Creating MIDI Regions in Sequence Editor?

[Shooshie]

I also find it helpful to think about traditional analog signal flow to understand what DP is doing when it comes to busses, VIs, V-Racks, mute, solo, etc. That never fails. Ironically, I've never seen an attempt to draw DP's signal flow, while many have attempted it with Logic, (maybe because the authors can't otherwise figure out what Logic is doing)

Exactly. I've drawn DP's signal flow, but it seemed redundant, so I never used it or posted it. It's like "knee bone connected to the legbone; legbone connected to the hipbone..."

Logic: "leg events are contained within the leg module, which by default are routed into lower torso module, although you can go to the Environment Window and mutate the genetic structure of the leg module so that it plugs into the head module, which may contain input and processing events, though some people keep certain groin-module appendages there..."

But hey... it works!

Shooshie

[frankf]

Valid point. Frankly, I HATED DP (actually it was Performer at the time) when I first got it. Didn't use it for years but SVP was waning under Gibson and when it went belly up, DP was the next logical choice. Still detest Pro Tools.

But after a few projects and the loss of half my hair, I finally got the workflow in DP and find very intuitive - as long as I was willing to change my Rx... I do think it's well worth the effort, but in the end, it's all about what you are most comfortable with and which DAW does what you need.

When SVP went under, I looked at DP and Logic. MOTU had added some features that made it easier for SVP users to move to DP, so when I looked at DP, I saw almost immediately a paradigm that was familiar to me. The details, like always is the case, came into focus as I worked with DP. When I looked at Logic, it's paradigm made no sense whatever to me and I could see it was going to be a long haul getting up and running. So yes, I can see coming the other way may be a bit daunting, but to the OP, look at all the great tips and explanations you've already received from members of Motunation. A feature unto itself!


Frank Ferrucci

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Indeed. Clearly this is my go to site for most stuff. The only other site I visit as often is Facebook. They have a MOTU group which I left today. Too much misinformation. My fav today: resetting PRAM fixes problems with plist files. Not.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[deckard1]

I wanted to give myself one of these... ...

I've been studying the DP8 manual and watching Magic Dave's video tutorials and things are starting to make a lot more sense now. I still have a lot to learn, but, it is quite apparent that DP8 is a much more sophisticated piece of software than Logic.

[Michael Canavan]

I wanted to give myself one of these... ...

I've been studying the DP8 manual and watching Magic Dave's video tutorials and things are starting to make a lot more sense now. I still have a lot to learn, but, it is quite apparent that DP8 is a much more sophisticated piece of software than Logic.

The videos are quite good, I wish they were there when I first came back to DP.
The whole concept of Chunks can seem daunting coming from other DAWs and is probably the only thing in DP that goes against the traditional hardware approach, it's very powerful and IMO anyway when learning DP it's best to concentrate on everything else first. I feel like I got a little carried away at first with trying to figure out how to work with them and it took me a bit longer to get used to DP because of that over anal-yzing.

[sampolfonz]

I understand the OP's original dilemma: They are called regions in Logic, parts in Cubase and parts in Studio One. They are containers for a series of stuff.

I, too, like the concept of having these containers. They can quickly be grabbed, copied, pasted, duplicated and data can be manipulated very quickly by using these. Drum parts can be built very quickly and edited, especially if you use a Master part, cloning for the copies and any changes to the master part are automatically reflected in the clones (copies). This was the most difficult thing for me to get used to in DP; the notes are just all free, floating out there on the information lane.

Other than this ( and the track solo non-existent) DP is superior in every other way, including the way it just "sounds." They do all sound different. In my world, DP and Logic bounces sound best, Cubase next then Studio One Pro comes at the end.

Still, I use DP for most everything now (Cubase next).

Sam

[deckard1]

I understand the OP's original dilemma: They are called regions in Logic, parts in Cubase and parts in Studio One. They are containers for a series of stuff.

I, too, like the concept of having these containers. They can quickly be grabbed, copied, pasted, duplicated and data can be manipulated very quickly by using these. Drum parts can be built very quickly and edited, especially if you use a Master part, cloning for the copies and any changes to the master part are automatically reflected in the clones (copies). This was the most difficult thing for me to get used to in DP; the notes are just all free, floating out there on the information lane.

Other than this ( and the track solo non-existent) DP is superior in every other way, including the way it just "sounds." They do all sound different. In my world, DP and Logic bounces sound best, Cubase next then Studio One Pro comes at the end.

Still, I use DP for most everything now (Cubase next).

