DP Workflows

[anselm]

I am interested in getting information and tips from other DP users as to the process of working with the DAW. I may also be complaining a bit so please forgive me.

Here is how my workflow typically goes at this point. I start with MIDI and create separate sequences that represent the different parts of the song. I may record the bass also, but other than that I do not record audio tracks at this point. Then I arrange the "chunks" in Song mode. Once I have the arrangement right, I then use the "Merge chunks to sequence" function and create a new sequence of the now arranged song. Now I have all of the MIDI tracks in one sequence and I record the audio.

My process is the best attempt I can come up with in an effort to emulate Vision from way back in 1998. I don't understand why DP doesn't follow that wonderfully developed program with regard to this sort of thing. I don't get the Mixer section when you're in song mode. I can't seem to make that work, but ultimately I have made it a non-concern since I am only using the Song mode for arranging, not playback (although it would be nice to have the ability to listen and change things in Song mode).

Maybe some of you could give some advice, or present your way of doing things.

TIA

[stubbsonic]

I don't don't use the chunks/song mode stuff for arrangements, I now do all that in one sequence. But, if that works well for you, that's no problem. I just end up with lots of overlapping material that makes it impractical.

I use V-racks for VI's and effects, which makes some of the set up work easier.

I also have made some pre-fab starting template files so that I'm not starting from scratch on any project.

Beyond that, we could get into specific tasks for workflows. E.g., setting up, recording, editing, mixing, backups, etc.

[monkey man]

I use the TO to move sections around (MIDI only) 'till I have my song structure more-or-less nailed, so one sequence only. I s'pose it could look clumsy, but it's quick. I often move sections way over to the right when in limbo; they're placed sufficiently far away from the end of the song so as not to be accidentally copied / cut / pasted as I futz around with order, repetitions and so on.

I say "repetitions" because this stuff is obviously done very early on in the piece - MIDI mock-ups of bass, along with keys, basic drums and perhaps a melody or two provided by a mono sawtooth synth sound (vox). So far I haven't progressed much further than this as I've been piecing the system together for a long time (almost there), but it's safe to assume that further tweaking of the song layout would be inevitable, and again, I'd use the TO for this I reckon. IMHO, the TO is perfect for establishing routing, folder grouping and song construction. Guess that's why it's called the "Overview". Love it.

A second sequence is used for MIDI sysex (setup) dumps only. There's a folder for default multi sets and so on which are spat out as my first course of action (then it's back to the main sequence), and another for the project's ones. Once the project's in progress, the default sysex folder is closed and the project's one left open, ready to spit when the next session starts.

I try to avoid confusing, fancy-schmancy and roundabout ways of thinking and doing things, so this basic, linear approach suits me just fine. Only one mixer "setup" to worry about (and I do worry!), no non-linear surprises, and if I ever get around to using VIs, you can bet they'll reside happily in this one sequence on the one mixer. The same can be said for subgroups and aux fx channels. One sequence to rule them all.

[Michael Canavan]

I tend to work with one "master" sequence and a couple scratch and 'part' sequences.
If I'm just coming up with a basic part, haven't a finished song in mind when I approach DP this is how I work; if I know the entirety of the song before I sequence it, then I just use one Chunk.

Rarely do I use the song window to scratch up a song, mostly I just drag the separate parts into a master Chunk. So if I start a song with the main riff, then work a beginning, chorus etc. around it, I write separate sequences up then just drag the parts into the main one.

I guess you can do the same thing with the Song Window, but if you're using track automation then each Chunk in that window will house a separate VI and that gets CPU heavy. At times I prefer using track automation over MIDI, especially for VI's with poor MIDI learn capability. Fortunately dragging Chunks together doesn't make copies of the VI's, it just drags in the MIDI and audio, MOTU have out back there. The trick here is not to change the track order that way you're not messing up the song by putting the MIDI for the bass sound on the trumpet etc.

[Shooshie]

The "Song" window is from another age, when MIDI was still considered heavy-lifting for a processor's I/O facilities (remember MIDI Logjam?), as well as for small monitors, before we had the graphic edit windows that we have now. We did a lot of MIDI work "blind," not being able to see any real visual representation of what was there, other than colored blocks in the Tracks Overview Window. It was easier to work with smaller sequences, then, and the Song Window helped put those together into an easily manipulated whole. "Sequence," by the way, did not refer to a complete song, but to any string of MIDI events that you happened to record. You learned to approach MIDI by the numbers back then, because you couldn't see it except in the Event List, which was... numbers. (Remember creating songs in a synthesizer's built-in sequencer? Talk about abstract!)

