Moving regions

[Robert Randolph]

I never have found myself accessing the same section (selection, region, whatever) repeatedly. If I need to do that I create a clipping of the section. Even then, I do t use clippings that often. I suppose it gets down to picking the DAW with the features one finds most desirable. As far as my needs, DP does exactly what I need, when I need it, and better than any DAW I've used and seen in use by others.

The point is that you can still work this way just fine in a 'region-based DAW'. For folks that find use in regions, it's simply a huge added benefit.

And considering every single major DAW uses a region-based system now, it would appear that this is not an un-common workflow requirement.

[Shooshie]

This debate over regions will never end, because so many other DAWs use them. There's not much point in explaining why many of us prefer not using regions, because we just work differently. When I need selectable ranges that I can return to often, I add a marker. My key-command for that is Control-M, which also allows you to name the marker on the fly (I had to change it from the default). You can add markers as you listen, and clicking on a marker selects to the next marker, so in a sense, that's a little like regions, but without the container. You can also save a range in any edit window, in the Selections section of the header.

Robert used the analogy of "what if there were no soundbites?" It's a question of holism and reductionism. When you're working with broad strokes, you need holism. (soundbites, range selections, marker selections & possibly regions for some) When you need to work with details, you need reductionism. (pitch, automation, take comping, edge editing, etc., and of course MIDI events)

We each develop our ways of holistic or reductionistic working. If using regions would help some some folks, then great. Add it. After 30 years of using DP, I just don't need it, but maybe I'd use it if it were well-designed. Regions are not new to me. I've just never taken to using them. As long as they are optional, there simply is no problem with adding them. That's up to MOTU. Not my call. They've been hearing it for at least 25 years. Maybe one of these days they'll do it. But until then, is it necessary to berate DP users and DP with words like antiquated workflow, when that's just absolute bullsh••?

Here are some facts:
1) DP doesn't have what you want.
2) DP does have a broad set of tools.
3) I've never found a challenge I couldn't accomplish pretty quickly in DP
4) Some of the finest music of our time has been written and/or recorded in DP.

It would seem that you are constantly blocked by not having regions. And for that reason, you think the rest of us are just antiquated? What the hell do you think we do? Oats, Peas & Beans? Blue Bells of Scotland? I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair? Are you more concerned about how we work or what we produce?

If you want regions, write MOTU. I'm sick of hearing about it. When you call us antiquated, it's your ass that's showing, not my methodology. If you're just going to berate us for the way we work, you're probably in the wrong place. I'd wager that when I'm working with MIDI every day, and up on all my commands, you'd have a very hard time keeping up with me in any other DAW. But then I've seen people drag their feet in DP, too, to the point that I wanted to scream. Some folks just will not use what's there.

'Scuse me. I need to go arrange Three Blind Mice for four trombones. Gee, how will I handle a round without regions???

Shooshie

[Robert Randolph]

This debate over regions will never end, because so many other DAWs use them. There's not much point in explaining why many of us prefer not using regions, because we just work differently. When I need selectable ranges that I can return to often, I add a marker. My key-command for that is Control-M, which also allows you to name the marker on the fly (I had to change it from the default). You can add markers as you listen, and clicking on a marker selects to the next marker, so in a sense, that's a little like regions, but without the container. You can also save a range in any edit window, in the Selections section of the header.

Robert used the analogy of "what if there were no soundbites?" It's a question of holism and reductionism. When you're working with broad strokes, you need holism. (soundbites, range selections, marker selections & possibly regions for some) When you need to work with details, you need reductionism. (pitch, automation, take comping, edge editing, etc., and of course MIDI events)

We each develop our ways of holistic or reductionistic working. If using regions would help some some folks, then great. Add it. After 30 years of using DP, I just don't need it, but maybe I'd use it if it were well-designed. Regions are not new to me. I've just never taken to using them. As long as they are optional, there simply is no problem with adding them. That's up to MOTU. Not my call. They've been hearing it for at least 25 years. Maybe one of these days they'll do it. But until then, is it necessary to berate DP users and DP with words like antiquated workflow, when that's just absolute bullsh••?

Here are some facts:
1) DP doesn't have what you want.
2) DP does have a broad set of tools.
3) I've never found a challenge I couldn't accomplish pretty quickly in DP
4) Some of the finest music of our time has been written and/or recorded in DP.