Sam

This is great! I love DP and prefer it over Logic except for this one particular thing missing in DP...'containers' as you so eloquently put. Why can't they just incorporate both? It's my understanding that DP9 will feature 'lanes'. Would this be the same thing...like regions in Logic?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I believe lanes will be specifically to view & edit controllers separate from other data. IOW, volume will be a lane, modulation will be a lane, Lois will be a Lane.

[deckard1]

I believe lanes will be specifically to view & edit controllers separate from other data. IOW, volume will be a lane, modulation will be a lane, Lois will be a Lane.

I understand now. Thanks. That way things will be less convoluted.

Seems like it would be easy to implement though...containers. There must be a reason why the MOTU developers don't do the 'containers' like the other DAW's have done it. What this reason happens to be is beyond me.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well, I think there's a lot of stuff (features) that happens between different products (not just software) that is a matter of what the manufacturer sees as important. It's true in cars, keyboards, toilets, mattresses, etc. OK, that's all kind of obvious, but my point is that not all things are equal. If they were we would only need one company to make all DAWs.

Fact is, different people have different needs. I, for one, don't have a need for MIDI regions as described in these posts. I'm not saying you don't need them, of course, but if I were designing the program (heaven forbid!) my priorities would be elsewhere. I'd have a great noise reduction plug for my post work. I'd spend many man hours improving notation and specifically, the largely ignored and extremely useful Notation Window (I bet you did't even know it was there!).

So if there is a "why" I suggest that might be it. There are only so many man/woman hours a company can devote to a particular task. MOTU doesn't seem to put as much into software as they do into hardware and since DP and MachFive, et al, are pretty much on a stable path and sales are decent, implementation of features must be selective. They just haven't selected this one - yet.

[Shooshie]

Seems like it would be easy to implement though...containers. There must be a reason why the MOTU developers don't do the 'containers' like the other DAW's have done it. What this reason happens to be is beyond me.

I'm sure they could. We have regions (containers) in the Tracks Overview Window, but we don't elsewhere. Why would that be? When you're working quickly with complex musical information, containers can slow you down. If you need a container for a particular something-or-other, just make a new, similar, track (CONTROL-COMMAND-S). You can easily consolidate tracks later in the Tracks Overview Window, where dragging one track to another merges first into the second. (but does not move their automation data)

Why do containers slow you down? Because one minute you need to select the inner voices of a chord, the next minute the outer voices, and the next minute you need to edit them all together as a phrase. If you are dealing with containers all this time, it's slowing you down.

So what do we do in DP? We work with selections. DP is all about selecting things, maintaining your selection, and acting on it. It's easy to lose your selection, too; I wish there was an undo that would bring it back when you lose it, as in Photoshop, but there's not. That's ok. It just teaches you to be careful and deliberate in your actions. But selections are at the heart of most operations in DP, including edits of all kinds, auto-rewind and auto-stop, auditioning changes, setting ranges... I could ramble on and on, but trust me: the selection is the basic unit of operation in DP. Learning the best ways to make selections is learning to be efficient in DP.

Some of our selection tools:

• • Tracks
  • Folders
  • Range Selections
  • Event Selections
  • Split Notes (in the Region Menu, not the same as Edit/Split)
  • Search:
  • Rhythm Grid
    Boolean Operators (and, or, else, not)
  • Shift Key (add, subtract, invert)
  • Command Key (lists, outside the edit windows)
  • Quick Filter (isolates selected data type(s) for easier manipulation)
  • View Filter (hide data, show only what you want)
  • I-Beam (range selection)
  • Pointer (event, and other kinds of selections, depending on context)
  • Lasso (read about it in the manual)
  • Edge Edit (grabs edges of soundbites for editing the "container" of the audio)
  • Markers (click a marker to select everything between markers)
  • Tracks Overview Window (many selection methods here, yielding different results)
  • Click high in cell (range selection)
    Click low in cell (cell or region selection)
    Regions (set parsing in DP Preferences/Tracks Overview)
  • Selection Field (in the headers of edit windows)
  • Selection Boundaries
    Selection Memory (return to same selected range later)
  • Commands Window (Type "Select" and get LOTS of commands. Print them out and review them often)
  • Selection Window (all the information about a selection; set selection boundaries)
  • Deselect (Command-D)
  • Zoom (a whole subtopic of selection method)
  • Timeline (drag for selection ranges across all tracks)
  • Preferences/Edit/Tools: prefer event selection, range selection, or both
  • Grid
  • Velocity Tics
  • Controller Panel:
  • Points
    Bars
    Lines
  • F-Keys 1-6 (Memory, Auto Record, Selection - Start and End; change defaults in Command Window)

All the things I mentioned above can be involved in making or using a selection. Learn to use these things, and you will fly through DP. Those are off the top of my head; I've probably left out some, maybe even important ones. The point is that when you get these tools under your belt, you've got more than half the battle won, and it doesn't take long if you take my list and just go learn what they do.