When you use LOTS of little chunks, little bits of MIDI, the Song Window makes possible some very interesting arrangements that would be more difficult without it. You can move things anywhere in the song, stacked on top of other sequences (melody, bass line, rhythm guitar, harmony, special effects, rim shots, 8th bar noodling) or linearly (intro, melody, melody, bridge, melody, solo, bridge, coda), and chunks can be used over and over again. In a sense, this was a way to make and use MIDI loops before there were MIDI loops. It was very effective. I used it for many things until the mid-1990s, and occasionally I still find use for it.

These things are now easy to do in the Tracks Overview and/or other edit windows, so the need for the Song Window is not pronounced as it once was. Most people probably don't even know it's there, or have never used it. Remember, it was hard to see more than 4 bars in detail on your screen back then. Now, we can see 8, 12, even 24 bars without any trouble, or zoom out and see an entire song or movement.

If you choose to use it, put together your stuff and convert it back to a sequence right then. Don't use the Song Window for further editing, recording, live playback etc., other than re-arranging chunks amongst themselves.

Now, you can drag chunks to the Finder to create a file from a chunk, or drag selections to the Chunks Window to create chunks, or drag sequence files from the Finder to the Chunks Window or Tracks Overview Window to create chunks or to facilitate arranging. (add verses, or a bridge every 16 bars, or whatever)

Where the Song Window excels is in positioning entire chunks of MIDI. It's your way to work with Regions, to snap regions to the beat, and so forth. You can position your MIDI regions (chunks) with great precision, or rearrange the whole thing in seconds, like using Lego blocks. Someone mentioned having ragged edges that overlap and make it impractical, but that's only true if you aren't conscious of how you're constructing them and how you're going to use them. When you know you're going to be stacking chunks, you can make it easier for yourself if you make sure your chunks don't have open pedals or dangling controllers, and that sort of thing. Nevertheless, it's OK if your notes and controllers DO overlap, because you don't have to bump the chunks end-to-end. You can stack them anywhere relative to each other, so overlap simply is not a problem. Setting up columns and guides within the Song Window makes it all very easy.

If you find the Song Window superfluous, then for you it probably IS. Don't worry about it. If, however, you still like the method of playing some chords, playing some melody, playing a bass line, and so forth, all to a metronome or click track, then you can easily make dozens of chunks (be sure to label them!) which can then be assembled and rearranged into various versions of a song in just seconds. It's one of those features that some will rave about and others will go "meh..." Rest assured that it has served its purpose well in the distant past, and for some it's still a fun and exciting way to create music.

Shooshie

[stubbsonic]

100% agree. I think in a creative flow-- when working on a single song, it can be weird needing to decide where one section ends and another begins, which is why I was recommending working within a single chunk. However, as you say, if you are careful, it is all workable in Song Mode as well.

A few things I think Song Mode is really great for:

1. Working on a video with multiple segments, each with completely different setups of time sig, tempo maps, VI's, FX, etc.. Each chunk can have its own start time in SMPTE and you can run everything in a final pass without any glitches.

2. Along with that, you can have chunks that are associated with individual horizontal (serial) sections, then add an over-arching long chunk that runs in parallel. For example, you have a video with different musical cues that are chunks, sound fx and foley that are long continuous tracks, and a running commentary or Voice-Over track, etc.

In a musical context, you could have a series of sequences/chunks, and add a long ambience track that runs overtop of all of them, that ties it all together. Or have a long track that handles some controller stuff and sysex.

VERY flexible!!

But as Shooshie described, the Song Editor is kind of a cool macro environment that is not often discussed here except by the old-timers.

[anselm]

"Rarely do I use the song window to scratch up a song, mostly I just drag the separate parts into a master Chunk. So if I start a song with the main riff, then work a beginning, chorus etc. around it, I write separate sequences up then just drag the parts into the main one."

So you drag in the individual tracks from the TO window and splice them to the tail of the previous part?

[Michael Canavan]

"Rarely do I use the song window to scratch up a song, mostly I just drag the separate parts into a master Chunk. So if I start a song with the main riff, then work a beginning, chorus etc. around it, I write separate sequences up then just drag the parts into the main one."

So you drag in the individual tracks from the TO window and splice them to the tail of the previous part?

