Chunks Window Insanity

[ggm1960]

I spend way more time than it should take trying to line up sequences here. Is there another way besides trying to slide them with the little thing at the left?? They jump up and down and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong?

[EMRR]

I too found that infuriating, then was eventually told I was not using it as intended anyway. Sorry to say I’m no help, but there’s a thread here somewhere about my experience that might be a cautionary tale.

[stubbsonic]

Are you talking about re-ordering the chunks in the chunks window?

It seems to work fine here. I click on the little block of cheese, and drag it slowly up or down, the others spread apart showing where it will go, then it goes there.

I wonder if there's something about the mouse/trackpad settings that's making it wonky?

[cuttime]

I know I'm confused...are we talking about the "Song" window?

[James Steele]

I know I'm confused...are we talking about the "Song" window?

That's what I was wondering from the very first post, but didn't want to say it. Honestly, the Songs Window is is a feature that has long atrophied and really doesn't seem too useful... at least not to me personally.

[stubbsonic]

...the Songs Window is is a feature that has long atrophied and really doesn't seem too useful... at least not to me personally.

I like the concept of being able to arrange a serial order of "chunks" (i.e., in a more literal sense like verse, chorus, bridge), then add a meta sequence that runs across the entirety of the arrangement in parallel, where one could record some parts across the whole form. It was (and is) kind of meta thinking in sequencing. They even worked out the puzzle of which entity controls tempo.

The Kurzweil K2000 (rev 3 and up), K2500, and K2600, all had this type of option where you would have an "ARRANGEMENT" that played a series of sequences (like the "song mode" of older sequencers), then it allowed you to record 16 MORE MIDI tracks a SONG object that both contained and ran parallel to the arrangement (MIDI conflicts at your own risk). It was clever and had powerful possibilities.

Perhaps it is a concept that works really well on paper, but isn't how most users would end up working. As with most deep features like that, I might not use it today, but I'm weirdly comforted knowing it's there.

[Michael Canavan]

Perhaps it is a concept that works really well on paper, but isn't how most users would end up working. As with most deep features like that, I might not use it today, but I'm weirdly comforted knowing it's there.

Honestly when I used an Emax III and Moog for 95% of the songs I was writing in DP2.7 the Song window was super useful for the reasons you mentioned, where it started to atrophy and not fit a workflow was when MAS and really VSTs blew up, then all of a sudden you needed everything in a V-Rack, but that prevents plugin automation from being used etc. obviously to use it in song creation you're going to want to be writing pop, rock, etc.

You can and people do use it for film scoring, but that's more like after the parts are all done and you're assembling it into a film etc.

Among other things, IMO the Song window would be revitalized if MOTU could figure out how to get plugin automation to work with plugins in V-Racks, they have PreGen worked out for V-Racks so there's hope.

[bayswater]

[Among other things, IMO the Song window would be revitalized if MOTU could figure out how to get plugin automation to work with plugins in V-Racks, they have PreGen worked out for V-Racks so there's hope.

… and figure out a way to deal with tempo when Sequences overlap in a Song

[EMRR]

Yeah…sorry….my response above is about chunks in the song window. That’s how i read it too.

[James Steele]

Re: the Song Window... I hadn't really thought about it in a while, but my impression was that if you were doing MIDI only, then it was pretty useful. When audio got added to the whole picture, then it started to get cumbersome. It could have been a very deep rabbit hole for MOTU to make that work well with audio, and they might have decided just to leave as is. I don't really have much use for it.

Similar in concept though was subsequences in Studio Vision... anyone remember that? And the cool thing was that you could indeed have different subsequences overlapping, each with their own independent tempo. It really is a shame that Gibson killed off Studio Vision. That was an excellent app in its day.

[stubbsonic]

… and figure out a way to deal with tempo when Sequences overlap in a Song

I guess that's the big trick, since the Song object has its own conductor. You take, for example, the end of the first sequence (starting at the point where the new tempo and new sequence starts) and make that into its own chunk. Then use scale time so it basically maintains its same tempo but ignores the barlines of the new tempo.

As James said, it works really differently for audio.

You can insert "columns" anywhere on the timeline to start a new sequence, which is handy, but you are limited to only one tempo at a time-- unless you cleverly use scale time for one of the sequences.

Re: the Song Window... I hadn't really thought about it in a while, but my impression was that if you were doing MIDI only, then it was pretty useful. When audio got added to the whole picture, then it started to get cumbersome. It could have been a very deep rabbit hole for MOTU to make that work well with audio, and they might have decided just to leave as is. I don't really have much use for it.

I can remember using it with audio, but not for a long time. The nice thing is that you can set starts (as described above). Now that I think of it, there could be more uses for this with longer films, or for mocking up an album's play order, etc.

Similar in concept though was subsequences in Studio Vision... anyone remember that? And the cool thing was that you could indeed have different subsequences overlapping, each with their own independent tempo. It really is a shame that Gibson killed off Studio Vision. That was an excellent app in its day.

Wow, independent tempos. I've not seen that anywhere. Is there anything that does this now? (I'm talking MIDI).

[ggm1960]

Are you talking about re-ordering the chunks in the chunks window?