If you still need containers, you've got three to work with: Tracks, Folders, and Regions (Tracks Overview) Don't underestimate the utility of quickly adding a similar track (COMMAND-CONTROL-S) to drag a selection into, if you think you're going to use that selection often. You can merge it back, later. Any similar tracks (identical inputs and outputs) play as if merged, except for automation, which remains separate. You can isolate a particular controller such as Expression, for example, and work on it at great lengths in its own track without having to select it again. It will still play the notes in the track from which it came. Of course, it's easy to select a single controller type: double click one example of it, and they all select.

You didn't ask for a tutorial. You asked for containers. I gave you this brief overview of how we work with selections, and it IS brief, because I want you to see the possibilities of how you might work in DP.

Finally, I think it's important to understand that some of us do not see the lack of extensive regions in DP as a shortcoming or oversight. When working with regions elsewhere, they feel like an encumbrance. It's just a way of working.

Shooshie

[deckard1]

Seems like it would be easy to implement though...containers. There must be a reason why the MOTU developers don't do the 'containers' like the other DAW's have done it. What this reason happens to be is beyond me.

I'm sure they could. We have regions (containers) in the Tracks Overview Window, but we don't elsewhere. Why would that be? When you're working quickly with complex musical information, containers can slow you down. If you need a container for a particular something-or-other, just make a new, similar, track (CONTROL-COMMAND-S). You can easily consolidate tracks later in the Tracks Overview Window, where dragging one track to another merges first into the second. (but does not move their automation data)

Why do containers slow you down? Because one minute you need to select the inner voices of a chord, the next minute the outer voices, and the next minute you need to edit them all together as a phrase. If you are dealing with containers all this time, it's slowing you down.

So what do we do in DP? We work with selections. DP is all about selecting things, maintaining your selection, and acting on it. It's easy to lose your selection, too; I wish there was an undo that would bring it back when you lose it, as in Photoshop, but there's not. That's ok. It just teaches you to be careful and deliberate in your actions. But selections are at the heart of most operations in DP, including edits of all kinds, auto-rewind and auto-stop, auditioning changes, setting ranges... I could ramble on and on, but trust me: the selection is the basic unit of operation in DP. Learning the best ways to make selections is learning to be efficient in DP.

Some of our selection tools:

• • Tracks
  • Folders
  • Range Selections
  • Event Selections
  • Split Notes (in the Region Menu, not the same as Edit/Split)
  • Search:
  • Rhythm Grid
    Boolean Operators (and, or, else, not)
  • Shift Key (add, subtract, invert)
  • Command Key (lists, outside the edit windows)
  • Quick Filter (isolates selected data type(s) for easier manipulation)
  • View Filter (hide data, show only what you want)
  • I-Beam (range selection)
  • Pointer (event, and other kinds of selections, depending on context)
  • Lasso (read about it in the manual)
  • Edge Edit (grabs edges of soundbites for editing the "container" of the audio)
  • Markers (click a marker to select everything between markers)
  • Tracks Overview Window (many selection methods here, yielding different results)
  • Click high in cell (range selection)
    Click low in cell (cell or region selection)
    Regions (set parsing in DP Preferences/Tracks Overview)
  • Selection Field (in the headers of edit windows)
  • Selection Boundaries
    Selection Memory (return to same selected range later)
  • Commands Window (Type "Select" and get LOTS of commands. Print them out and review them often)
  • Selection Window (all the information about a selection; set selection boundaries)
  • Deselect (Command-D)
  • Zoom (a whole subtopic of selection method)
  • Timeline (drag for selection ranges across all tracks)
  • Preferences/Edit/Tools: prefer event selection, range selection, or both
  • Grid
  • Velocity Tics
  • Controller Panel:
  • Points
    Bars
    Lines
  • F-Keys 1-6 (Memory, Auto Record, Selection - Start and End; change defaults in Command Window)

All the things I mentioned above can be involved in making or using a selection. Learn to use these things, and you will fly through DP. Those are off the top of my head; I've probably left out some, maybe even important ones. The point is that when you get these tools under your belt, you've got more than half the battle won, and it doesn't take long if you take my list and just go learn what they do.