Reverse of that, if I'm working on an idea instead of a finished song, I copy the Sequence in the Chunks window then write another part, then drag that part from the Chunks window into the open "main/Master whatever you want to call the song" Sequence. So say you have a Main riff, you copy that in the Chunks window, rewrite it to become a break, copy rewrite for another part... make a copy that's a scratch or maybe even final Sequence Chunk, then you can use the Chunks window to drag the parts into the open scratch sequence chunk.

It's actually really strait forward, it's DP's naming conventions that get in the way a bit.
A Chunk can be anything that has it's own enclosed sequence of events in the Tracks Overview/edit windows in general, and it can also be a Song or a V-Rack. Don't worry about the Song and V-Rack Chunks as of now, we're talking about Sequence Chunks, basically whole tunes or parts of tunes.

Simply, Sequence Chunks can be dropped into other Sequence Chunks, and that makes the Song window somewhat redundant. The Song Window is slightly easier to grasp at first but I don't like the fact there's not a master wiper letting you know exactly where you are in the window. You can read the numbers, but I still mostly use it as a mock up at the beginning. By the time I'm actually writing the song really, I'm in a single Sequence Chunk.

What really really helps with this and IMO in general in DP as opposed to other DAWs is Markers. All of this is 1000X easier if you set up Markers while you write.

[Shooshie]

The one thing that the Song Window does better than ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, is rearranging chunks as if they were building blocks. There's nothing to select, no parameters to look out for. Just grab, drag, release. Boom! They resize proportionately to where they fit, and it's a quick arrangement.

You can do it in the Tracks Overview Window, but better get it right the first time. Subsequent moves require selections that have to weed-out overlapping controllers, etc. not to mention the fact that you have to select it in the first place. The Song Window is easy and fast beyond imagination.

Shooshie

[anselm]

Reverse of that, if I'm working on an idea instead of a finished song, I copy the Sequence in the Chunks window then write another part, then drag that part from the Chunks window into the open "main/Master whatever you want to call the song" Sequence. So say you have a Main riff, you copy that in the Chunks window, rewrite it to become a break, copy rewrite for another part... make a copy that's a scratch or maybe even final Sequence Chunk, then you can use the Chunks window to drag the parts into the open scratch sequence chunk.

Ok, so you drag the chunks into one sequence and in doing so, drag their tracks and splice them at their ends, right? If you just grab the chunk and drag into the sequence, it will create a separate row of tracks that will completely overlap everything already in the sequence.

Thanks for your input. Very helpful.

[anselm]

Thanks for the replies. I am hoping for more. There's not much info that I am aware of that approaches just the process of using DP. It took me some time to piece my personal approach together, and I am still working on it frankly. I suppose the Song section is simply not for real playback, right?

Can someone tell me, though, why the way Vision organized things for arranging and editing song structures was not superior in terms of flexibility and ease of use? What is it about not having a song sequence that is better?

[Shooshie]

I'm not really sure what you're looking for. If it's Vision you want, well, you may as well wish for a pony and a rocket ship while you're at it, though you may actually get the latter two; Vision ain't gonna happen. There are those who think Vision was perfect, and those who think DP was perfect. Neither was prone to listening to the other side or caring why they thought it best. But if there was ever a debate about it, it's meaningless now. Gibson killed Opcode, and thus ended Vision, and that's that.

You might try the DP Tips Sheet thread. I haven't been very good about weeding out obsolete tips, but most of them are still relevant. Rumor has it that Doris is putting in a good word for me with the Boss about that 10% pay raise. It's so hard to do these week-long projects on last-year's salary. Once in a while, I update one if I happen to read it when I'm in the mood to work on it.

Anyway, there are a lot of good tips in that thread, and some deal with workflows.

The only other thing I can recommend is to create an exercise project and try out everything you can think of. Use it to develop your own workflows. You can always ask questions here when you run into anything more specific than "what is it about not having a song sequence that is better?" I've re-read this thread, and I guess I just don't know what you are looking for, but I do hope you find something that helps.

Shooshie

[Guitar Gaz]

I'm not really sure what you're looking for. If it's Vision you want, well, you may as well wish for a pony and a rocket ship while you're at it, though you may actually get the latter two; Vision ain't gonna happen. There are those who think Vision was perfect, and those who think DP was perfect. Neither was prone to listening to the other side or caring why they thought it best.

