This definitely needs to be fixed. Major DP shortcoming...

[Robert Randolph]

I'm reading this in Tapatalk on my iPhone.
I'm going to have to wait until I get to my Mac to respond because the gifs are tiny and move too fast for me to see what's going on.

When you get to your computer, I hope you can read past the frustrated tone in my post. I'm annoyed by DP's behaviour, not you.

[Shooshie]

What if there was a 'lock takes' button on the track? That would disallow comping and lock all takes to the track. Then all splits/comps/takes are moved along as necessary and there's no weirdness that can occur?

If you want to comp, you want stuff to be free to move so unlocking makes sense.

If you want to move stuff around, you want everything locked together... so lock it.

How's that sound? Similar to a menu item, but perhaps more intuitive. (I hate that edge edit copy menu. It still gets me even after so many years!)

I like the button idea. It just needs to be very visible and show its position at all times.
And yeah, I still can't believe that something as important as "edge edit copy" is relegated to a mini-menu in the Sequence Editor. It's like the entire crux of audio editing hinges on that one little thing, which almost nobody finds on their own, at least not without serious digging and an experience that will stay with them forever. I can still remember where I was and what my surroundings looked like when I first discovered that edits I was making were screwing up the rest of my sequence, and how the next 15 minutes or so were spent desperately trying to find out why that was so. I'd seen it work properly, so I knew there was a way. I just don't want the Lock Takes button or Edit Takes Together menu to be a similar experience for anyone.

Now... to see if MOTU will listen to us and do this.

Shooshie

[Timeline]

I don't use takes ever. Wonder why???

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I don't use takes ever. Wonder why???

I use MIDI takes all the time. Audio takes, not so much.

[stubbsonic]

I tend to use multiple tracks when I'm recording by myself and for myself.

I sometimes use takes when I'm recording a client. Not sure why I make that distinction. Maybe because it is quicker to add a take than to add a similar track (but not really).

I also think I tend to use takes when I expect my track counts to get large enough to get unwieldy.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

An important distinction here. Some of us (like me) don't record for clients. 99% of what I record is my music for projects I'm hired to score. If you're recording as an engineer for a client, band, etc., I can see why audio takes are important. And if they change the music (as in FM's situation) you really should be able to move all the takes at once, but selectIvely. Otherwise you'll be moving the parts that are in their original spot. Capisco?

[Shooshie]

I use takes because there are a million ways to turn each phrase. The artists I record, and I myself, love to try a lot of them, then listen back and see which ones pop. Sometimes you do a take that can't be comped, because it is so different from all the other takes that no part of it would fit with them. Sometimes you have 6 of these and 6 of those and 6 of some others, and you can choose which 6 you're going to comp from. Putting together phrases this way is one of the most exciting things about recording that I've ever experienced. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, we simply couldn't afford enough time in a good studio to do this. Only established recording acts had the bucks to do it, and they'd do 70 or 80 takes —— ANALOG!
(listening back to them and keeping track of the ones you liked must have been amazingly time consuming)

I sometimes recorded 2 takes, analog, and put together the best phrases of those, but I never had the luxury of doing more than two. Now I do from 10 to 30, or until the well runs dry. You can come up with real gems when you do that. That alone is worth any difficulty there may be in using takes.

Before DP's take-comping feature, putting together a song from multiple takes was still a challenge, but nothing like the razor blades and zero-crossings-on-the-meter that I used to do. When DP added the take-comping feature, they blew all resistance to multiple takes out of the water. I consider that a paradigm shift in recording technique. Because it's so easy now, it makes no sense NOT to use as many takes as an artist feels like he/she has in him/her. This is something that once-upon-a-time could take days, or even weeks. Now it takes somewhere between minutes and hours, depending on the quantity and length of your material.

Oh, I guess that once we had automated faders in the 90s, you could do up to about 22 takes, then use faders to crossfade to other takes while playing back, and it wouldn't take too long to set it up, but even that was nothing like what we do now. Can you imagine 20 years ago if the artist said "ok, what does it sound like with 4 bars of take three, 4 bars of take nine, and the bridge from take seven? Now, it's just click, click, click, and you hit play and listen to it. Freaking amazing!

Take Comping in a DAW like DP is the most significant development since non-linear digital recording itself.

