EMRR wrote:I never said you shouldn't have these tools. I'm saying they shouldn't be in my way. I quite clearly stated that I don't use these functions, and probably never will. They are just arbitrarily in the way, from my POV, having demonstrably impeded my workflow (read the thread.
The reason that these things are so permanent is because they're pretty much CENTRAL to the work of the vast majority of users. It's not only central to users, but it's at the heart of the basic construction of the program: the conductor track is basically the control track for the entire sequence. That's why it's called the "Conductor track", it's like taking away a conductor from a symphony orchestra. The way that DAWs function, and frankly the way they NEED to function, so to have ALL temporal data stored somewhere on the timeline in some form, because it all interacts with everything else. The moment you take different kinds of temporal data and put them in different places (like taking markers off the conductor track), is where the real problems begin. Events cease to respond to basic editing and manipulation commands, any slight problems and things get out of sync, etc. Ensuring that all temporal events are tied with some track means that they all can be edited using the same tools and viewed in the same ways.
Example: I've recorded with everything set to real-time, and I've inserted markers where different sections are. Then I need to make a radio edit and take out this section, how do I ensure the markers beyond that point slide over and are in sync with the audio cut? In some scheme where they aren't on the conductor track, there's no way to control whether they move with the rest of the audio and MIDI events, or which to move with, if you need to overlap material.
"Hiding the conductor track". You can't hide ANY track from the Project timeline. That's the whole purpose of the timeline, and it's one of the uniquenesses of DP that is so important: there's a window in which you can't hide anything, even if you want to, because you'll always know it's there and can work with it. Then there's another window in which you can hide and show anything you want to be able to work more up closely.
The DP workflow philosophy is that if you start allowing a window to hide and show tracks, you then have to spend time getting them back. This is why DP uses the two-window editing workflow. Yes, it forces users to have to look at everything, but see... that's what it's there for and if you don't want to see everything, you switch to the Sequencer window.
I've read your post about 5 times, and I still can't figure out how the conductor track is at ALL in your way. Okay, the bit about it record arming is problematic and a legitimate complaint, but besides that, it's one line of 12pt font on one window, and the other it can be hidden.