It would seem that you are constantly blocked by not having regions. And for that reason, you think the rest of us are just antiquated? What the hell do you think we do? Oats, Peas & Beans? Blue Bells of Scotland? I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair? Are you more concerned about how we work or what we produce?

If you want regions, write MOTU. I'm sick of hearing about it. When you call us antiquated, it's your ass that's showing, not my methodology. If you're just going to berate us for the way we work, you're probably in the wrong place. I'd wager that when I'm working with MIDI every day, and up on all my commands, you'd have a very hard time keeping up with me in any other DAW. But then I've seen people drag their feet in DP, too, to the point that I wanted to scream. Some folks just will not use what's there.

'Scuse me. I need to go arrange Three Blind Mice for four trombones. Gee, how will I handle a round without regions???

Shooshie

I didn't call you or anyone antiquated. I didn't berate anyone.

I referred to DP only.

Edit: Funny enough, I just noticed that you pointed out that Motu has been hearing the same feature request for this for 25 years. That doesn't seem like the best response to someone saying a featureset or workflow is antiquated.

[Shooshie]

There are means in DP for selecting any range of MIDI.

• Entire track? Select All + One click.
• Any song section between markers? One click.
• Any track between markers? Two clicks.
• Any bar? One click.
• [Almost] Any complex group of events? Open Search Window. 1st time, set up the search. 2nd time onward, one click.
• Move any selection to an exact point? COMMAND-L, type in the point, hit ENTER.

One learns tricks for conversion of selections to include all tracks, one track, convert events to range, and so forth.

These things all apply to region-based DAWs. There's no difference there.

Yes, there is a difference. No other DAW has the equivalent of the Tracks Window.
No other DAW has the Search window, as far as I know. If so, they got the idea from DP, who got the idea from me and added it in 1997. There are many other differences between DP and other DAWs, and yet you choose to focus on regions and call DP antiquated.

How have we EVER gotten our work done?

If you want regions, write MOTU. Your arguments here are insulting and incorrect. I try to help people use the tools that are available. You just insult them. When you first arrived and I was trying to help bring you up to speed, you complained that my methods were just "workarounds." [edit: Oops... my apologies. That wasn't Robert.] You really don't understand when you are looking at the solution.

How do we manage to accomplish anything at all? Welcome to DP, an antiquated set of old tools, cobbled together into workarounds. Some of the finest composers, engineers, and performers of our time would use nothing else. Bizarre, eh?

Shooshie

[Robert Randolph]

I also wish to apologize if anyone somehow things that I was berating or disparaging anyone.

I only intend to be critical of what I see as one of two major oversights in DP.

Hopefully we can all discuss things about the software without taking such things as personal attacks.

[Robert Randolph]

There are means in DP for selecting any range of MIDI.

• Entire track? Select All + One click.
• Any song section between markers? One click.
• Any track between markers? Two clicks.
• Any bar? One click.
• [Almost] Any complex group of events? Open Search Window. 1st time, set up the search. 2nd time onward, one click.
• Move any selection to an exact point? COMMAND-L, type in the point, hit ENTER.

One learns tricks for conversion of selections to include all tracks, one track, convert events to range, and so forth.

These things all apply to region-based DAWs. There's no difference there.

Yes, there is a difference. No other DAW has the equivalent of the Tracks Window.
No other DAW has the Search window, as far as I know. If so, they got the idea from DP, who got the idea from me and added it in 1997. There are many other differences between DP and other DAWs, and yet you choose to focus on regions and call DP antiquated.

How have we EVER gotten our work done?

If you want regions, write MOTU. Your arguments here are insulting and incorrect. I try to help people use the tools that are available. You just insult them. When you first arrived and I was trying to help bring you up to speed, you complained that my methods were just "workarounds." You really don't understand when you are looking at the solution.

How do we manage to accomplish anything at all? Welcome to DP, an antiquated set of old tools, cobbled together into workarounds. Some of the finest composers, engineers, and performers of our time would use nothing else. Bizarre, eh?

Shooshie

You are reading a lot in to what I'm saying that simply isn't there.

I'm not insulting you, or anyone. I haven't referred to anything as workarounds in this context. I haven't said that anything is impossible or unachievable in DP.

