Clippings vs V-Racks

[Chris T]

I'm running DP8.07, but am mid-project so have to wait before upgrading.

My questions:
1. In general is using Clippings a good way to deal with constantly evoloving large templates, or would it be better with V-Racks, and why?

2. As far as hosting Synths / Kontakt on my Host machine, since DP is now RAM-capable, I'm not seeing much benefit in hosting all my synths in VEPro. Does anyone disagree, and if so why?

My situation:
I have a large template with hundreds of MIDI and Stereo Audio tracks (using Mac Pro an 2 slaved Mac Minis). My Orch is on the slaves, but my Synths are generally located on my Mac Pro (usually in a large VE Pro Metaframe). However I find VE Pro sometimes very confusing and fiddly, especially when the synth part of my template changes (which happens often). Sometimes my VEP instances go blank (something to do with coupling/decoupling), and it's annoying and impossible to figure out why. As a result I've decided to try to accommodate much of my synths WITHIN my DP session.

With this in mind, my template is always evolving, however, I wanted to ask another basic housekeeping questions about the best way to do this:
If I have say 48 MIDI tracks covering 4 separate Kontakt 5 players (16Midi tracks for each multi), what is the best way to incorporate this into my new template without necessarily having this Synth element in EVERY project I do? (If I were to incorporate ALL my synths from my VEP metaframe - all my Omnispheres etc - it would amount to dozens more VI's being hosted within DP).

Should I import the new MIDI / VI tracks via Clippings, or should I use V-Racks (which I've avoided until now)? The problem with clippings is, when they're dragged into a new session it changes each MIDI track name to "synth 1 copy" (i.e. adding "copy" to everything), which is annoying.

[FMiguelez]

The benefit of using Clippings is that you just bring in what you are going to use (if you have them neatly organized). Other than that, I can't think of any other advantage.
OTOH, if your clippings have internal folder structure, you will have to drag the tracks inside their folders because, for some reason, all tracks come out of them when dragged into the chunk. This can be done quickly, but it was reason enough to annoy me, so I don't use Clippings anymore for this.

My template is also always evolving, and I've found that the best way to deal with this is using V-Racks. One V-Rack for each new element I add to the template. Like this, you can have lots of these V-Racks and enable-disable them on a need-to basis (you'll never use ALL your template at the same time), and this will conserve CPU for other things.
I keep all my audio V-Racks and audio tracks disabled, so the project opens fast, and I just turn things on as I need them, and I delete stuff I won't use as th project progresses.
I have my main chunk duplicated, so I can be liberal when deleting stuff I won't use. If I change my mind, I grab the needed trakcs from this duplicated chunk.

Another advantage of V-Racks over Clippings is that the latter often come into the project with their VI bundles messed up, so it's better to create ALL VI and its related trakcs from within your template, so the bundles are always correct and ready.

One can also opt to have anothe "master chunk source" project, where you load to your current proyect chunks from that special DP session, and this would be analogous to clippings (with the same disadvantages).

I also have hundreeds of MIDI, aux and audio tracks, so good structure and folder organizarion are critical to find things fast (we REALLY NEED a "Search Tracks" command, similar to the commands window.

I recommend that you really learn and understand VE Pro's Decouple and its related commands, since this is how you control what DP learns and stores and transmits, and what it doesnt't.

I also have all my orchestra in the slaves and synths in the maste computer. I still LOVE VE Pro, but I agree it's not essential for DP anymore. I used to have my samplers and synths in the slaves too, but it makes more sense to. keep them in the master computer, especially if you need to drag and drop stuff between them and DP (MachFive, Stylus RMX, etc).

Hope this helps a little..

[Shooshie]

Maybe the problem is "vs." Sometimes we overthink the idea that one thing is better than another, when they both serve well. You only learn the advantages by using them, so use them both and gradually discontinue whichever one seems less suited for what you're doing.

That said, I'm probably more like 'Nando, in that I use V-Racks to keep various groups of tracks that I tend to use over and over. Depending on certain factors, I may drag those tracks out of the V-Rack and into the project by dragging the V-Rack chunk into the Tracks Overview Window (Drag & Drop). However, a lot of my tracks just live in V-Racks, because I can easily turn them off or make them disappear.

Of course, data tracks don't go in the V-Racks. Just Auxes and Instruments.

Shooshie

[FMiguelez]

As for the word "copy" appearing in tracks comming from clippings, that bug was fixed in DP7, so I have no idea wjy it is happening now in DP9.
I also see it, but not on every track, just a few of them in a seemingly random way.

Hope MOTU fixes this soon.

[Chris T]

Thanks guys.

hat bug was fixed in DP7

Yes - I'm on DP8.07 and it says "copy" on every MIDI and aux track that comes from a Clipping. Weird..

Of course, data tracks don't go in the V-Racks. Just Auxes and Instruments.

This is the issue for me. If I use V-Racks, I'd still have to make all my MIDI tracks from scratch (unless they're ALL in the master template, or I import via Clippings.

I see that V-Racks is definitely better suited for VIs since the messed up bundles are always a pain to fix (and slows you down!). I guess I could make V-Racks for my DP VI's and related Auxes, but then had ALL my MIDI in the master template, pre-routed to the (disabled) V-Racks. Maybe this would be my best option?..

[FMiguelez]

Yes to your last paragraph. That's how I do it, and it's my preferred workflow after trying them all.

[Shooshie]

Yes to your last paragraph. That's how I do it, and it's my preferred workflow after trying them all.

Ditto.