Hello,
Please keep in mind reading these requests that I am first a sound designer and mixer that comes from the Pro Tools world but over the last year has started working in a hybrid way using Pro Tools for sound design but mix inside Media Composer to maintain a running 5.1 mix of the animated feature I work on (much like how Avid's promotional video with Bad Robot was showing how they kept a running 5.1 mix in their setup while working on Star Trek).
Here are some feature requests that I think could make Avid more functional when working with audio:
1. Render audio suite effects with handles 2. Make audio track names show in the mixer and on Artist Series Control Surfaces. 3. Fix the mixer window so that when you close a surround panner window, it doesn't rezise the whole mixer window. 4. Add a drop down menu in the surround panner window that will let you open other channel's panning windows without going back to the mixer window. This would be simaliar to plug-ins allowing you to view other plug-ins on other channels using the drop down Channel selector box. 5. Add a playback follows insertion preference. Add a no scrolling preference for the edit window. See Pro Tools. 6. Add a audio suite audition path preference so that you can audition sounds in the source window through your signal chain and through proper panning. 7. Make selected tracks show on control surface. 8. Allow the track selection on a control surface to auto-link or auto-patch to the source track like it does when you click on it in the edit window. 9. Make an audio suite "flip" plug-in. This would just flip the left channel to the right and vice versa. This would be handy when you had a sound panning one direction on a stereo file, but now new boards have come in that change the direction of the pan so the audio should reflect this without having to rewrite any panning information. Please also implement this in Pro Tools! 10. Add a modifier key for making finer keyframe adjustments. 11. When viewing panning information, make the grid on the audio clip read panning instead of staying on volume. This would ideally read the panning value in the bottom tool bar like it does with volume adjustments. It would also allow you to know what parameter you are looking at with a glance, instead of clicking on the button in the track to confirm what you are looking at. 12. Get rid of "Center Current". If I click on a plug-in, just open it, don't make me open it, and then go click center current. This is a huge waste of time.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and consider these changes. If I've missed some of this functionality that may already exist in the software, please tell me!
TJ Callaway
Audio Editor / Sound Designer
Reel FX Creative Studios
214-979-0961
tj@reelfx.com
Nitris DX
Avid Artist Mix
Windows 7 Professional, SP1
HP Z400, Intel Xeon W3680 3.33GHZ, 12 GB RAM
Media Composer v8.5.1