I don't know what else to say really. I think you are reading someone else's posts or something.

edit: I checked my post history, I've never referred to anything in the context of MIDI regions or clips as a workaround. The only time I've referred to anyone's solution (a solution I offered!) to a problem as a workaround is here: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=60650 when Shooshie isn't even in the discussion.

[Shooshie]

Funny enough, I just noticed that you pointed out that Motu has been hearing the same feature request for this for 25 years. That doesn't seem like the best response to someone saying a featureset or workflow is antiquated.

Or it says that they've understood the fundamentals of our work for a long, long time and have realized that regions are cute but not essential. We also still use score paper and pencils, and yet nobody has really figured out a better way, other than perhaps... MIDI. Personally, I think that MIDI is antiquated, but for a very good reason. It simply cannot capture a fluid performance without running into the 128 levels of dynamic movement. Not because it's old.

If you believe that old is antiquated, you'll find life to be miserable, because the slide to antiquity is inexorable and relentless.

Shooshie

[Robert Randolph]

If you believe that old is antiquated, you'll find life to be miserable, because the slide to antiquity is inexorable and relentless.

Shooshie

What the heck is happening here.

Antiquated does mean old. That's what the word means. That's what it's used to communicate.

I'm so confused right now.

[Shooshie]

You are reading a lot in to what I'm saying that simply isn't there.

I'm not insulting you, or anyone. I haven't referred to anything as workarounds in this context. I haven't said that anything is impossible or unachievable in DP.

I don't know what else to say really. I think you are reading someone else's posts or something.

edit: I checked my post history, I've never referred to anything in the context of MIDI regions or clips as a workaround. The only time I've referred to anyone's solution (a solution I offered!) to a problem as a workaround is here: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=60650 when Shooshie isn't even in the discussion.

Did I confuse you with someone else? It's possible, and if so, I apologize. I won't search all your posts for evidence, so perhaps its better if I just capitulate. I do remember someone from that time period taking a number of the things I explained and saying quite disdainfully that they were just workarounds, and didn't we have any REAL solutions, but I think you're right; it was probably someone else. I'm sorry I didn't check that a little more closely. Nevertheless, it's an attitude we see a lot here, and it just compounds the frustration of explaining some of the ways to get ahead in DP, when people won't take it and give it a try. I'll annotate an apology into my previous post. But I'm still bent outa shape about "antiquated."


Shooshie

[Shooshie]

If you believe that old is antiquated, you'll find life to be miserable, because the slide to antiquity is inexorable and relentless.

Shooshie

What the heck is happening here.

Antiquated does mean old. That's what the word means. That's what it's used to communicate.

I'm so confused right now.

No, it really doesn't. Antiquated means obsolete or outdated.
The earth is old. It's not antiquated.
Men and women can be old without being antiquated.
Apparently, so can DAWs, unless having Cubase-style regions is the arbiter of obsolescence.
One hopes for wisdom with age.

Shooshie

[Robert Randolph]

If you believe that old is antiquated, you'll find life to be miserable, because the slide to antiquity is inexorable and relentless.

Shooshie

What the heck is happening here.

Antiquated does mean old. That's what the word means. That's what it's used to communicate.

I'm so confused right now.

No, it really doesn't. Antiquated means obsolete.
The earth is old. It's not antiquated.
Men and women can be old without being antiquated.
Apparently, so can DAWs, unless having Cubase-style regions is the arbiter of obsolescence.
One hopes for wisdom with age.

Shooshie

So I went and double checked myself, and we're both "right". There's interpretations of the word that we're both using that are acceptable.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antiquated
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/antiquated
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/antiquated

I was simply trying to communicate that this is an old way of working. It's been around forever, and I feel like there have been additions to this style of workflow that greatly enhance many people's workflows without impinging on the long-standing methods of work.

My main hobby is woodworking, and I primarily work with (and make my own) hand-tools. Probably 90% of my shop is something that you'd find in a journeyman's shop 250 years ago. It's completely outside my vocabulary to use the word antiquated as any sort of insult or slight.

edit: However, I do think it's a bit wonky for a DAW manufacturer to not move with the times. Then again, I was a SAWStudio user for along time, then went to an old version of PT... so I like old things. Just not when they get in the way for seemingly no good reason.

[cuttime]

[Shooshie]

That's old AND antiquated!

[frankf]

Someone already mention DP's Clippings feature as a way to save and recall regions? They can swallow many tracks. Or Repeat Paste/Merge?


Frank Ferrucci