this thread - especially @Dave71.

Before anyone goes off on a tangent and states some imaginary "huge need" for the Show Page - I will float a guesstimate that for every 1 user of the the Show Page - there are easily 5000-10000 users doing something else (and WANTING something else) in S1 on any given day. It is this ratio that determines workplans etc.

And never forget - this space (DAW software in general) is a cut throat for competition. There is no point whatsoever trying to play it cute and devote time, talent and resource to a feature that does not appear (or appeal) to the userbase of any other DAW out there.

All that does is take away the focus from keeping up (and surpassing) the other guys on what got you here in the first place.

It does not require a long think on why a "show page" is not (and won't be) part of the other 6 big DAWs out there.

Me - I wish there was a toggle to completely hide the Show Page - just like there is one to ensure I never see the ATMOS environment either.

VP