If you still need containers, you've got three to work with: Tracks, Folders, and Regions (Tracks Overview) Don't underestimate the utility of quickly adding a similar track (COMMAND-CONTROL-S) to drag a selection into, if you think you're going to use that selection often. You can merge it back, later. Any similar tracks (identical inputs and outputs) play as if merged, except for automation, which remains separate. You can isolate a particular controller such as Expression, for example, and work on it at great lengths in its own track without having to select it again. It will still play the notes in the track from which it came. Of course, it's easy to select a single controller type: double click one example of it, and they all select.

You didn't ask for a tutorial. You asked for containers. I gave you this brief overview of how we work with selections, and it IS brief, because I want you to see the possibilities of how you might work in DP.

Finally, I think it's important to understand that some of us do not see the lack of extensive regions in DP as a shortcoming or oversight. When working with regions elsewhere, they feel like an encumbrance. It's just a way of working.

Shooshie

Thanks, Shooshie. You definitely know your way around DP.

I hope I didn't come across as being presumptuous with my post regarding lack of foresight on MOTU's part for not creating regions or 'containers' like the other DAW's.

[FMiguelez]

I hope I didn't come across as being presumptuous with my post regarding lack of foresight on MOTU's part for not creating regions or 'containers' like the other DAW's.

I actually think of these issues as a DP shortcoming, but for different reasons.

At least you learnt a lot of new techniques, courtesy of some of our most respected members, so you can mostly do what you need. However, those techniques feel to me like tedious and unnecessary workarounds after a while, especially when you're working with lots of tracks that have plenty of automation.

Snipping, pasting and merging simply do not work at all as they should. I've been complaining about this for years, but things haven't changed (and it looks like they won't change any time soon).

I think DP USED to be the best when drawing and selecting automation and CCs, but I've recently watched videos where other "lesser" DAWs handle them much better and efficiently. They put DP to shame, actually.
I just think DP has slept under its laurels for some time, and these issues need to be improved pronto to keep up with modern times and demands. As things are now, they feel quite clumsy and antiquated to me.

And no. You can not currently create MIDI regions in the SE or anywhere else. Those two "region-creating" options we have are a joke, as they are not true regions, and they don't behave like such. They're so limited, that not having them wouldn't make any difference.

Just my 2 pesos.

[bayswater]

And no. You can not currently create MIDI regions in the SE or anywhere else. Those two "region-creating" options we have are a joke, as they are not true regions, and they don't behave like such. They're so limited, that not having them wouldn't make any difference.

If these were actually meant as region creation tools, that would be the case. But they aren't really region related. One simply lets you move copy and paste an arbitrarily defined set of events, while the other is just a temporary selection -- you can do a lot with it, but even if you save the search that created the selection, it is not a dependably reproducable item.

I'd guess the reason DP doesn't have regions is simply that if they are to be added, they have to be useful for more than dragging a group of MIDI events around the screen. You'd want to be able to apply effects, states, and processes to them independently of the operations states and processes applied to tracks or individual events, and that may not be a trivial change to the code or the data structures inside DP.

Elsewhere someone offered the opinion that a lot can achieved by putting events in different tracks, and that there is no shortage of tracks, or the ability to put tracks in folders, or even to edit folders. The same argument seems to apply here.

There's nothing in principle wrong with adding regions to DP (although I'd prefer they did "Parts" a la Cubase), as long as you can ignore them and not use them at all. You can ignore Regions in Logic. I don't recall if you can ignore Cubase Parts.

[FMiguelez]

Perhaps I came out a little strong. Current tools get the job done, but certain things could be so much easier to accompllish!

Thinking about it, the ONLY reason I advocate for regions is because of the issue I mentioned above about snip, paste and merge not working properly.
Just a few days ago I had to deal with this... I had a very large session with lots of MIDI and audio and aux track automation. I suddenly was required to come up with edits to make lifts to different durations. Every time I attempted to snip or insert measures, DP would mess up most of my automation ramps. Babysitting dozens of tracks for lots of different automation parameters is no fun, so I was forced to freeze all my tracks to print the automation and edit away freely.

It's just such a simple fix that I'm surprised MOTU hasn't addressed it yet. The algorithm would be so simple to implement...

And what about the stuff that is in tracks in closed folders with lots of takes? Should they be included in the snip or merge operations? All this needs is a simple preference that can be checked or unchecked.

So I really think MOTU could fix those issues without resorting to adding optional regions.
Other than this, I couldn't care less for having or not regions.