Shooshie

[EMRR]

Sorry, off-topic continuation:

My personal gripe of late has been discovering an accidental keystroke that clears the tempo data so there's just a cursor waiting for a new entry. Really hard to see, and makes it look like DP has frozen. Accidentally enter another number and all my edits explode with soundbites moving elsewhere. Now for me, since I don't work to any sort of grid, no MIDI, rarely paying attention to the tempo entry, if it's not documented, then it's guesswork to find what tempo was entered. Then you get to redo all the crossfades. I'd surely love to have tempo unrelated to time and soundbite position as a preference, maybe it can be and I haven't found it. If I'm running a reference click while tracking, I have to print it to a track and put it in an edit group so any musical edits that don't stay fully with the click generate a new click reference that displays the timing 'errors'.

Fixes, in order of preference:

• • UNDO. Open Undo history and go back to the last point that the edits were still intact.
  • Revert to last version saved
  • Revert to an autosaved backup
  • Close file without saving, reopen last saved version

Depending on how much work you lose by doing the 2nd one vs. the 3rd one, those may be reversed.

Do you happen to know the keystroke that creates that problem? I don't, but I'd sure like to disarm it by erasing the command in the Commands Window if that's possible. We need a list of potential hazards like this, and the best ways to protect yourself from them and/or fix the damage.

I have not identified the keystroke that causes the problem, and I've found the problem on sequences having tempos other than default (and not necessarily documented), having no idea when they occurred. Meaning, they were fine when I last had them open, but now they are exploded all over the place with the cross-fades all gone. Undo obviously doesn't help in that case. The erroneous cleared tempo entry window took long enough to sort out, I spent a number of weeks closing DP as I thought it was locked up!

Lock your tracks to prevent any tempo-related change in the soundbite locations. Personally, I've never experienced the problems you're referencing. When not using the conductor track, I leave the metronome at default, which is 120 bpm. Easily reset if you mess up the tempo.

As for your manually recorded click-tracks, why not use DP's features which are designed to do all that for you? It sounds like you're taking steps to avoid having to use it. Maybe you used it in the past and something went wrong, so you're afraid to try it now. If you're comfortable with this way of working, then there's certainly nothing wrong with it, but you may find that you get the same results, much faster and easier, by going with DP's actual designed methodology.

Or not. I'm sure you have your reasons.

I can't say my reasons are good, they are all based on the moment to moment discoveries of how to get something done with clients present and clock ticking. I rarely find anything I want to know in the manual, and I do dig around in it fairly often. So my methodology is not terribly informed outside of immediate experience.

So...duh. I never look at the Tracks window, sure enough there's a lock option there that does what you say. And locks for Markers too, in the "whatever that is between the conductor track and the time ruler". Brilliant. I'm gonna start using those, religiously. Thanks! I'm looking....don't see a preference for that. It'd be great if 'locked' was an available default, because that's how I work.

To avoid inadvertent tempo changes, set up your template with tempo controlled by the conductor track.

You know I thought I was, but circling around I must only be setting meter there, and not tempo. Gotta do both. Right.

Tempo gets set for click track purposes, frequently with clients who need a reference for take consistency but have never sorted it out, so it gets dragged around on the fly until it feels right. Then they don't necessarily follow it successfully, so it makes sense to me at least to print it to a track and group that track with the audio so it can be used as a visual guide for editing, also letting me know if they have drifted wildly at any given edit point. If there's another way to drag audio around in time and also have an easily selectable visual reference to theoretical tempo right/wrong that moves with it, I haven't discovered it.

[Shooshie]

I never look at the Tracks window, sure enough there's a lock option there that does what you say. And locks for Markers too, in the "whatever that is between the conductor track and the time ruler". Brilliant. I'm gonna start using those, religiously. Thanks! I'm looking....don't see a preference for that. It'd be great if 'locked' was an available default, because that's how I work.

No pref for it that I know of. You can click a large number of tracks in 2 clicks as follows:
1) Hold down the COMMAND key and click the lock on one of the tracks. All the other tracks will be locked, but not the one you clicked.
2) Click the one you just clicked, but without the Command key. Now it's locked, too.