It seems to work fine here. I click on the little block of cheese, and drag it slowly up or down, the others spread apart showing where it will go, then it goes there.

I wonder if there's something about the mouse/trackpad settings that's making it wonky?

Yeah I'm not sure, part of the problem is that the text is very small on my 15" MBP screen. I'd like to make it bigger but don't want to increase the overall size or change the look of any other windows. I slid the Chucks window up to my 43" 2nd monitor and the overall size increase helped a bit.

For context; I'm updating the project my wife and I use for backing tracks in our duo. We've been performing with a live band for the last couple of years so the rack case with the 828x and the MBP that runs our tracks has been mostly dormant. Now we'll need this system up and running for a couple of the gigs we'll be doing this Summer. I've been adding some sequences, changed our monitoring, updating the set list, etc..

When performing I just have the MBP on the upper tier of my keyboard stand, I have the tracks window on top of the MIDI window. The Mixer window and Chunks are broken out of the consolidated window and rest in the background for easy access if needed. There's a lot of automation going on, a little AKAI LPD8 for some controls and many other things tied in, connected and associated I won't get into.

The best solution for me would be if I could increase the size of text inside of the chunks window independently.

[James Steele]

Are you talking about re-ordering the chunks in the chunks window?

It seems to work fine here. I click on the little block of cheese, and drag it slowly up or down, the others spread apart showing where it will go, then it goes there.

I wonder if there's something about the mouse/trackpad settings that's making it wonky?

Yeah I'm not sure, part of the problem is that the text is very small on my 15" MBP screen. I'd like to make it bigger but don't want to increase the overall size or change the look of any other windows. I slid the Chucks window up to my 43" 2nd monitor and the overall size increase helped a bit.

For context; I'm updating the project my wife and I use for backing tracks in our duo. We've been performing with a live band for the last couple of years so the rack case with the 828x and the MBP that runs our tracks has been mostly dormant. Now we'll need this system up and running for a couple of the gigs we'll be doing this Summer. I've been adding some sequences, changed our monitoring, updating the set list, etc..

When performing I just have the MBP on the upper tier of my keyboard stand, I have the tracks window on top of the MIDI window. The Mixer window and Chunks are broken out of the consolidated window and rest in the background for easy access if needed. There's a lot of automation going on, a little AKAI LPD8 for some controls and many other things tied in, connected and associated I won't get into.

The best solution for me would be if I could increase the size of text inside of the chunks window independently.

Having some context now helps tremendously. So if understand correctly, you're not necessarily re-ordering chunks (sequences) on the fly during your set... you just want to see which one is loaded more easily? If so, I think I have a much better solution for you. Forget about reading the Chunks window (although there is an option in DP to increase text size.)

I was doing this with my last original project. We were just three pieces: I played guitar and sang lead vocals; drummer, and bass player. So we had some keyboards, rhythm guitar and some augmenting backing vocals coming off a MacBook. I had an iPad down on my pedal board tilted up at me that was screen sharing the MacBook screen so I could see the status of DP playback. I had buttons assigned to my MIDI controller pedal to step forward and backward through chunks as well as a play/stop button.

So here's the trick. Place a Marker at the very first measure and beat of each chunk and name it with the name of the song. Then open the Counter Window as a separate window in DP. Set it so that it shows Marker names and then size it up large enough so you can read it at a distance. Leave that window open and as you cue up each chunk, that first marker in the sequence will display in the Counter Window showing you the name of the song. This is how I could just look down at my iPad on my pedal board, tap a button and go to the exact song I wanted and then tap play. Drummer had a click track of course as well as an audio cue of voice with the name of the song and actual audio count in in head set.

[bayswater]

… and figure out a way to deal with tempo when Sequences overlap in a Song

I guess that's the big trick, since the Song object has its own conductor. You take, for example, the end of the first sequence (starting at the point where the new tempo and new sequence starts) and make that into its own chunk. Then use scale time so it basically maintains its same tempo but ignores the barlines of the new tempo.

My recollection is it uses the tempo track of the sequence playing, and if there is overlap, it uses the sequence that is lower in the Song Window. Scaling time works, I’ve done that, but seems a bit clunky. The other thing is that if each sequence can use its own internal tempo track, and ignore the others, there are some creative possibilities.

[ggm1960]

So if understand correctly, you're not necessarily re-ordering chunks (sequences) on the fly during your set...

I had buttons assigned to my MIDI controller pedal to step forward and backward through chunks as well as a play/stop button.

Great info and definitely in context with what I'm doing but I should have explained a little more. I don't really concern myself with the chunks window while performing. I have a marker at the beginning of each sequence that I can easily read up in the transport display. I use the buttons on the little AKAI LPD8 to switch forward/back through chunks, start/stop, rewind, etc.. in a similar manner as you describe.

The issue occurs during the prep work. I like to have all the sequences in order according to the set list I've created beforehand so that's when I'm in the Chunks window trying to slide them around where I want them.
When the performance starts then I can just press my "Next" button between songs. Certainly we may skip a song or go out of order sometimes but there are a couple other ways to look at and pull up songs/chunks that are easier than going back to the Chunks window.