Other ways to shift editing layers?

[philbrown]

I do the same repetitive audio editing task week in week out. One of the main hangups as far as having to mouse around the screen is having to change editing layers constantly between Soundbite and Volume automation layers in the Graphic editing window. I can't find any other way to do this other than a mouse click on the pulldown menu, and I haven't found a way to assign a key binding or mouse click or whatever to do it that way. I've heard Quickeys mentioned for these things, and I've used it in the past but not sure how it would work for this task. I'm open to all ideas or workarounds at this point. With all of the esoteric commands you can assign in DP, it seems like "Switch all visible layers to Soundbite" "Switch all visible layers to Volume" etc, would be quite useful. I could assign those to my left hand Contour Shuttle Pro buttons and speed my workflow up tremendously.

TIA,
Phil

I'll be traveling the next few days so my replies may be sporadic.

[Shooshie]

Temporary groups work well for that. Hold down the W key for "all visible tracks," or the T key for "all selected tracks." Then change layers or whatever you wish to do. If it doesn't give you what you want, customize the default group (Track Groups window) to do what you want.

[philbrown]

In this case it's 2 track editing and they are already grouped. It's mainly the mouse moves back and forth across the screen (from waveform editing to the layer pulldown menu on the left and back) I'm trying to eliminate. Wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't hundreds of those moves a day. It adds up.

[martian]

i'm with Phil on this one.

really miss the "-" in protools - easy elegant switch between 2 layers - I do that all day long -so it does mount up.

was excited to hear about right clicking in DP 7 - bit disappointed -I was hoping it would have the edit layers (vol/pan/eq etc ) when u right click on a track as easiest options there - instead of boring old copy and paste ☹ - would save a million mouse miles a year for me

anyone think thats something you hack a bit? i who was the guy on here who was skinning DP? I'd paypal someone if they could move the 'edit layers' to the top in place of copy - when u right click on a track.. seems like such a small thing to do that would make a massive difference...

[Phil O]

It's mainly the mouse moves back and forth across the screen (from waveform editing to the layer pulldown menu on the left and back) I'm trying to eliminate. Wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't hundreds of those moves a day. It adds up.

If you're on anything but the soundbite layer, you can quickly get back to the soundbite layer by clicking on the top edge of the waveform block (or whatever it's called) with the pointer tool. That at least saves a little time. Going the other way, however, doesn't seem to be as easy.

Phil

[Shooshie]

It's not just the Sequence Editor layers. It's also the MIDI editing tools. We need to be able to push down keys of our choosing to switch tool types AND tool functions. For example, we can choose tool types right now, but we can't choose the two functions of the Reshape tool: line type (freehand, straight, spline, parabola, flat) and how it will be applied (set, percentage, add, subtract). Then there's QuickFilter, which is not quick because you have to go down to the corner and click it. Then there are the pencil tool's setting near the QuickFilter button... there are many things that could benefit from keyboard shortcuts.

Maybe for choosing tool subcategories, it could involve tapping the tool key 3 times, then choosing a number, or something to that effect. I mean, we're talking about suddenly adding a LOT of commands to a set which has used up most keyboard combinations already. It really needs to be like QuicKeys "sticky key" shortcuts that involve two commands. Worst case, it should at least be a menu from right-clicking while using that tool.

It would make me very happy if MOTU would devote one update cycle just to adding keyboard capabilities to the majority of their editing features.

Definitely could use some shortcut help here.

By the way, QuicKeys will do most of these things, but they are not always 100% reliable when you start having it click on tool palettes and submenus. When MOTU upgrades DP and changes the graphics a little, you have to go back and retrain it to hit those things correctly. It's time for MOTU to give us reliable keyboard commands for layer and tool buttons and their submenus.

Shooshie

[philbrown]

If you're on anything but the soundbite layer, you can quickly get back to the soundbite layer by clicking on the top edge of the waveform block (or whatever it's called) with the pointer tool. That at least saves a little time. Going the other way, however, doesn't seem to be as easy.

Phil

Yeah, I discovered that and use that too, Phil. Often I inadvertently do that when I don't want to though, when editing volume automation points toward the top of the track. That feature is nice but sort of a mixed blessing IMO.

I may try Quickeys, Shooshie as I am pretty frustrated dealing with this issue day in and day out.

An idea just occurred to me that if you could make the volume layer stick, yet still be able to edge edit and nudge soundbites, that would solve my problem. Sort of like having both volume and Soundbite layers mutually active at the same time. Like I said, this just occurred to me so there may be a major gotcha there, but seems like it could be made to work somehow.

[philbrown]

"I'd paypal someone if they could move the 'edit layers' to the top in place of copy - when u right click on a track.. seems like such a small thing to do that would make a massive difference...

Agree. A dedicated key binding would be better but your suggestion would be the next best thing.

EDIT: if we could choose what's in the right click menu and the order, users could put whatever their most used commands are at the top. I agree copy and paste are not good choices for the top of the right-click menu.