DP8 Comping video shows the "wrong" way to comp (FIXED!)

[Radiogal]

Unfortunately I found some "wrong" info and methodes about comping here. Check the VIDEO: "Comping the ultimate take".

http://youtu.be/T5-cwue0oVA

Allow me to jump in and correct this, as some info in this video is way overdone, misleading and misunderstood.

* One need NOT to create another take before COMPING.
DP will CREATE a COMP 1 take automaticly.

* One need NOT to Play enable each and every track being able to hear it,
as the Comp Tool will play enable and high light what you select automaticly.

The video unfortunately shows a bumpy way of doing this.

Well, maybe it´s all way to simple

[Prime Mover]

Yeah... play enable takes = BAD. That's one thing I sometimes run into when I'm in solo mode and comping. Suddenly, it plays all the takes at once. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if inner takes didn't even have a play enable feature at all, they're there strictly for visual reference. You want to hear it? Make a comp selection and listen away!

[Prime Mover]

Noticed something else, it was something Shooshie and I were discussing just last week. On the first of the Power User quick tips, he demonstrates how to nudge a early drum beat into alignment. He does this by cutting out the drum beat, moving the new soundbite, then dragging the previous soundbite edge to close the gap. What I've found works a whole lot more smoothly is to use the "Slip" tool (which I've mapped to the "Y" key, Adobe style) to simply drag the waveform to the side while retaining the bounds of the new soundbite.

In fact, I've come to situations where a drummer will be pushing the snare drum a bit too much during one phrase. I just make a bunch of cuts around the offending hits, select all of them by shift-clicking, switch to the slip tool, and drag them all over. I can do an entire phrase in 20 seconds, and fine tuning is even easier.

It's just too bad he didn't do this in his quick tip, because it's practically the situation the slip tool was designed for. It's a really handy tool that could use more exposure. In fact, I would say it's THE MOST IMPORTANT tool when going through and performing rhythm corrections.

[Radiogal]

Good call!
Performing rhythm corrections is like eating breakfast to me. I do this a lot!!
I use the Nudge function for this. I´ll look into the Slip Tool next time

[Shooshie]

What I've found works a whole lot more smoothly is to use the "Slip" tool (which I've mapped to the "Y" key, Adobe style) to simply drag the waveform to the side while retaining the bounds of the new soundbite.

You bet! When repositioning audio, we're usually working with two things: moving the soundbite and moving the edges. DP gives us great tools for that. The ones I use the most are:

Roll: moves adjacent edges of two soundbites together as if they were one. Reduces the number of moves you have to make. Hot key: ' (apostrophe)
Slip: drags the soundbite within its frame while leaving the edges where they are. Hot key: , (comma)
Slide: moves both edges of the same soundbite together as one, or to put it another way, it slides the frame while leaving the soundbite where it is, the opposite of Slip. Hot key: . (period)

These features REALLY speed up audio editing. Combined with tricks like dragging the Scissors tool against the grid (cuts on the grid lines), Command Y (cuts on selection boundaries, like using the scissors tool twice) and using layers that allow you to pull back and edge to expose an underlying layer, gives you the tools you need for speed.

Together, all these tools up the ante for sound editing. With so many time savers you're more likely to attempt difficult edits that may even have seemed impossible not long ago.

The funny thing about watching these videos —or anyone's videos— is that it's very likely that each of us will respond with "oh, but I do that with THIS tool, and it's much faster." DP gives us many ways to do things, and we each develop our own little arsenal of tricks. It's a great app that allows you such freedom and independent methodology, and DP is a great app.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

I just realized that I've been ignoring the Trim tool. Just to give it equal time: use it to click in the soundbite to snap the right edge to your cursor, or option click in the soundbite to move the left edge to your cursor. Hot key: / (forward slash)

I guess I just haven't bothered to look it up till now. I can see how that could be very useful. Maybe I'll try it out today.

Shooshie

[Prime Mover]

Ahhh! So that's what it does! I thought it was mostly a duplication of the arrow tool, but focused on edge editing. Well, maybe it's actually useful after all!

[Radiogal]

MOTU is unbelievably responsive!!!
35 minutes ago MOTU put up a new version of the Comping video I refered to in this topic, corrected the things I mentioned and added some more useful info.

http://youtu.be/pO0iJi4cqtQ

MOTU What can I say.. Hats off for team MOTU!!!

[jbyerly1]

That shows how easy DP really is. That's cool that it was pointed out here

[Julia123]

What I've found works a whole lot more smoothly is to use the "Slip" tool (which I've mapped to the "Y" key, Adobe style) to simply drag the waveform to the side while retaining the bounds of the new soundbite.


