Some people should die

Like for instance, the people who are actively anti-user and seem to enjoy making things difficult.

Like for instance, whoever decided that the MIDI activity lights should not only be microscopic, they should also be covered with a black haze. 

It matters to see the timing when you're doing drums, but of course, who does drums on sequencers?

Which sequencer, incidentally, has operational procedures that are just plain wacky.

W

I'd guess most forum members here are polite enough to simply step around this thread and let it 'die'

But what the hell

WTF are you talking about! Have you reviewed enough posts, since joining, to get the idea that hyperbole, on this site, tends to be understated?  I am mired in audio work commercially.  It's how I survive and the market is fragile and volatile at the moment (perhaps always was).  A simple software change (e.g. How hot keys are assigned to file operations combined with a very curious implementation of 'save' and 'save as') has capacity to either save or cost me considerable amount of time . . . Which in turn costs me money, which in turn can cost me clients, etc. Etc.  But you would have to be genuinely insane to think that those changes, by software development teams managing a product on which my livelihood depends rise to the level of projecting violence on members of the team. 

Admittedly there are probably sites on the internet where wishing death on others, as a form of expression, is common place . . . This tends to not be one of those sites.  Additionally such a header can get you 'tuned out' by the very individuals who might best be able to help you if you have a genuine problem.
Pretending that I have some idea concerning your issue:

While MIDI and digital audio might share low level relationship via binary code, the applications and hardware that are required to process the streams at the user level have evolved along very different paths.  At the user level they (MIDI and digital audio) do not speak the same language.  AA started life as an audio editor and remains one of the best, my subjective belief is that for editing it still surpasses the competition, for that task.  In it's latest incarnation it has grown into a fully realized multitrack environment.  What AA has never been is a MIDI engine (or sequencer).  While there have been suggestions, from users, since the beginning that better/more MIDI capability would be appreciated there has always been just as legitimate, parallel reasoning that attempting better MIDI integration was not a particularly practical use of development resources

About once a year whatever 'MIDI'ness AA is capable of becomes useful for me.  Rest of time, for whatever Midiness I need I try to select a more appropriate tool.  For individuals just starting out, for those with limited resources (which no matter what it sometimes looks like is everybody actually dedicated to creating music) it's a bitch that no one tool satisfies all needs.  When MIDI first arrived I tried desperately to get fifteen years of guitar performance experience to migrate to adding piano (via MIDI and samplers) to live trio and quartet shows.  Marketing hype seemed to promise it!  I learned to uses MIDI'd guitar effectively but that original goal of sounding like Otis Span, Pinetop Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis from hitting the guitar strings just never quite happened (there were probably nights that level of frustration rose to level of wishing Jerry Lee dead but he always carried bigger hand guns then I (did)) 

Not trying to say AA's perfect (no one who has followed some of my contempt for Adobe would believe that assertion anyway) but truth is if you are using MIDI activity lights as a timing reference you actually have bigger problems then poor hyperbole filter . . . Not saying you can't get away with it but using MIDI lights as any type of timing reference is going to impede 'upward mobility' . . . It's a one trick pony (at best, and admitting to it, would, very roughly speaking, damage credibility as music practitioner (& not trying to be critical of OP with that opinion, individually we all tend to have certain practices . . . 'Guilty pleasure' short cuts, which we'd all be better off if we refrained from admitting).

I agree with all of the above.

I just need to add - if your prime interest is in midi, then AA is not for you.  There are loads of midi sequencers out there that can knock AA into a hat.

AA is very good at a lot of things, but midi isn't one of them.

  I feel the previous 2 posters should lighten up and relax...

Can't help it, but sometimes you have to ask what the designer(s) were drinking/smoking/inhaling. Some of those whacky decision makers deserve to be taken out and shot. They often ruin a product that could have been great but isn't because they forgot to think about the users.

Can't help it, but sometimes you have to ask what the designer(s) were drinking/smoking/inhaling. Some of those whacky decision makers deserve to be taken out and shot. They often ruin a product that could have been great but isn't because they forgot to think about the users.

They didn't forget about me, though. I am officially to blame (according to Adobe) for the fact that when you don't want to use MIDI, it's completely and utterly hidden from view.

And I am very happy to accept the total responsibility for that!   

When midi was first added to Audition I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find reasons to use it - and found none. I'd happily use a good midi sequencer if it was built in, but the present version doesn't meet my needs at all.

In any case, it's not at all difficult to do whatever you need in other midi applications (sequencers, samplers, sound fonts etc.) and then bring the resulting audio into Audition.

[precisely]

I'd happily use a good midi sequencer if it was built in, but the present version doesn't meet my needs at all.

Which is precisely what some of us predicted would be the case ,when it was first proposed to introduce midi into an audio editor!  There are some excellent midi sequencers already out there and it was stupid to think they could catch up with the competition in such a short time frame.

I'm very pleased it is 'hidden' -many of us never wanted it in the first place.

I'm very pleased it is 'hidden' -many of us never wanted it in the first place.

It's a sort-of unwritten deal - if they hide it, I don't bad-mouth it... and you can work the rest out for yourself!

I didn't know that Steve, but you should be decorated for it.

[precisely]

I'd happily use a good midi sequencer if it was built in, but the present version doesn't meet my needs at all.

Which is precisely what some of us predicted would be the case ,when it was first proposed to introduce midi into an audio editor!  There are some excellent midi sequencers already out there and it was stupid to think they could catch up with the competition in such a short time frame.

I'm very pleased it is 'hidden' -many of us never wanted it in the first place.

Yep! I agree with all of that, including the prediction. I had very little belief that it would be worthwhile, but I did have a little hope. My hopes were dashed...

As Durin remarked in a post a while back, the problem was marketing vs design intent.  It was intended to allow something like a VSTi piano to be added to an otherwise acoustic project - that kind of thing.  Just substituting a midi cable for a mic and an audio cable and a preamp.  Hitherto that had required jumping through some hoops and people were puzzled why such a simple thing was not possible.  Unfortunately, the marketing people raised expectations and that has lead to disappointment.

Most of what is wrong with Adobe is what corporate and marketing get up to. It's like the forums, website and to an extent the so-called  'help'desk - expectations are raised, but seldom fulfilled. With the forums, they've managed to go quite a long way backwards; despite having made a very similar mistake before, and got their fingers burned, it seems that they've learned abosolutely nothing, and are continuing to prove the point quite forcibly!

Those that learned were promoted because of it.

I'd guess most forum members here are polite enough to simply step around this thread and let it 'die'

I just wanted to exclude myself from this group, and explain that I didn't froth at the mouth because I know nothing of MIDI. Except for what the letters stand for.

I Apologize...

Lets look on the positive side of things

If Adobe hadn't bought Syntrillium Audition/CEP might not exist today.

Unfortunately with corporate takeover comes a lot of bad things as well.

I'm sure that market forces are teaching Adobe a lesson and sure sometimes things get a little worse before they get better but they will get better I have no doubt.

With the work being done with AATranslator I get to see a lot of daws both inside & out and every one of them has something in it (and sometimes a lot) for someone(s) to whinge about.  I'm sure that Adobe are watching the competition just as the competition watches Adobe - its just that because of its size Adobe move a little slower

Me I have very little to whinge about AA and the few things I do I have work arounds or fixed via other means.