To unlock, use the OPTION key instead of the Command key for steps 1 & 2. That would help with getting them locked and unlocked quickly when you need for them to be unlocked for some operations.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Tempo gets set for click track purposes, frequently with clients who need a reference for take consistency but have never sorted it out, so it gets dragged around on the fly until it feels right. Then they don't necessarily follow it successfully, so it makes sense to me at least to print it to a track and group that track with the audio so it can be used as a visual guide for editing, also letting me know if they have drifted wildly at any given edit point. If there's another way to drag audio around in time and also have an easily selectable visual reference to theoretical tempo right/wrong that moves with it, I haven't discovered it.

The FORWARD SLASH key (next to the forward delete key on extended keyboards, to the right of the brackets) is tap-tempo key for setting the metronome. Go along with the music, or in your head, tapping the key until you feel like you've nailed it, then hit Return. The tempo will be set to the best fit for the previous two taps before you hit return. You can then use that tempo in the Conductor Track.

Shoosh

[labman]

Before DP's take-comping feature, putting together a song from multiple takes was still a challenge, but nothing like the razor blades and zero-crossings-on-the-meter that I used to do.
Shooshie

For some reason when you said that razor blade example, a scary bizarre memory popped back into my head.

Around 30 years ago, I was hired to produce an up and coming band out of Philly for one tune only for radio. We booked three days, and went to work. Cut a bunch of takes the first morning and afternoon, but as the lead singer gal was sick it was grueling. I mean painful. Nothing was flowing. Anyways, we finally got something we all felt gelled. The band went home and we proceeded doing overdubs and gtr solos with the hired guns from outside the band. Got everything just where it was marketable, save one 'creative change' I wanted to make. I wanted to hear the first drum hits of the bridge at the very front of the piece. So I asked the house engineer if that were possible. (I was of course thinking automation or he would 'fly in' that little part to an eventide or something similar and print back to tape.) So I cleared the room and gave him some time. Came back in maybe 20 minutes and there was 2inch tape all over the floor. Not 'neatly' all over the floor, just all over the floor! In multiple pieces. So between terror and nervous laughter, I asked him how much longer he needed. He said maybe 15 min, so cleared the room again. We came back in 15, and everything was back on the spools in the correct order, and it sounded fine. Evidently he really knew what he was doing and was a razor master. Now the change of drum hit 'lead in' was not outstanding mind you - just fine, but I wasn't about to ask if we could A-B the change!

So that is my razor blade story for the day.

[labman]

Before DP's take-comping feature, putting together a song from multiple takes was still a challenge, but nothing like the razor blades and zero-crossings-on-the-meter that I used to do.
Shooshie

For some reason when you said that razor blade example, a scary bizarre memory popped back into my head.

Around 30 years ago, I was hired to produce an up and coming band out of Philly for one tune only for radio. We booked two days, and went to work. Cut a bunch of takes the first morning and afternoon, but as the lead singer gal was sick it was grueling. I mean painful. Nothing was flowing. Anyways, we finally got something we all felt gelled. The band went home and we proceeded doing overdubs and gtr solos with the hired guns from outside the band. Got everything just where it was marketable, save one 'creative change' I wanted to make. I wanted to hear the first drum hits of the bridge at the very front of the piece. So I asked the house engineer if that were possible. (I was of course thinking automation or he would 'fly in' that little part to an eventide or something similar and print back to tape.) So I cleared the room and gave him some time. Came back in maybe 20 minutes and there was 2inch tape all over the floor. Not 'neatly' all over the floor, just all over the floor! In multiple pieces. So between terror and nervous laughter, I asked him how much longer he needed. He said maybe 15 min, so cleared the room again. We came back in 15, and everything was back on the spools in the correct order, and it sounded fine. Evidently he really knew what he was doing and was a razor master. Now the change of drum hit 'lead in' was not outstanding mind you - just fine, but I wasn't about to ask if we could A-B the change!

So that is my razor blade story for the day.

[EMRR]

I never look at the Tracks window, sure enough there's a lock option there that does what you say. And locks for Markers too, in the "whatever that is between the conductor track and the time ruler". Brilliant. I'm gonna start using those, religiously. Thanks! I'm looking....don't see a preference for that. It'd be great if 'locked' was an available default, because that's how I work.