Roll: moves adjacent edges of two soundbites together as if they were one. Reduces the number of moves you have to make. Hot key: ' (apostrophe)
Slip: drags the soundbite within its frame while leaving the edges where they are. Hot key: , (comma)
Slide: moves both edges of the same soundbite together as one, or to put it another way, it slides the frame while leaving the soundbite where it is, the opposite of Slip. Hot key: . (period)

Thanks!! More HOURS I'll save by not just doing things the way I always have.

[Prime Mover]

That shows how easy DP really is. That's cool that it was pointed out here

As much as I love DP, and as "fluent" as I am with it now, I don't think I would ever call it easy. Not even compared to other DAWs. The things that make it really quick for power users to do aren't always immediately intuitive to those starting out.

[James Steele]

That shows how easy DP really is. That's cool that it was pointed out here

As much as I love DP, and as "fluent" as I am with it now, I don't think I would ever call it easy. Not even compared to other DAWs. The things that make it really quick for power users to do aren't always immediately intuitive to those starting out.

That's odd. I have to disagree. I think it really depends on how your mind works and what paradigm you're accustomed to. I found Logic completely confusing when I gave it a whirl. DP seems pretty easy to me.

[Michael Canavan]

That shows how easy DP really is. That's cool that it was pointed out here

As much as I love DP, and as "fluent" as I am with it now, I don't think I would ever call it easy. Not even compared to other DAWs. The things that make it really quick for power users to do aren't always immediately intuitive to those starting out.

That's odd. I have to disagree. I think it really depends on how your mind works and what paradigm you're accustomed to. I found Logic completely confusing when I gave it a whirl. DP seems pretty easy to me.

The main thing is what you're used to. You use DP first and the rest will seem confusing.
Mostly though, I would say DP is one of the hardest DAWs to "master", followed by Logic. So it's not surprising that since they have completely different strengths and weaknesses that it's rough going from one to the other. Editing audio in DP is probably the most intuitive part of DP though. I will say that the wave editor in DP is pretty odd compared to Logic or Cubase etc. On topic comping in DP is outstanding, not using anything else for that ever!

Easy DAWs are Cubase, Live and Studio One. To a degree that comes with a lack of complexity though.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

James Steele wrote:

That's odd. I have to disagree.

Ditto. The only "learning curve" I had with DP was grabbing the handle on a soundbite in order to drag it to another window. That, and I still have a problem calling sequences "chunks."

I recently did a session in a member's DP only studio and he never uses chunks (although he always used at least one chunk or he couldn't use the program for any useful purpose). Anyway, he is certainly a power user and was astonished at how I used a chunk for each cue. I kind of consider myself a power user but was also surprised at the way he was using some DP features. I knew a bunch of key commands he didn't and he knew a bunch I learned by watching him.

My point being, we take from any app what we need or want and tend to leave the rest alone. Sometimes what we ignore is something we could really use, but myopia (and deadlines) sometimes tends to prevent us from exploring or really learning the ins and outs.

I also think we are creatures of habit and patterns. Once we think we've "got it" there is often no need to explore further when, in fact, going just a little further could improve our fluency exponentially. This may even be at the root of the o/p and the topic at hand. The person making the video at MOTU knew how they learned to do a thing, yet there was an easier way. And sometimes, the more convoluted way is the way the manual describes the procedure, either through misunderstanding by the writer, inarticulate writing, or a combination of both.

DP is by far the easiest DAW I've used (of the more modern crop) but then again, I took to Finale in a matter of days (if not hours) so it might just be that my convoluted sense of how music apps are supposed to work is consistent with the minds of the MOTU and Finale programmers.

[zed]

That shows how easy DP really is. That's cool that it was pointed out here

As much as I love DP, and as "fluent" as I am with it now, I don't think I would ever call it easy. Not even compared to other DAWs. The things that make it really quick for power users to do aren't always immediately intuitive to those starting out.

That's odd. I have to disagree. I think it really depends on how your mind works and what paradigm you're accustomed to. I found Logic completely confusing when I gave it a whirl. DP seems pretty easy to me.

I found DP a breeze to learn as well. But I used Studio Vision Pro for many years and it was very similar to DP. I believe the same is true of James and numerous Motunation members (MLC too?). I think that for anyone who loved the way SVP worked, they probably found DP to be fairly simple to get the hang of.

I made the sad mistake of switching to ProTools when Studio Vision Pro was killed. That was a three year diversion of utter misery. Switching to DP felt like I was coming home again (with the chunks and tracks overview window being the features that I had most been missing from SVP).

My point being, we take from any app what we need or want and tend to leave the rest alone. Sometimes what we ignore is something we could really use, but myopia (and deadlines) sometimes tends to prevent us from exploring or really learning the ins and outs.

Now that MOTU have finally provided a PDF manual, I will most definitely be keeping that PDF open on my desktop often and reading sections and learning new and better ways of doing things. I am so pleased with this development!! I think *everyone* is going to end up appreciating this feature a lot.