Shooshie

I was in the Vision camp and know exactly what anselm means - Vision was better at sequences and songs for certain workflows - but that boat sailed a while ago. It took me a long time to get my head round the DP workflow but I have - and the Song window is useful for putting chunks together in terms of arranging and eventually merging into longer/bigger chunks and is very usable for playback and arranging. In a way you can do what you did in Vision.

What is different is the Instruments and Mixer setup which in Vision was common to all sequences in a Vision project.

In DP each chunk has its own Mixer and therefore when you play back sequences chained in the Song Window you get different volume levels as each chunk has its own mixer setting with any different fader levels and then Aux channels adding to the mess.

But the answer is VI's or Virtual Instruments - you can have a constant set of VI's with your synths software, drum software, sampler software, audio plug ins, guitar plug ins, always there and drawn on by every chunk.

So I have nothing that does not go through a VI and I keep that VI as the default Mixer window - all my MIDI tracks are either Reason, soft synth (Korg Wave,M3,Arturia Mini Moog), Superior Drummer or EZ Drummer, and all my audio vocals or guitar through my Pod Farm 2 plug in. So when I play back chained chunks in the Song Window it sounds fine and works just like Vision did.

You can then control the balance or volume levels of tracks from the VI Mixer for playback of arrangements.

When you are settled on the arrangement of all your chunks in the Song Window you can create a new merged sequence as your master song and then use the mixer more fully than just defaulting to the VI mixer view.

So the workflow is the same really - Tracks Overview for cutting and pasting blocks of data without worrying about snap to grid (whatever that means!), MIDI Window for MIDI data, Sequence Window for mostly audio data but occasionally MIDI, and the Chunks and Markers windows always open in whatever Window Sets I have saved.

The only difference then with Vision is it takes a second or two to play enable or open up each separate Chunk in a project in DP whereas Vision was instantaneous (probably because Vision had one Instrument window and one Mixer window, whereas DP has to change these over for each Chunk as they have their own).

Otherwise Vision type workflows can be created easily - VI's and Window Sets answer all the issues and the Song Window is the tool for arranging chunks and playing back arrangements.

Vision isn't coming back but actually we old Vision diehards don't really need it now.

We can now play around with pitch editing on audio files - one of the coolest and easiest DP features to use. What's not to like?

[Shooshie]

In DP each chunk has its own Mixer and therefore when you play back sequences chained in the Song Window you get different volume levels as each chunk has its own mixer setting with any different fader levels and then Aux channels adding to the mess.

Yeah, that and the lack of a playback wiper are two of the main reasons I always say to build your Song and covert back to a big chunk before you start to fine tune your mix. I also use V-Racks for all instruments, but I just find everything easier to do when not in the Song Window. I actually enjoy putting things together there, and you can double click the chunks in the Song Window and see their Tracks Overview Window, but it just remains easier to work in a single chunk, so I get my pieces stacked and convert them back to a chunk before doing anything important.

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic about Vision; I really don't. It's anyone's worst nightmare to lose their primary DAW. But at some point you just have to let it go, and the Opcode debacle occurred 15 years ago, give or take a year. That's half a career. Half the life of the Macintosh! I enjoy threads that discuss Vision, but not those that lament that DP can't be like Vision. Same with folks who still can't get over Atari. The truth is, if we went back to any of those things, people would be in shock over how bad it all feels. I remember early versions of MacOS and Performer fondly, as I spent some of the best years of my life using those sometimes 36 hours a day. (sorta true...) But when I go back now on an old machine, just for the "fun" of it, I feel shackled and limited, and I can't wait to get back to what we have now.

I also remember fondly the Opcode MIDI Librarians. They were way ahead of their time, and represented some of the finest programming I ever saw on a Macintosh. To think that they could do all that on floppy-disk based apps would be inconceivable today. When I bought MOTU's Unisyn, I was expecting it to work as nicely as the Opcode apps, but frankly it felt like it had been built on spec by a programmer who had no idea how to write for Macs, much less how the app was actually used. I learned that you could do just about anything in it that you could do in Opcode librarians, but it was just an order of magnitude less user friendly. I hated working in Unisyn, but loved working in Opcode librarians.

Thankfully, Digital Performer and its predecessor never had that bare-bones feel, but always felt fully-featured and well laid out.

Shooshie

[bayswater]

Same with folks who still can't get over Atari.

Jeez, did you have to say that? My Atari Falcon 030 gave up last week. Now what?