No pref for it that I know of. You can click a large number of tracks in 2 clicks as follows:
1) Hold down the COMMAND key and click the lock on one of the tracks. All the other tracks will be locked, but not the one you clicked.
2) Click the one you just clicked, but without the Command key. Now it's locked, too.

To unlock, use the OPTION key instead of the Command key for steps 1 & 2. That would help with getting them locked and unlocked quickly when you need for them to be unlocked for some operations.

I'll try that again, I was looking for something that would do that, and hadn't found it.

I'll try that tempo method. It does not initially sound useful from the way I'm thinking about it, but I'm probably wrong.

Thanks again, as always. You sure are a useful guy to have around!

Came back in maybe 20 minutes and there was 2inch tape all over the floor. Not 'neatly' all over the floor, just all over the floor!

I remember those events, really puts this in perspective. Fun if you like the adrenaline of a high wire act. No net, no undo. The thing that finally pushed me into using DP was a client for whom I'd recorded two weeks of live shows on the road on 16 track ADAT, and he insisted we assembly edit the whole tour down to the streamlined version he wanted to hear rough mixes of. Ever done 3 straight days of assembly editing between ADAT's? It's like old school video editing, with no visual reference. Program an offset, listen, do it again, listen, commit by copying to a slave reel. Etc. 16 track assembly editing means 4 ADAT's, means 20-30 second lock up time for each audition or print. DP sure is easy.

[Shooshie]

...Came back in maybe 20 minutes and there was 2inch tape all over the floor. Not 'neatly' all over the floor, just all over the floor! In multiple pieces. So between terror and nervous laughter, I asked him how much longer he needed. He said maybe 15 min, so cleared the room again. We came back in 15, and everything was back on the spools in the correct order, and it sounded fine. Evidently he really knew what he was doing and was a razor master. Now the change of drum hit 'lead in' was not outstanding mind you - just fine, but I wasn't about to ask if we could A-B the change!

So that is my razor blade story for the day.

Laughing Out Loud. I mean, really... LOL. As you would expect, that triggers cascades of such stories of my own, mostly where I'm the guy with the razor blade or the DAW, and the task that someone casually asked for, thinking it was a 5 second click of a button or something, was difficult and humongous. That was just one of the things that always pushed me to speed up my working methods and find tricks that circumvented long processes like that. And... why DP's take-comping feature still gets me excited.

Shoosh

[Shooshie]

Came back in maybe 20 minutes and there was 2inch tape all over the floor. Not 'neatly' all over the floor, just all over the floor!

I remember those events, really puts this in perspective. Fun if you like the adrenaline of a high wire act. No net, no undo. The thing that finally pushed me into using DP was a client for whom I'd recorded two weeks of live shows on the road on 16 track ADAT, and he insisted we assembly edit the whole tour down to the streamlined version he wanted to hear rough mixes of. Ever done 3 straight days of assembly editing between ADAT's? It's like old school video editing, with no visual reference. Program an offset, listen, do it again, listen, commit by copying to a slave reel. Etc. 16 track assembly editing means 4 ADAT's, means 20-30 second lock up time for each audition or print. DP sure is easy.

I have very little ADAT experience. In the 4 or 5 times that I got my hands on ADATs, I was the client in various studios where an engineer didn't know how to time-sync them to DP and the MIDI Time Piece. So, I'd have to figure it out, using what the engineer DID know to help me get it right. The first time it happened, it took an hour to get that going, with the clock ticking. Usually they kind of knew what to do, but only needed me to translate some terms and suggest some things, which I did intuitively, meaning eventually I guessed it right. But it had the effect of making that sync-up period feel like rocket science. And that's what caught my eye in your story: that 20-30 second sync-up period, which always felt like a rocket launch countdown. "4... 3... 2... 1... We have speed." I mean, usually nobody said anything, but that's what it felt like.

The more awkward and difficult our gear was to operate, the more exalted and serious the job felt. Not that operating a DAW is all that easy, but it sure felt great to leave all that expensive gear behind. All that was left was the studio room itself, and I wished many times (and still do) that I could just rent the room and not have to pay for access to all that gear.

What I like most about today is that the engineer and artist are more connected, more on the same side of things. I'm able to apply my musicianship more directly, and the artist isn't clueless about what I do, so can also make suggestions and be a part of it.

Getting off topic here by a long shot. I'll hit pause here...

Shooshie